The Future of Scholarly Communication

This is the first reporting out on the beginning of a thoughtful process of looking at this area of higher education, undertaken by the Center for Studies in Higher Education with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The link is to an HTML page, with the link to the report itself (PDF) in the upper right hand corner of the HTML page:

Our discussions included the importance of distinguishing between informal dissemination and formal publishing and the challenges that each presents to the university community. The harsh economic realities of high-quality formal scholarly publication, not least of which are managing peer review and editorial processes, were emphasized. Understanding disciplinary needs was cited as paramount throughout the discussions; the needs and traditions of scholars in the sciences and humanities, as well as among myriad disciplines, will likely demand different dissemination and publishing models and solutions. An additional theme that emerged was acknowledging the diverse forms electronic dissemination takes in the academy and the need to foster a spectrum of alternatives in publication forms, business models, and the peer review process. Budgetary and academic freedom concerns were explored as well. Regarding the expensive infrastructure required for electronic dissemination and publishing, it was agreed that there is enormous duplication among the university press, IT, and the library. The failure to leverage their respective assets, which are already paid for by universities, will be a stumbling block for coordination and cooperation among these key players in the future.