Member News & Announcements, December IO 2020

News from NISO Members

Leadership

Elsevier Chairman YS Chi’s Letter to President-elect Joe Biden
Elsevier, Voting Member, Letter, November 19, 2020 

Chairman outlines Elsevier’s continued commitment to support the response to the COVID-19 pandemic

“We have reached an inflection point, and we must now rededicate ourselves to the application of scientific knowledge to improve the human condition, in service of society and to improve health for all. On behalf of Elsevier and its related companies, I pledge to continue to offer our resources in the service of society to ensure this is not only a time of peril, but also one of renewed opportunity.”

Oded Scharstein to Succeed Bar Veinstein as Ex Libris President
Ex Libris, Voting Member, Press Release, November 17, 2020

Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, today announced that Oded Scharfstein will succeed Bar Veinstein as president of Ex Libris. Mr. Veinstein will continue leading Ex Libris until January 2021, and going forward, will serve on the company’s advisory board.

Mr. Scharfstein has more than 15 years of senior management experience and an in-depth understanding of the higher-education market. Mr. Scharfstein was part of the Ex Libris family for 14 years, starting as a product manager, leading the Asia Pacific team, and ultimately serving as Chief Financial Officer until 2016.

“Over the past 11 years, I have had the honor of serving in various leadership positions at Ex Libris, working alongside an incredible group of people and an amazing community of customers,” said Mr. Veinstein. “Today, I believe that we have the right strategy and the right team in place to continue delivering on our mission to help higher-ed institutions drive libraries’ impact, improve research outcomes, and achieve student success. It is my absolute pleasure to be handing the helm to Oded.”

Statement of American Psychological Association in Reaction to Biden’s Election as President
American Psychological Association (APA), Voting Member, Press Release, November 7, 2020

“The American Psychological Association looks forward to welcoming former Vice President Joe Biden to the office of president of the United States and the beginning of a new, hopeful era with a leader who has committed to unite our country and implement policies that will stem the spread of COVID-19 and move us closer to having effective treatments and a safe vaccine. Psychological science will be crucial to aiding the president-elect and vice president-elect on a variety of issues in the COVID-19 fight, including helping to motivate individuals to adopt the science-based treatment and interventions that will be necessary for our success.

“America is a nation in trauma. We are experiencing record stress as a result of the pandemic, economic uncertainty and concerns about racial justice. We will look to the Biden administration to move quickly to address policies that have been harmful to the mental and physical health of the nation and to support increased funding for and wider dissemination and use of the important psychological research that can help our country rebuild and heal its workplaces, its schools, its communities and its people. We also ask that the Biden administration support continuing access to telehealth as our nation copes with these challenges.

Research Efforts

REALM project releases results from latest tests of coronavirus on five common building materials
OCLC, Voting Member, Press Release, November 19, 2020

The REopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums (REALM) project is designed to generate scientific information to support the handling of core library, museum, and archival materials as these institutions resume operations and reopen to the public. As part of this research, the REALM project is studying how long the SARS-CoV-2 virus survives on common materials and methods to mitigate exposure. Test 6 focused on common building materials. Results from the previous five tests are available on the REALM website.

The REALM project has released results from the sixth round of tests conducted in a Battelle laboratory that determined how long SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) can remain active on five materials commonly used in furnishings, exhibits, and equipment found in museums, libraries, and archives.

The tests examined architectural glass, marble, countertop laminate, brass, and powder-coated steel. Samples of each material were inoculated with active virus, allowed to dry, and then placed in an environmentally controlled chamber with no outside light or air.

The REopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums (REALM) project is designed to generate scientific information to support the handling of core library, museum, and archival materials as these institutions resume operations and reopen to the public. As part of this research, the REALM project is studying how long the SARS-CoV-2 virus survives on common materials and methods to mitigate exposure. Test 6 focused on common building materials. Results from the previous five tests are available on the REALM website.

Clarivate Identifies Global Scientific Pioneers with Annual Highly Cited Researchers List
Clarivate Analytics, Voting Member, News Announcement, November 18, 2020

Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CCC), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, unveiled its list of Highly Cited Researchers™ 2020 today. The highly anticipated annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science™ citation index.

