The growth of AI has had a significant impact on academic publishing. Many tasks can now be offloaded to automated systems, saving precious time and labor costs. However, manual workflows in academic publishing are still necessary. And they often result in hidden costs.
The production workflow for academic publishing is a delicate process. From submission management to peer review and English editing, human insight and expertise are crucial in ensuring each publication meets publishing standards. Yet this human, manual element to the academic publishing production process raises concerns about the time, human error, and opportunity costs involved in handling manual workflows.
What are manual workflows?
Manual workflows refer to processes that require human supervision or intervention to complete production. These workflows rely on human decision-making, such as coordination, judgment, and foresight, to smoothly advance each stage of the production process.
In academic publishing, several stages are involved in the production workflow. They are:
- Submission
- Peer review and revisions
- Acceptance
- English editing
- Layout and typesetting
- XML conversion
It’s not just the number of stages involved in the production process that causes issues for academic publishers. In addition, each of these stages requires either the expertise or insight of in-house teams and external reviewers to ensure the academic integrity of the final publication.
Over time, however, inefficiencies can creep into these workflows. Indeed, dedication to ensuring integrity often comes with sacrifices.
The hidden costs of manual workflows in academic publishing
The rise of AI has been a benefit to workflows globally. The company Siemens demonstrated that AI had reduced its administrative tasks by 40% via automation, leading to a 30% reduction in costs. And the potential of AI is only increasing.
In academic publishing, the implementation of AI has improved areas such as submissions management and English editing by automating tasks, reducing errors, and smoothing processes.
Yet AI is a complement to the academic publishing production process, rather than a complete solution. The supervision and intervention of human teams are still necessary to foresee and act on issues at the production level. But what are the hidden costs of upkeeping manual workflows in academic publishing?
Time
Time is perhaps the key factor to consider in the academic publishing production process. Good time management enables academic publishers to get ahead of the curve, allowing them to accept more submissions and increase their output.
Large publishers generally have fewer issues with time compared to small- to medium-sized publishers. They often have entire teams and systems to oversee production processes. However, smaller publishers face greater pressure due to limited resources. Manuscript formatting, peer review coordination and turnaround (often over several rounds), general administration—all these tasks put strain on smaller publishers. The time taken to complete these tasks thus takes longer, and resources become stretched.
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Human error
In academic publishing, manual workflows are overseen by individuals or groups of people. For smaller publishers with smaller teams, workloads are difficult during peak times.
This high-pressure environment can sometimes lead to mistakes. The problem is exacerbated by underinvestment in workflows, particularly in the editorial process. As publications increase year on year, the room for error is bound to increase.
Indeed, a study looking at spelling errors in research culture found that over time, the number of errors present in papers had risen exponentially. Examining over 32 million abstracts, the study observed that the total error rate had risen from 0.1% per ten thousand abstracts in 1970 to 8.7% per ten thousand in 2023.
Fact-checking is also another pertinent issue. Although legally the author’s responsibility to submit a factually accurate text, the editorial team still needs to ensure credibility. Expecting one author to fact-check their entire book is unrealistic.
However, due to underinvestment, editors may be unfamiliar with the expectations and protocols of fact-checking. Add this to a busy publishing schedule, and you may suddenly have more mistakes going unnoticed. And in today’s online age, incorrect information can be costly to the reputation of both authors and publishers.
Opportunity
Manual workflows can reduce the opportunities available to publishers. But how?
Well, over time, relying on manual workflows can lead to losses in efficiency and scalability. Numerous time-consuming steps, tracking (as well as backtracking), and diverted resources all slow down the production process. As an academic publisher, the time and labor costs involved in upkeeping manual workflows could be spent scaling your business and managing journals.
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Striking a balance
If there’s one thing we can take from these observations, it’s that a balance needs to be struck in academic publishing.
As a smaller academic publisher, you want to make sure that you aren’t automating jobs that are best handled by humans. However, you also want to ensure that this labor force isn’t stretched and is supported by processes that free up time and workloads.
Prioritize automated workflows for repetitive, data-heavy, administrative tasks. Retain manual workflows for tasks that require judgment or nuanced decision-making. It might also be worth assessing your strengths and weaknesses as a workforce. This can highlight areas where you might need extra support going forward.