We are delighted to be able to share this blog from Warren Clark

at Research Information who attended our popular, recent seminar How to Build a Data- Driven Publishing Organization chaired by Freddie Quek.

 

 

 

 

 

Dealing with data is nothing new to scholarly publishers –

but it was clear from a recent ALPSP event that it’s an ever-changing

battlefield, reports Warren Clark

 

 

How to Build a Data Driven Publishing Organization, held on

20 April at the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and hosted by ALPSP,

proved there is much for many still to learn in how to approach the masses of

data points generated by companies throughout the publishing cycle.

 

 

As John Morton, board chair of Zapaygo, said in his keynote:

‘Most publishers are using less than five per cent of the data they own.’

 

 

The event featured many examples of areas in which data

could be collected, analysed and presented in a form that would improve

profitability for publishers, and provide users with a more personalised

experience.

 

 

Ove Kähler, director, program management and global

distribution at Brill, together with his colleague Lauren Danahy, team leader,

applications and data, explored the challenges they faced in developing an

in-house data team. Their most significant innovation was to arrange their

primary data groups according to where they occurred in the workflow: content

validation; product creation; content and data enrichment; content and data

distribution; product promotion; and product sales.

 

 

The pair explained how they created a team – from existing

staff within the company – giving each specific responsibility for one of those

data groups, and how that led to improved quality and output of data at each

step.

 

 

Indeed, the notion that publishers shouldn’t assume that

dealing with data means employing new staff was echoed throughout the day, with

both David Smith, head of product solutions at IET, and Elisabeth Ling, SVP of

analytics at Elsevier, suggesting in the panel discussion that people ‘look at

your own team first’, since it was likely that the skills required would

already be present.

 

Choosing tools

 

As well as who and why, many speakers talked about how they

capture, store, analyse and visualise the data they collect. The most extensive

of these was IET’s David Smith, who overhauled the IT department’s software

tools to evolve a more accurate suite of visualisations that product teams

could use independently and without the need to continuous IT support. Smith

explained that those looking for a ‘single solution’ from a software package

that solved all data challenges for publishers would be disappointed, before

reeling off half a dozen or more software tools that his team had integrated to

develop a solution that suited their needs.

 

 

In a session that brought a perspective from outside the

publishing industry, Matt Hutchison, director of business intelligence and

analytics at Collinson Group, a company that runs global loyalty programmes on

behalf of major brands, supported this notion by showing how they had

outsourced some of their function to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Matt Pitchford,

solutions architect at AWS, demonstrated that the cloud computing set-up they

developed for Collinson Group involved more than 20 different pieces of

software.

 

What data can bring

 

Another theme was quality of data – as Graeme Doswell, head

of global circulation at Sage Publishing put it: ‘You need your data capture

processes to be as granular as you want your output to be.’ He showed examples

of how Sage was using its data to show librarians their levels of usage, making

it easier for the sales teams when it came to renewals. David Leeming,

publishing consultant at 67 Bricks, gave a further example, specifically in the

area of content enrichment.

 

 

For Iain Craig, director strategic market analysis at Wiley,

data was used to help business decisions on new journal launches. He explained

a major project that involved them collecting internal and external data points

such as subject matter, number of submissions, journal usage, funding patterns,

and many more. The outcomes have helped improve existing journals, and suggest

where future resources should be deployed for emerging markets.

 

 

Similarly, Blair Granville, insights analyst at Portland

Press, demonstrated how his team tracked submissions, subscriptions, open

access, citations, usage, commissions and click-through rates in order to to

feed intelligence back to the editorial teams about where their focus should

be.

 

Data and the law

 

The most enlightening paper of the day came from Sarah Day,

data marketing professional and associate consultant at DQM-GRC, who spoke

about data regulation and governance. She warned against complacency and

ignorance when it comes to data, particularly with regard to the upcoming

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Already law, but due to become

enforceable in May 2018 (allowing time for institutions to ensure compliance),

this is an EU-wide revision of privacy laws designed to give individuals more

control over their personal data.

 

 

‘In spite of Brexit, the UK – and indeed any country outside

the EU that offers goods and services to people in the EU – will have to

comply,’ said Day. The impact of the new regulations are far and wide as far as

publishers are concerned, and among the most important things they can do is

‘be transparent about what you are doing with an individual’s data’.

 

 

Although Day successfully rose to the challenge of

explaining GDPR in one minute, it served to demonstrate that managing data in a

safe, secure, and legal manner is a complex issue that every publisher will

have to address head on.

 

 

With more than 50 attendees at the event, drawn from

publishers large and small, it’s clear that understanding data – and all the

issues that come with it – is an issue that will only become more important in

the years to come, as the amount of data generated grows exponentially.

 

 

For more blogs and publishing news from Warren Clark and the

excellent team at Research Information please visit: https://www.researchinformation.info/analysis-opinion