The methodology that determines the “who’s who” of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information™ at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to identify the countries and research institutions where these scientific elite are based.

Clarivate Empowers Research Community to Accelerate Research with New, Improved EndNote 20
Clarivate Analytics, Voting Member, News Announcement, November 2, 2020

London, UK. November 2, 2020: Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CCC), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today publicly released the new and enhanced EndNote™ 20, the reference management solution that enables researchers and students to efficiently manage their bibliographies and references when writing research papers and essays. EndNote 20 offers a modern and intuitive user experience, designed to allow researchers to focus on creating impactful research by streamlining workflows and simplifying time-intensive tasks, such as collecting and curating research materials.

We understand the need for researchers to collaborate regularly on a global scale. International collaboration for scientific authorship has grown rapidly: more than half of the articles attributable to any one country now have a co-author from another and complex authorship (many people from many countries) has continued to rise in the last five years1. Researchers need to spend their time where it matters most such as collaborating with partners, producing research and developing high quality papers. EndNote allows them to search, organize, write, publish and share their research papers more efficiently, providing an optimal research experience with reduced time spent searching and managing research materials and formatting bibliographies. EndNote 20 supports over 7,000 bibliographic styles and a broad range of reference types.

Online Literacy and Learning

OCLC, Washington State University are creating digital stewardship training courses for tribal libraries
OCLC, Voting Member, Press Release, November 17, 2020

OCLC's WebJunction, in partnership with Washington State University's Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation, is creating a series of 10 free online courses for staff at tribal archives, libraries, museums (TALMs), and small public libraries on digital stewardship and community-centered curation of cultural collections.

These on-demand courses, adapted from the successful Tribal Digital Stewardship Cohort Program developed at Washington State University, are scheduled to launch in early 2022. OCLC and WSU are partnering on this project with support from an Institute of Museum and Library Services (MLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grant.

"Staff at tribal archives, libraries and museums and at small, rural public libraries often do not have access to specific educational resources that could help them manage, preserve, and care for the unique and diverse cultural heritage materials they hold in their collections," said Sharon Streams, Director of WebJunction,, which is part of OCLC Research. "These free online courses will provide training and resources to help TALM staff curate and digitize these significant collections so that they can be preserved for generations and tribal community members, as well as the public, can have increased and appropriate access to them."

Financials, Mergers, and Acquisitions

New For-Profit Subsidiary fo ASME Acquires TechStreet Standards Management Business from Clarivate
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Clarivate Analytics, Voting Members, Press Release. November 9, 2020

Both ASME and Techstreet are positioned at the forefront of the $1.5B standards ecosystem, defining best practices for the industry, which is expected to reach a market size of $1.6B by 2023[1]. Now, these two organizations with complementary strengths and areas of focus will comprise one family, with Techstreet joining ISIE, ASME’s new for-profit arm. The combined expertise of these two organizations – along with their proprietary technologies and operational knowledge – will create unique value for the global standards community.

“ASME serves as an essential resource for mechanical engineers and other technical professionals throughout the world who develop solutions that benefit humankind,” said Tom Costabile, Executive Director / CEO, ASME. “As a longtime partner and distributor of ASME standards, Techstreet represents a strategic investment and a core asset for ISIE, which will serve to create new and innovative products and services for the engineering community. The respective areas of expertise and resources of both organizations make the acquisition truly additive, with ISIE leadership committed to helping Techstreet further its well-established reputation for excellence. We welcome the Techstreet team and celebrate all they bring to ISIE and the ASME family.”

“For more than 20 years, Techstreet has built its reputation as a trusted global provider of industry codes and standards, as well as tools for effective standards management, with best-in-class technology and customer service,” said Jerre Stead, Executive Chairman and CEO, Clarivate. “We are confident that Techstreet will flourish under ISIE’s leadership and as part of ASME, which has for more than a century focused on maintaining and advancing the pivotal role of standards in helping the global engineering community develop solutions to real world challenges.”

Federal Trade Commission Closes its Review of Proquest’s Acquisition of Innovative Interfaces
Proquest, Voting Member, Press Release, November 2, 2020

ProQuest today announced that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has closed its review of Ex Libris’ acquisition of Innovative. Innovative is now part of the ProQuest corporate family. Operationally, Innovative will run independently as a ProQuest entity and peer company to Ex Libris.

