In the scholarly publishing world, spring brings the annual return of STM Trends, a future-forward look at the entire ecosystem from members of the STM Association.

Each year, STM Trends fixes the latest innovations in research and publishing in a single image. The latest shows a field of sunflowers on a bright summer’s day. Farmers, bees, butterflies, and birds are busy going about their businesses.

Entitled, The Beauty of Open at Scale, the infographic reflects an expectation in in the STM world that Open access will make a big jump in the next three to five years with a significant impact on the ecosystem of scholarly publications.

Eefke Smit, STM’s director of standards and technology, decodes the scene and tells me why there are scarecrows, too.

Click below to listen to the latest episode of the Velocity of Content podcast

Latest STM “Tech Trends” Launches

“The scarecrows actually warn us against fake information, fake science, misinformation,” she explains.

“A key problem with open access information is that we require a new locus of trust. If there are so many platforms around, and if there’s so much information in many different versions available on all these platforms, then we need to know which information can be trusted or cannot be trusted.”

On Tuesday, April 26, the STM Association presents a free webinar launching STM Trends with Eefke Smit, followed by a panel discussion.

Author: Christopher Kenneally

Christopher Kenneally hosts CCC's Velocity of Content podcast series, which debuted in 2006 and is the longest continuously running podcast covering the publishing industry. As CCC's Senior Director, Marketing, he is responsible for organizing and hosting programs that address the business needs of all stakeholders in publishing and research. His reporting has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Independent (London), WBUR-FM, NPR, and WGBH-TV.
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