The changing nature of scholarly communication

Dr. Branwen Hide

August 3rd, 2010

What does this mean for researchers?

Outline Introduction Current research practices Researcher publishing practices Factors influencing researcher behaviours Changes in scholarly communications Conclusions Recommendations for librarians Food for thought

Basic research life cycle

Research Production

Publication

Development of research idea

Post-publication distribution

Pre-publication dissemination

Literature reviews, archival material, e-mails,

face-face meetings, conferences, networking

Bench research, field research,

conceptualizing

Conferences, meetings, departmental seminars,

personal communications, emails

Peer reviewed high impact publications

(journals or monographs)

Conferences, seminars, Personal communications,

technical reports, grey literature, popular literature,

newspapers, grant applications, networking

Publication and Dissemination:

To maximize dissemination to the target audience

Gain peer esteem Career rewards

Why do researchers publish?

Formal and informal means Related to disciplinary norms

Including: monographs, journals, conference proceedings etc.

How do researchers publish?

What influences the way researchers publish?

1. The research landscape significant increase in research expenditure increasing emphasis on the demonstration, and

maximization of social and economic returns from that investment

“the journal article is the currency of research…”

RIN (2010), E-journals and Researchers

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2003 2008 2003 2008 2003 2008 2003 2008 2003 2008 2003 2008 2003 2008

Other

Meetingabstract

Editorial

Book review

Proceedings

Bookchapter

Book

Article

Bio-medicine Sciences Engineering Social Humanities Education Total inc. studies Arts

Article

RIN (2009), Communicating knowledge: how and why researchers publish and disseminate their findings

The raise in the importance of journal articles

2. Technological developments

web based tools and resources which encourage wide scale informal dissemination, sharing, collaboration,

and re-purposing of content and innovative ways to interact with and use these web based platforms.

Ware, M (2003). Web 2.0 and Scholarly Communication

Web 2.0 tools and resources

Who uses the web and why A strong belief that web 2.0 tools will:

enable and encourage new forms of research promote new forms of scholarly communications drive innovation

Web based tools and resources have been developed to todate support these ideas

Wide scale usage ?

Using web 2.0 tools to producing, commenting on, and share scholarly content

Researchers as generators of knowledge

Type of Scholarly Communications

Activity

PhD Student

Research Assistant

Lecturer

RIN (2010), If they buid it will they come. Researchers us of web 2.0 tools and resources

Researcher as a user of knowledge:Digital resources as a research tool Electronic publications Online databases Using aggregated Google search data Using social media to distribute large population-

based surveys Text mining of existing data bases

and social networking sites Data mashups New research areas

http://cyberbrethren.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/web-applications-desktop-software.jpg

3. Policy developmentsFunding cuts

Research Assessment

Public engagement

Impact

Knowledge Transfer

Data management plans

Open access publishing

Data sharing mandates

Library budget constraints

Innovation

Grand Challenges

Internationalization

Quality Assurance

dissemination

Changes to publication practices electronic and open access publishing posting text, slides and images online add value to publications – dynamic links new and innovative publishing platforms data as a publication social media for the dissemination of

research outputs

Research 2.0

Research Production

Development of research idea

Publication and distribution

Pre-publication dissemination

Literature reviews, online data bases, online archival material, online discussions

Text mining, virtual lab equipment, online-analysis, reuse of existing data

Blogs, wikis, networking sites, on-line forums, databases

Peer reviewed outputs (E-journals, e-books, open access publications), subject specific repositories, Blogs, wikis, online-forums, networking sites, slideshare, Flicker, YouTube, institutional repositories, reference sharing sites, subject specific repositories, Society web pages

UKPMC, UKDA, Mendeley, Connotea, Times Archives EMBL,H-net.org, Economists online, Researchgate, Friend Feed

Ensembl , myExperiment, EBI, UKDA

Friendfeed, Researchgate, UKDA academia.edu, arXiv, H-net.org,

Mendeley, Conneta, citeUlike, Connotea, Twitter, Omeka, ScholarPress, academia.edu, Friendfeed, open humanities press, Researchgate,EBI, UKDA, UKPMC

Conclusion Scholarly communications can not be seen in

isolation Developments must support technological

and policy initiatives Developing practises must improve upon

existing research practises Disciplinary differences Local support and encouragement is

increasingly important

Recommendations for libraries Maintain and improve access to e-content

Especially for those not working on site Provide guidance and advice on the different

communication channels Skills training:

Data management (preservation & curation), IP, copyright and FoI etc.

Help set standards for curation and preservation Raise awareness of web 2.0 tools and services

Provide advice, training and encouragement Publicise examples of successful use and good practice

Both as a vehicle for dissemination but also as a research tool

Food for thought Can social media/web 2.0 tools help researchers

meet policy objectives? Is everything we need really online? Is traditional peer review adequate to monitor the

quality of less formal/new outputs? Is a new system of quality assessment required for

blogs and other social media as well as for data? Does using online resources affect the way we

interact with our data/primary resources?

Dr. Branwen HideLiaison and Partnership OfficerResearch Information Network

Branwen.hide@rin.ac.uk

www.rin.ac.uk