Taylor & Francis Group, a leading publisher of specialist academic books and journals and part of Informa PLC, has completed a successful pilot of its Share More Easily program in partnership with ReadCube, a Digital Science technology company.
Launched in June 2017, the program was designed specifically to support Taylor & Francis’ book authors and offered special sharing links to free-to-read full-text versions of their complete books. These links could then be easily shared across social media, scholarly collaboration networks, or emailed to those in their network – opening new channels to promote visibility and extend the reach of work across the academic community.
The Share More Easily pilot included 600 titles across HSS and STM: 300 received sharing links to promote their work and 300 did not – the latter acting as a control group. Initial feedback surveys to authors and editors have resulted in positive feedback with 100% of respondents highlighting the importance of sharing full-text in the promotion of their published work and 98% confirming they would use these links if available to them in the future.
Alan Jarvis, the Global Publishing Director of the Books division, had this to say: “We are always striving for new ways to assist our authors in the promotion and dissemination of their research, and this pilot has given us some fascinating insights. The content was viewed in 174 countries, and over half came from outside our core markets, showing us the scope and potential of author networks. 90% of those who participated stated that the opportunity to share their work would impact their decision on where to publish in the future, and with academics under increasing pressure to demonstrate the reach and impact of their work, it is vital for us to continue developing strategies to support this”.
Powered by ReadCube’s sharing technology, the Share More Easily pilot allowed instant view-only access to the shared book directly within any web browser. Throughout the pilot, authors also had ability to track how their published content is being used and shared online using Altmetric data.
Originally designed for individual scholarly articles, this was the first deployment of ReadCube’s expanded sharing support for books.
“Taylor & Francis came to us with a clear vision – to support their community of authors and identify ways to ensure the broadest reach of their works,” said Robert McGrath, CEO of ReadCube. “We were thrilled to expand the capabilities of our sharing technology from scholarly articles and chapters to entire books to fit the needs of their program. We look forward to the continuing our relationship with Taylor & Francis and seeing the expansion of the program in the future.”
Over the coming months, Taylor & Francis will continue to work closely with their author community and integrate feedback from the pilot, to inform next steps.
