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By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Jay Flynn: ‘We’ve Heard Researchers Loud and Clear’
The latest in a steady shower of AI-related studies and reports from academic publishing arrives this week from Wiley, which has used input from nearly 5,000 international researchers to learn more about how artificial intelligence is used in the business of scholarly research and writing; where it could have significant impact; points about adoption and interest; and the role that publishers can play in supporting researchers’ “responsible and evolving use of AI.”
As our readers know, barely a week goes by without news of a scholarly publisher and artificial intelligence. Recently, for example, these have included a Springer Nature “AI-driven tool” announced last month as a way to scan for unsuitable manuscripts; Wiley’s own introduction in October of six new journals for its “Advanced Portfolio,” two of these journals focused “on artificial intelligence research”; and Elsevier’s large study released in July of “how researchers and clinicians feel about AI’s immense potential as well as its challenges.”
Each of these, like so many others, can carry genuine value if accessed by players in the appropriate area of academic publishing.
The new entry in the genre from Wiley is titled ExplanAItions.
This site has a way to download the 38-page report and several helpful entry points and distillations of what may or may not be helpful to you in your own assessment of AI-related issues.
Top-Line Points From the Report
Since the company kindly makes it possible for us to send you to that site so you can download the assets most useful to you, we’ll explicate quickly an initial round of top-line points drawn from feedback on 43 “specific AI use-cases from across the research process spanning disciplines and geographies, uncovering critical insights that vary by cohort.”
Several points, then, surfaced by the team behind Wiley’s new report:
- Current AI use tends to be limited to a few core tasks, but researchers say they expect a rapid expansion in how AI is employed throughout the research process.
- Researchers say they’re not only highly interested in AI, but a majority of them say they believe that AI currently outperforms humans in more than half of the 43 use-cases tested.
- AI adoption varies across regions but barriers to greater AI usage are asserted by this report to be “consistent globally.” Two examples offered:
- China (59 percent) and Germany (57 percent) lead the way in using AI for their research process compared to 44% adoption among researchers in the rest of the world.
- More than 60 percent of researchers surveyed for this study cite a lack of guidelines and training as a barrier to their increased use of AI.
- AI aspirations and attitudes vary across fields of study:
- The fields of computer science and medicine have the most researchers who say they want to be early adopters of AI (44 percent and 38 percent, respectively, vs. 34 percent overall).
- Life sciences researchers are the most cautious in their approach to AI, with the smallest proportion of early adopters (27 percent vs. 34 percent overall) but are on par with other disciplines in terms of saying they’ve used AI to conduct or write their research.
- Across disciplines, career phases, and regions, researchers agree that they see a role for publishers in navigating the future use of AI: around 70 percent say they want publishers to provide guidelines on what uses of AI are acceptable in the context of scholarly research and to help them avoid potential errors and pitfalls.
As might be expected, having found some 70 percent of the researchers surveyed asking for “clear guidance on AI usage,” Wiley is working on developing AI guidelines for authors.
Jay Flynn
Jay Flynn, Wiley’s executive vice-president and general manager in research and learning, says, “Our study reveals a striking pattern. While researchers are eager to embrace AI’s benefits, they face significant barriers including a lack of clear guidelines on acceptable use.
“We’ve heard researchers loud and clear. We’re committed to supporting authors as they navigate this transformation and will offer guidance on how to use generative AI tools with greater confidence.”
Again, you can find the full report as part of a site dedicated to it and to associated assets for your review here.
Wiley is scheduled to be exhibiting at London Book Fair (March 11 to 13) at stand 7C15 in the London Olympia complex.
More from Publishing Perspectives on academic and scholarly publishing is here, more on journal publication is here, more on artificial intelligence is here, and more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here.
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