Leadership Insights

“Change before you have to.” – Jack Welch

The COVID-19 pandemic forced leaders across the globe in every industry to evolve with speed, more so within the field of research, academic and scholarly publishing. This sector had to fast-track the implementation of technological changes relating to publishing sooner rather than later. The world was forced into a semi-standstill, affecting different countries at different times and in different ways. What became evident, though, was that the forced changes in terms of how business is conducted will continue in the future. The crisis negatively impacted many, if not all, countries economically. It also particularly affected industries that are heavily reliant on manual labour. As an illustration, the transportation (including aviation) and accommodation industries were forced to halt all operations. A noticeable shift was seen with respect to the world’s immediate reliance on the technology sectors, especially in relation to telecommunications, information technology (IT) and wireless network infrastructure services.

The University of South Africa, which is at the forefront of e-learning distance education, and many other universities in South Africa found themselves having to immediately implement e-learning solutions. This shift also applied to the academic and scholarly publishers such as UNISA Press. UNISA Press was in the process of creating a platform for easier and faster publishing and launched its working paper platform five months before the national lockdown regulations were implemented, as the lockdown placed a strain on UNISA Press’s traditional business of physically printing and selling scholarly, academic and research books and journals.

Large private organisations that had efficient technology infrastructure and whose operations were not labour intensive could easily adjust to the changes and they continued their operations. However, smaller semi-labour-intensive organisations like UNISA Press found themselves having to adjust internally to meet the needs of clients from both the supply and demand side. The open access working paper platform proved to be valuable during this time. Some academic publishers were experiencing pressure to enforce changes in the way physical books were produced and distributed. The need for such changes was amplified with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic since suppliers, like printers, experienced difficulties in mobilising staff, which affected the physical distribution of publications to end users, such as bookshops and libraries.

Online publishing has gained popularity over the years, increasing from 17 to 28 percent over the period 2011 to 2016. More and more authors, researchers, and academic and scholarly authors want to benefit from their research material commercially by making it available to the general public and the research, academic and scholarly community through online sales. Paul Perry notes in his article “Publishing industry trends in 7 Charts”, dated 17 December 2019, that e-books fell in popularity from 28% (2016) to 25% (2019). Eugene Gerden, however, reported an approximate decline in overall physical book circulation by 22 percent from year end 2019 to year end 2020 (Publishingperspectives.com). The pandemic arguably reversed the trend of declining e-books since there seems to have been a decline in the production of physical books given the challenges posed by COVID-19. In this reality, it stands to reason that e-books and open access of academic material, such as working papers and journal articles, represent a more efficient way of publishing and disseminating publications to the end users. One can then hypothesise and opine that the future of knowledge creation and massive dissemination is indeed electronic and digital. Further, it is important to explore other methodologies or hybrids of digital research, including but not limited to audio material, audio articles, audio books and audio data sets. Publishers of academic and scholarly research find themselves in a position where they can create a new norm, both in respect of the creation and dissemination of scholarly publications. Are the scholarly publishers and the university presses, in particular, ready for this? In the event they are not, the future will be crafted for them.

by Dr Meiya G Nthoesane (DBL)
Director: Unisa Press
Research, Postgraduate Studies,
Innovation and Commercialisation