Summer Symposium Satellite Event

Beyond Track Changes: Measuring the Impact of Human Manuscript Editing in an AI-Driven Publishing Landscape

Monday, 1 June 2026, 2pm-3pm UK time

The rapid adoption of AI tools in scholarly publishing has fundamentally changed how editorial work is perceived, discussed, and evaluated. Language correction, surface-level consistency checks, and basic rewriting are increasingly seen as ‘automatable’, placing new pressure on manuscript editors to justify the value of human expertise.

At the same time, AI has made the invisible labour of editors even more invisible: judgment, contextual understanding, ethical awareness, discipline-specific nuance, and deep familiarity with journal requirements remain largely outside the reach of current tools.

In this context, measuring and articulating the impact of human manuscript editing is no longer optional. It is critical for:

• professional recognition
  
• fair compensation
  
• ethical integration of AI
• ensuring authors are supported in focusing on what they do best: research.

This session aims to equip manuscript editors with frameworks and language to demonstrate the value of human editorial work alongside AI, and to explore meaningful ways of evidencing impact without reducing editing to mechanistic or tool-based metrics. By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

1. Articulate what human editors contribute that AI cannot, particularly in judgment-based, contextual, and compliance-driven work.
2. Understand why impact measurement is more critical in an AI-rich environment, not less.
3. Identify editorial tasks that directly enable researchers to focus on research, rather than administrative or technical burdens.
4. Explore realistic indicators of editorial impact across different workflows and client relationships.
5. Develop language to position human editing as complementary to AI, not in competition with it.

This session is free and open to all. It is organised by the EASE Manuscript Editors Professional Role Group.