Scholarly communication: The quest for Pasteur's Quadrant

The scholarly communication system is sustained by its functions of a) registration, b) certification or legitimization, c) dissemination and awareness d) archiving or curation and e) reward. These functions have remained stable during the development of scholarly communication but the means through which they are achieved have not. It has been a long journey from the days when scientists communicated primarily through correspondence. The impact of modern-day technological changes is significant and has destabilized the scholarly communication system to some extent because many more options have become available to communicate scholarly information with. Pasteur's Quadrant was articulated by Donald E Stokes in his book Pasteur's Quadrant Basic Science and Technological Innovation. It is the idea that basic science (as practiced by Niels Bohr) and applied science (as exemplified by Thomas Edison) can be brought together to create a synergy that will produce results of significant benefit, as Louis Pasteur did. Given the theory (fundamental understanding) we have of scholarly communication and given how modern-day technological advances can be applied, a case can be made that use-inspired basic research (Pasteur's Quadrant) should be the focus for current research in scholarly communication. In doing so the different types of digital scholarly resources and their characteristics must be investigated to determine how the fundamentals of scholarly communication are being supported. How libraries could advocate for and contribute to the improvement of scholarly communication is also noted. These resources could include: e-journals, repositories, reviews, annotated content, data, pre -print and working papers servers, blogs, discussion forums, professional and academic hubs

Scholarly communication trends in the digital age: Informal scholarly publishing and dissemination, a grounded theory approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate scholars’ attitudes toward informal publishing and dissemination to provide a view of the challenges and advantages of using such channels. Although considerable research has been carried out in relation to peer-reviewed scholarly publishing, relatively few studies have investigated the adoption of informal scholarly communication platforms in the scholarly publishing process. Design/methodology/approach – The paper deployed a grounded theory approach using semi-structured interviews as a qualitative research tool. A theoretical sample of 40 researchers in 4 universities were interviewed to gather data regarding informal publishing, platforms, factors that affect the researchers’ decision and the use of informal channels in dissemination. Findings – Results of the interviews suggest that there is an increasing trend among researchers toward informal publishing and dissemination throughout the scholarly communication cycle. The paper shows that there are three types of scholars who are involved in the scholarly communication process: conventional, modern and liberal scholars. Each of these scholars carries different beliefs regarding the scholarly communication process. Research limitations/implications – This paper was conducted on a relatively small sample of academic researchers, and therefore, the results cannot be easily generalized into a wider community of scholars. Originality/value – The paper provides insight into informal scholarly publishing practices using a grounded theory approach. This approach helped to capture the changes in both scholarly publishing practices and the adoption of informal techniques among the scholarly community. </jats:sec

COVID-19 Pandemic, the Value of Open Access to Research, and Role of Agile Peer Review

The emergence of the Internet has changed the landscape of academic publishing. Digitalization facilitated peer review, publishing procedures, and content retrieval (Suber 2012). However, the majority of academic articles were brought behind pay walls, thus remaining inaccessible to a wider audience. This initiated another approach towards academic publishing in the early 1990s when the open access movement was conceived. Its protagonists, underlining the openness as a fundamental scientific ethos, launched open access publishing venues to provide free usage of scholarly content (Bjork, 2018)

Publishing Open Access e-Journals: Leveraging an Outreach Opportunity

Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) Libraries began exploring the institutional repository (IR) landscape in 2009 with the intention of publishing electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), journals, special collections, images, videos, sound files, or anything else that would fit a need for us. The hosted systems we examined were effective as either platforms for displaying special collections or platforms for managing publishing processes. However, we didn’t find a system that did both of those things well

Changing styles of informal academic communication in the age of the web:Orthodox, moderate and heterodox responses

Purpose- The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study to investigate changes in scholarly communication practices among a group of scholars in the UK and build upon the results that were published in a previous paper. Design/methodology/approach- The study deployed a naturalistic inquiry approach using semi-structured interviews as a qualitative research tool. A sample of 40 participants from four UK universities were interviewed to explore the changes in informal scholarly communication behaviour. Findings- The analysis of the interviews revealed that there are three ideal types of behaviour: the ?Orthodox? uses formal and traditional scholarly communication approaches; the ?Moderate? prioritises formal communication approaches, but at the same time is trying to get benefits from informal channels; and, the ?Heterodox? uses all channels available in scholarly communication. Originality and value - The value of the current study lies in using a naturalistic inquiry approach to investigate the changes in scholarly communication practices, and to explore different scholarly communication styles. In the context of this study, the use of a naturalistic approach and grounded theory principles in connection with coding provided a stance that allows for the gathering of rich information to enable understanding and explanation of scholarly communication activities in addition to uncovering themes that related to scholarly behaviour.authorsversionPeer reviewe