“Over the past year, we have worked in close and transparent collaboration with Innovative customers, both public and academic, and communicated and delivered on our roadmaps, across Sierra, Polaris Leap, Vega, and Mobile,” said Matti Shem Tov, CEO of ProQuest. “We look forward to combining our strengths, accelerating innovation, and developing solutions for libraries to enhance their connections with patrons in these challenging times. Our ongoing commitment to our customers, user groups, and to the betterment of libraries is unwavering.”

Innovative General Manager Yariv Kursh will continue to lead the team, and all Innovative products will continue to be developed, sold, and supported for both the academic and public markets with no changes to product availability or pricing. Innovative customers will continue to engage with the Innovative sales, support, and product management teams as they always have. Ex Libris will remain focused on executing its vision for academic institutions.

Partnerships

Jisc partners with Wiley to bring History of Science archive to life
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Voting Member, Press Release, November 19, 2020

The newly formed collection will be hosted on the Wiley Digital Archives platform, which uses leading technology to transform centuries-old, primary source content into clear, crisp, and searchable documents. Wiley Digital Archives enables researchers and students to find, group, translate, download, manipulate and share historical materials globally. Tools that support virtual teaching, foster learning and power research are needed now more than ever. Wiley Digital Archives is one such tool—enabling researchers and students to peer into the science of the past to create scholarship for the future.

Featuring in this new online collection are 150 years of materials relating to the work of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; extensive correspondence from Sir Charles Wheatstone, co-inventor of the electric telegraph; the lecture notes of Nobel prize winner Sir William Ramsay, whose work led to a new section of the periodic table and the papers of Lord Kelvin covering his huge contributions to the study of electricity, magnetism and thermodynamics. Upon its completion, the digital collection will comprise of one million pages.  

Paola Marchionni, Jisc’s head of digital resources for teaching, learning and research, says: “We are delighted to have found a new way to give institutions the opportunity to open up their unique collections for the benefit of the academic community and in a financially sustainable way. This innovative partnership is the first in the world to enable university libraries and archives to influence the content selection of a commercial product that is free to access to all UK members.”  

Scilligence Partners with CAS to Optimize R&D Informations Workflows with Scientist-Curated Data
American Chemical Society (ACS), Voting Member, Press Release, November 17, 2020

Scilligence, a provider of web-based informatics solutions for R&D, has partnered with CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, to enable direct access to CAS scientific content through the Scilligence informatics platform. A previous partnership between Scilligence and CAS enabled users to initiate SciFindern searches directly from Scilligence ELN (Electronic Laboratory Notebook). This new partnership builds on the previous collaboration by streamlining additional workflow scenarios. Users can now access the human-curated CAS REGISTRY® directly from Scilligence ELN and Scilligence Inventory. 

“We are excited about our second partnership with CAS. Integration of Scilligence informatics solutions with CAS content will help scientists to query and access CAS’s scientific content with more efficiency. This is an outstanding example of practicing FAIR data principles and removing data silos,” said Jinbo Lee, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Scilligence.

Scilligence ELN with CAS and Scilligence Inventory with CAS are currently available with additional integrations coming in 2021 across the portfolio of products, including RegMol with CAS and TouchMol4Office with CAS. Through this integration, Scilligence users will have the ability to search for substances from CAS REGISTRY in the research workflow. CAS provides the largest and most up-to-date collection of scientific information including CAS REGISTRY, the gold standard for disclosed chemical information in the world. 

Infrastructure and Platforms

Proquest Integrates Ebook Data with Tali’s Aspire, Simplifying Reading List Workflows
Proquest, Voting Member, News Announcement, November 19, 2020

ProQuest has collaborated with Talis, a SAGE Publishing Company, to integrate ProQuest Ebook Central® platform pricing and holdings data into Talis Aspire, a tool used by libraries to create and manage resource lists to support university curriculum.

