New Platforms, New Challenges in Academic Publishing

In an increasingly competitive space, publishers not only need to meet the challenge of other publishing companies and open access, but also changing user expectations.

Too often users’ expectations have been poorly met, but this is changing with an increasingly wide range of information products available on increasingly sophisticated platforms.

SAGE Publications and Alexander Street Press are two publishing companies that have been developing increasingly sophisticated new platforms, and Martha Sedgwick (executive director of product management at SAGE) and Peter Ciuffetti (VP of product development at Alexander Street Press) shared their thoughts on the development of new platforms to meet user needs, the challenges they face, and how much further there is still to go.