In February 2025, Clarivate announced plans to end perpetual print and e-book purchases, sparking concern across the academic library sector. This observation by Brittany Amell, with input from INKE Partners Evelyn Feldman, Susan Haigh, and Rowena Johnson, explores key reactions and implications for scholarly publishing, open access, and digital ownership.
This insight and signals report extends an earlier report published on the Observatory regarding an announcement from the three federal research funding agencies regarding the development of guidance for the use of generative AI in the development and review of grant applications (originally published here in November, 2024). This guidance has since been finalized and released by the Tri-Council, and this finalized guidance is summarized here. Questions for further consideration are also presented, as are responses INKE Partners John Willinsky and John Maxwell. In addition to the above, this insights and signals report also shares an example of one hypothetical way the Tri-Council’s guidance might be adapted to create a working generative AI policy for a journal.
Items discussed in this report include an announcement from the Tri-Agency Presidents regarding an ad-hoc expert panel tasked with considering the use of genAI in the grant development and review process. This report also includes a summary of the draft guidance and a response from INKE partner, John Willinsky (founder, Public Knowledge Press).
This insights and signals report continues OSPO’s review of the evolving dialogue on the implications generative AI has for open scholarship / open access publishing. Specifically, it discusses: a new research project focused on generative AI and scholarly publishing; a surge in retracted articles and the crisis of trust for open access journals (DOAJ); responsible publishing; applications of FAIR in policy development and responses; responsible use of AI in research; PKP’s efforts to build trust with the introduction of The Publication Facts Label.
Widespread debates about the future of artificial intelligence and the need for ethical frameworks and regulatory policies to mitigate potential harms, re-ignited in 2022 by OpenAI’s first release of generative artificial intelligence (AI) system ChatGPT, continue to receive attention by scholars and media alike. This Insights and Signals Report is apart of a series that will focus on evolving discussions centered around artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI (genAI) and large language models (LLMs), and the implications these may have for open access and open social scholarship. Items discussed in this report include a brief introduction to generative artificial intelligence; the artificial intelligence act passed in May 2024 by the Council of the European Union; the inclusion of artificial intelligence in Canada’s Digital Charter Implementation Act (2022); several responses to AI in Canada from scholars, journals, post-secondary institutions, scholarly associations and granting agencies, as well as some core concerns raised by these groups; and responses from INKE partners John Willinsky (Founder, Public Knowledge Project) and John Maxwell (Associate Professor of Publishing at Simon Fraser University). The report concludes with provocations to consider some discursive silences, such as perspectives on data mining as an extractive colonial practice, and Indigenous data sovereignty.
