A recent spate of acquisitions and consolidations by parent company CJK Group has turned KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL) into a content solutions powerhouse. Now that Cenveo Publisher Services, Sheridan Journal Services, Kaufman Wills Fusting & Company (which offers editorial and consulting services), and Allen Press are under the same big umbrella, KGL offers services ranging from content development to technology solutions and printing.
“Our company goals have continued to evolve to support the full content life cycle by completing a true one-stop proposition with ancillary and support services,” says president Atul Goel, adding that author satisfaction is an important goal and a key differentiator for publishers at KGL. “We have brought PubFactory, an integrated hosting platform with powerful publishing and analytics tools, on board; acquired a consulting and market research group; and now offer operational support for scholarly and professional societies and publishers.”
The company’s next-generation proprietary publishing platform Smart Suite 3.0 continues to evolve with the addition of new features and tools. Components such as Smart Proof, Smart Report, and Smart Review are changing the ways authors, editors, and publishers interact with content and with one another. [related]
Smart Proof, now a powerful and interactive web-based editing platform, is built to change the experience of editing and managing journal article and book chapter corrections. Rather than reviewing and annotating traditional PDF proofs, Smart Proof users can now review and edit the content directly within the HTML interface, making the process simple, easy, and intuitive. Smart Proof also tracks and follows up with authors and editors, and it supports easy management of math equations, tables, figures, data linking, comments, and collaborative editing through LaTeX and MathJAX support.
As for front-end data reporting module Smart Report, it connects directly to KGL’s Smart Track and provides complete access to article production data, including metadata passed from peer review. “Publishers can customize these reports to see only what is important and useful to them,” adds Goel, adding that Smart Report uses widgets that represent data in visual forms like graphs and pie charts. “Data is automatically updated by the system at regular intervals.”
Meanwhile, Smart Review, a new integrated tool that flips the editing model around, aligns manuscript evaluation and peer review at the point of manuscript creation. “It automates a variety of tasks that occur during the peer review process—screening for common submission checklist elements like disclosures, metadata, and manipulated images, as well as identifying conflicts of interest between authors and reviewers—and pushes manuscripts to appropriate reviewers,” says Goel.
KGL has also augmented its peer review solution with a new Desk Editor service, combining the traditional functions of a journal editorial office administrator with a set of content-related functions such as assessing whether submissions are within scope, sense-checking reviews before forwarding them to authors, and assessing whether authors have adequately responded to reviewer requests. “The subject matter experts at the Desk Editor team are also highly experienced in identifying image manipulation and ethical concerns in various fields of study,” says Goel.
Meanwhile, the acquisition of Allen Press not only strengthens KGL’s journal and peer review solutions but also adds society and association services, including marketing communications, advertising sales, and association and event management. This summer, the KGL team was on site at the 2023 conference of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in Ferrara, Italy, which was attended by more than 1,700 members. “We also coordinated the virtual component of the meeting with more than 500 online attendees and managed the society’s accounting and membership operations,” says Goel, pointing out that the acquisition of Kaufman Wills Fusting & Company has bolstered KGL’s credentials in journal editorial services and added business consulting solutions to its offerings.
“In cases where there were overlaps, we have been able to substitute third-party technologies with homegrown solutions,” Goel says. “By having our own facilities in India; our own production platform, Smart Suite; and our own hosting platform, PubFactory, KGL is able to live up to our value proposition as a true one-stop content solution provider for publishers and content creators of all sizes.” —Teri Tan
To learn more about KGL and its host of solutions, visit booth E96 in Hall 4.0.
