Quality Matters
Asynchronous Session
Generative AI and Finding the Law View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paul Callister, Dana Neacsu
Generative AI brings new observations that are essential to new ways of knowing, new ways of finding the law. This paper concludes that among the changes wrought by generative AI, society and the legal community will shift their cognitive authority—the resources and techné that are trustworthy for determining what the law is. Movement in cognitive authority impacts the stability of law, which requires a certain permanence of content in the techné -- medium or method -- in which law is recorded and found. Permanence is an issue for generative AI. Furthermore, problems such as hallucination should give the legal community pause in accepting generative AI as authoritative. Nonetheless, the power of generative AI and for psychological reasons, generative AI will undoubtedly make its way into the legal community’s cognitive authority—hence, the shift. Hopefully, other research techné, including traditional print, will be utilized to check unbridled faith in generative AI platforms.
The Challenge of Quality Assurance in University Publishing: The Experience of the CEA-APQ Seal
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Francisco Fernández Beltrán
Publishing is an integral part of the University's activity, as the book is a fundamental tool for the exercise of its triple function: education, research, and transfer. In Spain, the publishing production of the universities has been growing very significantly in the last half century, representing up to 7% of national book production and 10% of the living stock. Together, the publishers integrated into the Union of Spanish University Publishers (UNE) represent the first publishing group in the country. This growth has not occurred in parallel with an adequate assessment of the publishing production of universities. To address this situation, the UNE began a campaign that made it possible to eliminate this prejudice in official regulations and, at the same time, promoted a unique experience to guarantee and accredit the editorial quality of books published by universities. The CEA-APQ seal, launched in 2016 by the UNE in collaboration with the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency (Aneca) and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (Fecyt), has become an instrument that endorses the editorial quality of the book collections has been distinguished and, at the same time, it has been configured as a reference guide for university publishers that aspire to improve their prestige. This paper analyzes the entire process of creating this publishing label and its results in the four calls that have been carried out since its creation.
When “Open” Is Closed: Evaluating Open Access Author Contracts’ Alignment with the Open Ethos
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Melissa Cantrell, Sarah Wipperman
Open access (OA) represents a major disruption to the publishing industry in that it abandons traditional publishing models where only certain people may access scholarly content (e.g., through institutional subscriptions) in favor of granting access to anyone with an internet connection. This has necessitated a shift in publishing practices: moving away from subscriptions and copyright transfer to alternative funding models, open licenses, and author copyright retention. At least, that is what OA is supposed to achieve, according to global declarations, such as The Budapest Declaration and Plan S Principles. The reality of the landscape is much messier in practice. We analyzed 213 publishing contracts from fully OA journals to see how well publishing contracts’ terms aligned with what we call the “open access ethos” - common expectations around authors’ and users’ rights for open access content. We found that many OA journals contained terms that run counter to authors’ retention of rights and open licensing standards. Furthermore, we found that many contracts had contradictory terms or conflicting requirements that could ultimately raise legal questions regarding ownership over the work and how it can be reused. Our findings demonstrate a publishing landscape not just in transition from a closed to an open access model, but one in which free access conceals a quagmire of usage rights and licensing issues. As the academic publishing landscape becomes more heterogeneous, it is increasingly vital for scholars to understand author’s rights and how to become advocates for their research.