Using Talis Aspire, faculty can create reading lists for their courses and send these lists to the library for review and purchase. Now, when a requested book is available through the ProQuest Ebook Central platform, Talis Aspire will display prices, available access models and information on what the library already owns, avoiding duplication.

To further simplify the library workflow, Talis Aspire will also include a link to the book’s full record in LibCentral, the Ebook Central administrative portal, where librarians can immediately make a purchase.

“Reading lists are, of course an essential piece of academic life for us – and having the Ebook Central information flowing directly into Talis, the very tool we use to manage this important workflow, makes the purchasing experience exponentially more efficient and convenient,” said Maria Allan, Acquisitions Librarian, King’s College London.

Wiley Collaborates Across its Psychology Journals to Launch Publishing Network
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Voting Member, Press Release, November 13, 2020

John Wiley & Sons Inc., a global leader in research and education, announces the launch of the Developmental Science Publishing Network, the result of a unique collaboration between Wiley, learned societies and journals to make the publishing process quicker and easier for authors, editors and reviewers.

This new collaboration will allow editors to refer an article that does not quite fit the mission or audience of that journal to a more suitable alternative within the network through an expedited transfer process. Authors can decide whether to accept the referral, with the further option to transfer their paper with or without revisions. Any reviews of the paper can be transferred with the manuscript too, relieving pressure on the peer review process. 

Sarah Oates, Senior Editorial Director, Wiley said “The editors and societies involved in our Developmental Science Publishing Network have the shared ambition to help authors find a home for their high-quality research as quickly and painlessly as possible. If you have good research in psychology, we will help you get it published.”

As one of the leading publishers in developmental science, Wiley brings together 14 journals – including Child Development, Developmental Science, Social Development, Mind Brain and Education and Journal of Research on Adolescence – working collaboratively to improve the publishing experience and outcomes for researchers in the community.

Oxford University Press Adds hundreds of new titles to digital research platform, Oxford Scholarship Online
Oxford University Press, Voting Member, News Announcement, November 11, 2020

Oxford University Press (OUP) is happy to announce the launch of hundreds of new titles on Oxford Scholarship Online. These titles join our vast online library, giving users digital access to significant academic works for the very first time.

Oxford Scholarship Online combines OUP’s world-leading scholarship with an easy-to-use online platform that helps support scholars to conduct ground-breaking research wherever they are. November sees us expand our current online offering with more than 600 works from our existing publishing across seven new modules on Oxford Scholarship Online: Archaeology, Chemistry, Clinical Medicine and Allied Health, Computer Science, Earth Sciences and Geography, Education, and Environmental Science. Pivotal works will be available digitally for the very first time, helping students and academics examine scholarly research from far and wide.

Digital access has become more crucial than ever before in the last twelve months as Covid-19 restrictions have deprived researchers of the opportunity to browse library shelves and pore over the pages in person. Our recent report into the fate of the academic monograph in a digital environment just how much scholars are crying out for solid works of scholarship to be placed online in fully functional formats and Oxford Scholarship Online offers students, scholars, and academics just that: the chance to consult our world-renowned academic publishing list via an easily accessible platform.

Libraries and Archives

British Library acquires unique 15th century Lucas Psalter manuscript featuring previously unknown work by the Master if Edward IV
British Library, L.S.A. Member, November 17, 2020

Made in Bruges for an English patron, the late medieval manuscript is known as the Lucas Psalter after the added arms of Thomas Houchon Lucas (1460-1539) of Suffolk, the secretary to Jasper Tudor and Solicitor General under Henry VII.

Featuring eight large finely painted initials, the manuscript is a previously unknown example of the work of the Master of Edward IV, one of the most influential artists of the late Middle Ages. This Psalter is an unusual example of his painting in a sacred text, which might have originally formed part of a breviary volume or set of volumes. The artist is known for his contributions to manuscripts made for Edward IV, the majority of which are now in the Royal collection in the British Library.

One of a handful of independent Psalter manuscripts dating from the second half of the 15th century in England, the Lucas Psalter offers considerable research potential in the selection and iconography of images for the major divisions of the text, the nature of the liturgical elements such as antiphons and hymns and its context and use.

