‘How do I use me?’: The present and future implications of generative AI for educational publishing

While ChatGPT was not the first generative AI model, it has been recognised as the first to popularise large language models, which in turn accelerated the adoption of AI in industry. ChatGPT emerged in November 2022, and attendance at the London Book Fair in April 2023 and March 2024 has revealed increasing concern within the publishing industry, as well as outside of it by tech companies, about the perceived risks and/or benefits of incorporating generative AI into daily work practices, including content creation and production. Book-publishing research into the risks and benefits posed by generative AI has been largely confined to trade and academic publishing, with attention given to authorship, copyright, and research accuracy and integrity, to list just a few issues. Despite being situated firmly within the concept of academia, little research has been uncovered for educational publishing practice. McNulty (2023) observed generally for educational publishing that ‘Generative AI is not a panacea but a powerful tool.’ Nathan (2023) related Christoph Bläsi’s insight at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2023 of how AI had the potential to positively impact on such ‘crucial roles’ as content development, copyediting and marketing. Furthermore, at a recent AI workshop at University of Derby, UK, Fisher (2024) posed the self-reflective question about AI and the tools and skills required for creative practice: ‘How do I use me?’ From this, the ensuing main research question posed for this research therefore is: How exactly do creative practitioners, as signposted by Bläsi, specifically ‘use’ both themselves and generative AI in their knowledge work to support and publish authors in educational publishing? Primary research to date has revealed two key concepts that underpin industry stakeholders’ decisions about which tasks and/or responsibilities would be better suited, on the one hand, to generative AI and, on the other, to traditional human-based practices in the contemporary publishing landscape: value and efficiencies. Using these concepts, the aim of this study is to determine the state of the field for the educational publishing sector in relation to its present and perceived future understandings of how generative AI is being/will be practised alongside, and in combination with, traditional human-based work to support and publish authorial content. I invite editors working in educational publishing, in-house or freelance, to complete this anonymous survey of 25 multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Questions to be asked relate to how editors ‘use’ themselves to conduct their daily work, such as how confident are editors when it comes to generative AI; how do editors incorporate generative AI into their editorial work, if at all; which skills and knowledge do editors believe they presently lack, or which are sufficiently under-developed, that could impact their decisions to use generative AI in their daily work; what are employers' attitudes to generative AI in educational publishing; which generative AI practices do employers presently assume should be incorporated into editors’ daily work and whether editors judge these assumptions as being necessary; how pervasive do editors anticipate generative AI will be in the medium and longer term; and how will the educational publishing sector generally need to respond in terms of training staff, adjustments to digital workflows and production schedules, and so on. Participation is completely voluntary. Participants are able to withdraw at any time before completing the online survey. Note, however, that once participants have submitted answers to the survey questions, their answers cannot be withdrawn or removed. Privacy and confidentiality will be maintained for all participants. Participants of the online survey will not be requested to provide any personal information. Dr Jocelyn Hargrave will be responsible for the security, storage and management of all data; no other person will have access. All data will be safely stored in a password-protected computer, and regular back-ups stored on University of Derby's One Drive. Dr Hargrave will share this data with attendees at the 'By the Book 9' conference to be held on 26–28 June 2024 in Slovenia (www.oxfordpublish.org/events/); the data will also form part of a subsequent publication to be submitted to a peer-reviewed international journal and/or as a book chapter in an edited collection. Ethics approval for this research has been given by the College of Arts, Humanities and Education Research Ethics Committee at University of Derby (ethics number: ETH2324-3346). If you would like more information about this project, such as collated findings and conclusions, please contact Dr Jocelyn Hargrave, Lecturer in Publishing, at University of Derby, UK ([email protected]). Lastly, thanks to Kate McGregor and Camilla Cripps for providing feedback on an earlier draft of the survey. Thank you!