In the second of our

series of interviews with our ALPSP awards finalists we talk to Ann Michael,

President of Delta Think.

 

 

·        

Tell us a bit about

your company

 

 

Delta

Think is a business and technology consulting firm focused on innovation and

growth in scholarly publishers and membership organizations. Founded at the

height of the transition from print to digital, our core purpose is helping

organizations to manage change. We live at the intersection of content, technology

and user experience, and help our clients through the many changes impacting

scholarly publishers and membership organizations.

 

 

·        

What is the project

that you submitted for the Awards?

 

 

The

Delta Think Open

Access Data & Analytics Toolhttps://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254957763085555183#_msocom_1  (OA DAT) is a

living compilation of industry data, anonymized private data and analysis,

which provides a comprehensive view of the OA market.

 

 

The idea originated with questions arising during consulting

engagements. We found commonality in questions clients asked about OA, with no

clear consolidated, reliable data source to address them. We saw an opportunity

to serve the industry more effectively by curating such a data set, and supplementing

it with analysis, commentary, and visualizations.

 

 

 

·        

Tell us more about

how it works and the team behind it

 

 

The OA DAT includes several levels of analysis and

data access to accommodate any organization’s available bandwidth, comfort

level with data analytics, and budget. We’ve worked hard to build a consistent

view of the market and to make existing silos of data interoperate to deliver

new insights, supplementing them with publisher confidential data

(de-identified and aggregated).

 

 

The tool includes interactive visualizations so users

can extract meaning for real-world decision-making, while providing a quick way

to tailor the tool to areas of interest with a few mouse clicks. There is a

sample interactive visualization and a brief video on our website ,

and a few static images below.

 

 

Additionally, we curate and aggregate OA industry news

and combine it with a short analysis to publish Delta Think’s OA News &

Views, which is available free of charge with

registrationhttps://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254957763085555183#_msocom_3.

 

 

We launched the Delta Think Open Access

Data & Analytics Toolhttps://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4254957763085555183#_msocom_4

in beta to pre-launch subscribers in December of 2016, with our full launch in

January of 2017. The tool is continually updated. To keep the product current

and the user base growing, we work with two core data analysts (one with deep

database experience), a research associate, product manager, project manager,

marketer, and a business development resource

© 2017 Delta Think, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reused without permission

 

 

·        

Why do you think it

demonstrates publishing innovation?

 

 

We

had two key motivations in developing the tool: generally increasing industry

data proficiency, and specifically supporting organizations as they make data

driven strategic and ongoing decisions around Open Access. While several

organizations have the bandwidth and budget to develop data analytics

expertise, most find using data in decision making aspirational and, at best,

episodic. It is not a part of their normal workflow.

 

 

On

one level, our innovation is pulling disparate information together and

continually updating it to provide benchmarks and genuinely novel insights into

the Open Access market.

 

 

But

the innovation goes much deeper: In a single product, we have created the

means for any organization to use data in OA decision making on an ongoing

basis.

 

·       Organizations not equipped to interact with the

underlying data can read the analysis and benefit from its regular updates.

They don’t have to wait a year or two for an analyst report to be refreshed.

 

·       Organizations looking to interact with the data

can manipulate visualizations, narrowing in on elements important to them

(e.g., geographic region, subspecialty, year, etc.).

 

·       Organizations equipped to gather, normalize, and analyze

data and knowing the questions they want answered can export OA DAT data,

combine it with proprietary data, and complete their own analyses. They can

also use OA DAT to save time and effort in data collection, allowing them to

focus more on their proprietary analysis.

 

·        For any of the above, our consulting resources

support targeted research or produce custom reports.

 

The tool is valuable and

accessible to the expert or the novice.

 

 

·         What are your plans

for the future?

 

 

We

currently focus on STM + Social Science, OA, Journals, as well as not-for-profit

and commercial publishers. We plan to extend product coverage to books, open

data, and even overall scholarly output (overlaying analytics on top of the

usual indexes). We also plan to extend to institutional markets (both

librarians and research departments) and other industry players interested in

Open Access. Additionally, we are in confidential discussions with many potential

data and tech partners.

 

 

Our

bigger picture goal is to create extensions to the Delta Think Open Access

Data Analytics Tool and develop

other products or services supporting scholarly publishers, membership

organizations, and the multitude of players in the scholarly communications

ecosystem to build data and business analytics into their culture and their

workflows.

 

 

Ann Michael is President of Delta Think, a

business and technology consulting and advisory firm focused on innovation and

growth in membership organizations and scholarly publishers. Ann is a Past

President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), an NFAIS board member,

a Board Director at Joule (a Canadian Medical Association company), a frequent

organizer and speaker at industry conferences, and is a contributor to the

SSP’s blog, The Scholarly Kitchen. 

 

 

Website: https://deltathink.com

 

Twitter: @deltathink @annmichael

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annmichael

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/delta-think

Facebook:  facebook.com/deltathink

See the ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing Finalists lightning sessions at our Annual Conference on 13-15 September, where the winners will be announced. 

The ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing 2017 are sponsored by MPS Ltd. 

 

 

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