IET Inspec Database Reaches Milestone 20 million total records
The Institution for Engineering & Technology (IET), Voting Member, Press Release, November 16, 2020

The Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) Inspec database has reached over 20 million indexed records throughout its 50-year history.

Since Inspec’s launch in 1969, it has become a definitive database for subject-specific and interdisciplinary research in the fields of engineering, physics and computer science.

As the role of scholarly communications has evolved over time, the innovation that inspired the creation of the original Inspec is still in force. Owing to its rigorous content selection and the precision and accuracy of its indexing, Inspec ensures that trustworthy content is easily discoverable to a global audience of research universities, corporate research teams, governments and patent offices.

Vincent Cassidy, Head of Academic Markets for the IET, said: “As we mark the milestone of reaching 20 million records in Inspec, we’d like to thank our customers, many of whom have been with Inspec since its inception, for their continued support and feedback to help us develop and refine our product to ensure that we continue to serve the needs of the engineering and technology research community.

Case Studies

ARL, CNI, EDUCAUSE release “Building and Managing Learning and Collaboration Spaces”, Final Installment of Emerging Technologies Report
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Voting Member, News Announcement, November 12, 2020

The seventh and final installment of Mapping the Current Landscape of Research Library Engagement with Emerging Technologies in Research and Learning explores how libraries can thoughtfully integrate technology into their buildings to support a range of user needs, from active collaboration to reflection and focused study. The section released today highlights the ways in which libraries are addressing this challenge in their space planning and programming, specifically addressing the effects of the Internet of Things (IoT), immersive reality, and artificial intelligence on how libraries conceptualize and create the learning and collaboration environments of the future.

The full report by Sarah Lippincott will be published in its entirety this fall by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), and EDUCAUSE. Conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic, this study is an excellent resource for research libraries as they identify strategic opportunities to adopt and engage with emerging technologies. Lippincott’s research considers policies and practices already underway, the ways in which research library values and professional expertise inform and shape library engagement with technologies, the ways library and library worker roles are being reconceptualized, and the implications of a range of technologies on how the library fulfills its mission. The final report will include Lippincott’s reflections on the impact of COVID-19.

Open Access, Open Science

Springer Nature announces gold open access options for Nature journals from January 2021
Springer Nature, Voting  Member, Press Release, November 24, 2020

Springer Nature last month announced that German authors would be able to publish their primary research open access in Nature and the Nature research journals, thanks to a ground-breaking agreement with the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL).  Whilst highly effective in transitioning articles to open access, transformative agreements like this can be complicated and take time to put in place. In recognition of this, Springer Nature today announces that authors seeking to publish OA in Nature and the Nature research journals will no longer have to wait.  

From January 2021, all authors will be able to publish Gold OA when submitting to Nature and the 32 Nature primary research journals and will be afforded the same APC as MPDL, which is 9500 Euros. As such, these will be the first highly selective journals to offer their authors an immediate OA publishing option in this way. Research published in Nature and the Nature research journals  is downloaded by institutional users over 30 times more than papers in a typical journal. Dedicated in-house teams promote the research articles widely, this year achieving around 10,000 mentions in policy documents, generating over 100,000 news stories around the world and attracting over 3 million mentions on Twitter.

This new open access option is positive news also for Plan S funded authors as it means that Springer Nature is delivering on its commitment to enable gold OA publishing in all its owned journals by January 2021.

IOP Publishing unveils new open access environmental journal series
IOP Publishing Voting  Member, News Announcement, November 24, 2020

Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability (ERIS) is the first new title to launch as part of the series, joining IOPP’s established OA titles in the field −Environmental Research Letters (ERL) and Environmental Research Communications (ERC).

The Environmental Research series will grow throughout 2021 with the introduction of other sister titles that will collectively cover all major areas of environmental research. Delivering a suite of inter-connected publishing options, all the journals will be fully OA, promote data transparency and be led by a dedicated Editorial Board to ensure rigorous peer review standards and editorial excellence.

ERIS, which is open for submissions now, is a multidisciplinary journal addressing important challenges relevant to every aspect of infrastructure development and sustainability. It will cover broad and inclusive perspectives at global, regional, national and local scales, including current and emerging issues wherever humanity’s influence extends to − from single products to networked systems.

