The link between penguins and academic publishing
For more than a decade, influencers in scholarly communication have gathered at Academic Publishing in Europe (APE) to discuss the industry’s future. During APE 2017, TrendMD’s Director of Partnerships, Matt Cockerill, offered an unexpected analogy: penguins and academic publishing face the same challenge—navigating a crowded environment by following collective intelligence.
Just as penguins rely on the cues of the colony to find food and stay safe, researchers depend on signals from their community to uncover the next must-read article. Cockerill showed how collaborative filtering, the technology behind TrendMD’s recommendation network, mimics this behavior by learning from readers’ journeys across thousands of scholarly sites.
Collaborative filtering in action
As the volume of published research accelerates, traditional discovery paths—table of contents alerts, search, or social media—no longer scale. Collaborative filtering solves the problem by analyzing what similar readers engage with and presenting context-aware suggestions right when a researcher is most receptive. It is the same principle powering consumer platforms, adapted for mission-critical scholarly workflows.
Cockerill noted that publishers such as Springer Nature, Elsevier, and AAAS are adopting TrendMD to keep readers within their ecosystem while also connecting them to partner content. The smarter the system gets, the more publishers benefit from high-intent referrals and deeper engagement.
Watch the APE 2017 presentation
Hear the full penguin analogy and see how collaborative filtering boosts research discoverability:
If the embed above doesn’t load, you can watch it here and browse additional sessions from APE’s “Publishing Ethics: Doing the Right Thing – Doing Things Right” conference on Zeeba TV.
The key takeaway? Collaborative filtering isn’t just a consumer-tech buzzword. It’s a practical way for publishers to guide readers, boost loyalty, and surface the research that truly matters.
