The Future of Research Communications and e-Scholarship

Propelled by FORCE: Views of Innovation – The Scholarly Commons

19th April 2016

Results of the worldwide survey on scholarly communication tool usage and research workflows

Bianca Kramer
Jeroen Bosman

This will be a fast-paced graphical presentation of the main results of our worldwide survey on scholarly communication tool usage, held between May 2015 and February 2016, in 6 languages. The survey is expected to have over 10,000 responses from more than 100 countries, in collaboration with over 75 institutions and organizations.

The survey will yield detailed information on tool usage and workflow patterns, of which we will give some surprising examples. We will also show how the survey makes it possible to assess the relative importance of various driving forces (efficiency, openness and transparency / reproducibility) shaping research workflows in different disciplines, career stages and countries.  With the survey results, we also provide empirical underpinning of the changing scholarly communication landscape, by looking at the type of tools used (from traditional or more innovative) and at workflow  patterns of senior versus early career researchers.

This is a follow-up to our project '101 Innovations in Scholarly Communication' [link naar WP About?], which won best poster award at Force2015 in Oxford.

We expect the results to be relevant to all stakeholders in scholarly communication: researchers, funders, libraries, publishers, tool providers etc. All data will be publicly available as a raw dataset for anyone to check and analyze – and hopefully share those analyses with the community. We will also present an interactive dashboard that allows anyone to explore the survey results in an intuitive way.

ARE WE READY TO DEFINE THE SCHOLARLY COMMONS:  SCHOLARLY COMMONS WORKING GROUP

Maryann Martone

The digital age is seeing an informal convergence within the scholarly communication space: the Natural and Health Sciences, the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, applied and professional fields are all discovering that they have more in common when it comes to the future of research communication than differences. What is needed now is a program that will help us realize the potential of this merger: the development of a “Scholarly Commons.”

This program is designed to define and incubate this Commons. We will conduct a series of workshops and exercises to examine the best thinking around the world about what is required for a scholarly communications ecosystem designed for 21st century scholarship. We call this ecosystem the Scholarly Commons. It is not a single platform or tool, but rather the principles, best practices, interfaces and standards that should govern the multidirectional flow of scholarly objects through all phases of the research process from conception to dissemination.

Archive: https://archive.force11.net/node/6934

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.