Wiley Broadens Access to Knewton Alta in Mathematics
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Voting Member, Press Release, November 19, 2020

Beginning in May 2021, the Knewton Alta Foundations of Math course will be freely available to students whose higher ed institution has adopted Knewton Alta for a developmental and gateway math & statistics sequence. The Foundations course can be used to support a prerequisite or corequisite developmental curriculum. Beginning today, Wiley will also offer a new, self-paced Knewton Alta Foundations of Math Self-Study course for all learners in need of support as they prepare for a new math course, math placement exam, or refine their skills after some time away from the discipline.

“At Wiley, our goal is to improve access to high quality education and empower learners to enter the fields that are driving our global economy forward,” said Matt Leavy, Executive Vice President, Wiley in Education Publishing. “We believe technology has the potential to transform what’s possible in education. Platforms, like Knewton Alta, can teach complex subjects like calculus and statistics in a way that better enables students and clears the path for long-term success – putting achievement within reach for all students.”

Success in a gateway math or statistics course is one of the biggest predictors of overall college success, yet math remains a significant obstacle to degree completion and equitable outcomes for millions of students, according to Mathematical Association of America; and research from the National Center of Education Statistics shows many students enrolled in these courses do not complete them leading to unmet learning outcomes, changed career paths, and often accumulating education debt. The research also shows the issue is more prevalent for Black and Latino students, who leave programs at far higher rates than their white peers.

SHARE Database Shutting Down While SHARE Services Enter New Phase
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Voting Member, News Announcement, November November 19, 2020

In 2013, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), along with the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) launched the SHARE initiative—or Shared Access Research Ecosystem. Funded through grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), SHARE was conceived to network university-based digital repositories in order to facilitate public access to research.

From that initial collaboration among associations, SHARE transitioned into a partnership between ARL and the Center for Open Science (COS) to create a community open-source initiative to develop tools and services to connect related research outputs, allowing new kinds of scholarly discovery. In 2017–2019, the project was also supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to integrate digital humanities (DH) into the scholarly web. ARL wrapped up its involvement with SHARE with the conclusion of that project and the publication of a white paper on DH discovery.

After amassing a database of tens of millions of metadata records over several years, SHARE will be shutting down a portion of its harvesting operation in 2020 and the data set is archived in CurateND (doi:10.7274/r0-0daz-j832), the University of Notre Dame’s institutional repository managed by Hesburgh Libraries. Examples of interacting with the data are also available on Github: https://github.com/ndlib-cds/share-samples. COS will be evaluating the future of SHARE as the index for searching across its popular OSF Preprints and OSF Registries platforms, in hopes of evolving the service to be cost-effective to operate and maintain to meet the constrained scope.

Aries Systems and Digital Commons Partner to Offer Editorial Manager to Digital Commons Premier Journals
Aries Systems Corporation, Voting Member, Press Release, November 17, 2020

Aries Systems Corporation, a leading technology workflow solutions provider to the scholarly publishing community, and Digital Commons, a leading platform for open access publishing and institutional repositories, are pleased to announce their partnership supporting the growth of Diamond Open Access (OA) journals across the globe.

The partnership brings together two top publishing solutions to provide an enhanced editorial management experience. Digital Commons (DC), a cloud-hosted institutional repository and journals platform, is a pioneer in providing visibility, metrics, and tailored service for OA journals and scholarly organizations. Aries’ Editorial Manager® (EM), the industry leading cloud-based manuscript submission and peer review tracking system, will be the backbone for the new Digital Commons Premier journals program. Both Aries Systems and Digital Commons have recently joined the Elsevier umbrella of research and publishing solutions. This collaboration enables DC Premier journals to leverage EM’s extensive features for editorial management, including integrated plagiarism checking, automatic manuscript metadata population with Xtract, ORCID single sign-on and more.

Diamond Open Access, a publishing business model in which no fees are applied to Authors or readers, enables journals to quickly develop a populous and engaged community. Thousands of Editors utilize Digital Commons to openly publish, manage and showcase their scholarly output and promote journal visibility. The initial stage of the partnership will provide 25 DC journals access to EM’s highly configurable system, with plans to onboard more journals to come.