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Scholarly Communications: Home

What is Scholarly Communications

Scholarly Communications is the term traditionally applied to the process of publishing research findings and any supplementary data, for the purposes of disseminating or communicating such findings. 

Recent developments on the academic landscape, such as technological advancement and new publishing models mean that the term now refers to a range of activities at various stages of the research lifecycle associated with conducting, managing, and communicating your research, and data. Such activities include, for example...

  • Journal Selection
  • Open Access
  • Copyright
  • Author Rights
  • Research Datasets
  • Institutional Repositories

Scholarly Communications Stakeholders

There are many stakeholders in the Scholarly Communications picture. Chief among them are......

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Source:  Curtin Library

Researchers: Obviously! Researchers are central to the research lifecycle. They are responsible for collecting, organising, analysing, and reporting/communicating the new knowledge created in the research project.
Research funders: As the providers of the funds necessary for the research project, funders are increasingly focusing on return on investment, and value for money of their research funds. This means increasing use and reuse of not just research publications but also research datasets.
Publishers: Provide the publication workflow, manage the peer review process, and make the final publication available via their (now mainly electronic) publishing platforms. Publishers have had to innovate with respect to emerging technologies such as the Internet.
Libraries: Traditionally enable access to current research via publisher deals. More recently libraries have lead initiatives to promote Open Access such as establishing institutional repositories, and even university/library publishing units. 

Bibliographic services: Abstracting & Indexing services try to make the ever increasing body of research accessible to the research community by allowing them to focus on the research that is relevant to them at a particular time. 

Readers: The consumers of research are often at the most disadvantage with  the traditional publishing model as the research exists behind a paywall. Even where subscriptions can be purchased there will always be gaps that cannot be plugged.
Practitioners: Use knowledge gained through the research process and implement this knowledge into applications for the enhancement of industry and society in general.