The Future of Collaborative Authoring

Few words stoke more anxiety in those who spend their days writing and editing text than “tweaks.” Usually accompanied by the phrase: “This looks good, but I suggested some small…,” the seemingly benign-sounding characterization is almost never accurate.

What follows can be anything from a sea of multicolored in-line edits to a list of stream-of-consciousness thoughts and suggestions to — in the worst case — scanned documents with hand-written notes in the margins. For those tasked with collating these tweaks, often from multiple stakeholders, the process of interpreting and seamlessly assimilating that collection of piecemeal feedback can sometimes take longer than it did to write the original content.

Perhaps nowhere is this pain felt more than in the world of scientific publications and medical communications. A typical peer-reviewed publication is developed by a team of numerous authors, all of whom contribute text, comment on and revise one another’s work, and cite previous research — often without using a common software platform. The result for the Medical Affairs and Publications Planning teams at the center of the process is many hours spent collating edits and managing version control.

Standardizing the Scientific Publications Planning Workflow
Komodo Health™ took a big step toward solving that problem last May with the launch of Komodo Publications Planning, its new scientific publications management software. This new solution makes it possible for multiple stakeholders to collaborate, provide feedback, and share updates with one another seamlessly, from publication concept through planning and publishing. And, with direct connectors to Microsoft 365, Altmetric, and Unpaywall, the software has made it possible for Publications Planning teams to bring some much-needed standardization and organization to the collaborative authoring process. 

The result has been a dramatic improvement in contributor workflow and a faster, more streamlined journal-submission process. For example, Pfizer was seeking a way to evolve and digitize how its publications were managed. The company developed a customized tool with Komodo Publications Planning as its foundation, which allowed Pfizer to roll out one cohesive publications management system that could be leveraged by a variety of stakeholders around the globe, creating a more efficient path for collaborating with authors and third-party agencies. With a consolidated view into its medical and scientific publication plans, Pfizer’s global team was able to automate the planning process, quickly tracking publication milestones and monitoring study progression using real-time alerts. 

Breaking Down Barriers to New Collaboration
While the new workflow enhancements supported by Komodo’s new software have helped Medical Affairs teams improve collaboration with their medical writing partners, it is just the beginning. New functionality currently in development that is slated for launch later this year will leverage the power of Komodo’s Healthcare Map™ in conjunction with existing publications planning tools to help Medical Affairs teams identify prospective collaborators working in their therapy areas.

Looking Beyond the Impact Factor
Komodo is also working on new ways to evaluate the reach and overall impact of scientific publications. While the relative influence of scholarly research has, for the past several decades, been measured by the Journal Citation Reports Impact Factors, these numeric scores are decidedly one-dimensional and guided largely by total citations aggregated over a two-year period. With today’s data and analytics capabilities, it is possible to dig much deeper using alternative metrics such as sphere of influence in a specific subject matter area, visibility on social media channels, and even historical acceptance and rejection rates on key topics. Komodo’s software offers an unprecedented view of the market landscape, unlocking new insights to improve process and outcomes.

The best part is that Komodo’s just getting started. Over the next several months, a series of new product enhancements and improvements to Publications Planning software will transform how critical research is delivered to the world. Along the way, Komodo hopes to address conventional pain points and push beyond the limitations that have made the process far too cumbersome for too long.

Learn more about Komodo’s Publications Planning solutions by speaking to one of our experts today!

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