SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION
In
an academic research environment, scholarly communications become central part
of the process of deliberations. Scholarly communications are carried out using
certain channels of communications by scholars and academicians. Most important
ones are scholarly journals, conference proceedings, research monographs,
dissertations, research reports and personal memoirs. Internet now provides
much easier and instant means of connection. Social media is a boon for any
type of communication. The learned societies – the formal institutions
representing scientific and think tank communities – are primarily responsible
for initiating scholarly journals in their respective subject areas, where
members can communicate their results of scientific research and get valuable
feedbacks from readers of these journals or fellow members of these learned
societies. Since the mid-twentieth century and later, learned societies have
started collaborating with for-profit publishers – for achieving global
outreach, global readership and global authorship. ICT enabled environment
helps in global outreach of scholarly literature, more rapidly than earlier
print-only era. Scholarly communications got enormous impetus when scholarly
literature becomes globally and instantly accessible through online mode in the
globalized societies.
Objectives of Scholarly
Communications
The
scholarly communication is the process of sharing, disseminating and publishing
research findings of academics and researchers so that the generated academic
contents are made available to the global academic communities. A research
paper is a standard way of presenting one’s research findings against certain
research questions, based on scientific methods of experimentations,
observations and data analysis. So, an author, or a group of authors, prepares
a manuscript for submitting to a scholarly journal, where s/he articulately
narrates his scientific experiments, research methodologies, key findings and
conclusions to communicate how some significant contribution has been made in
the body of knowledge. Submitted paper in a scholarly journal usually goes
through rigorous peer review process before it gets accepted. The paper reviewers
are drawn from the subject experts and practitioners in a specialized area
matching a submitted paper. Peer reviewing is seen as a key quality control
mechanism for a reputed journal to keep it amongst the best in its subject
field. Thus, many reputed journals have very high rates of rejection in order
to accommodate many good papers with brilliant ideas and novelty.
Historical Perspectives of
Scholarly Communications
Scholarly
communications historically had been driven by the learned societies and their
member communities around the world to publish findings of their research
inquiries and scientific discoveries. The learned societies were the main
promoters and publishers of scholarly journals. The first sets of learned
societies were established in different European countries in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries around the periods of European renaissance. These were
predominately named as the Royal Societies, as they received patronage from the
monarchies and their respective governments. Each learned society launched a
periodical for disseminating the results of research of their society members
and other scholars. Scholarly periodicals of the learned societies, often
called as ‘Transactions’ or ‘Proceedings’, were published at regular intervals
to incorporate scholarly works or academic inquiries by their respective member
scholars. Many of these members were actively engaged in academic discourses.
Their interactions through academic meetings helped in deep understanding and
shaping up of contemporary subject fields. These ‘Transactions’ were
multi-disciplinary in nature, encouraged scholars in different disciplines to
understand each other’s scholarly research outcomes. The presented papers in
Society’s academic meetings sometimes incorporated in these ‘Transactions’ for
wider circulation amongst the members of a learned society.
Some
of the oldest scholarly journals around the world are identified below:
·
The Journal des Sçavans was
the earliest academic journal published in Europe. Its first issue was released
on 5th January 1665. It was founded by Denis de Sallo, adviser to the
Parliament of Paris in France. It is presently published as the Journal des
Savants (ISSN: 0021-8103).
·
The Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society (Phil. Trans.) was the second earliest
academic journal published in Europe by the Royal Society of London. Its first
issue of the first volume was released on 6th March 1665. It is presently
published in two separate parts, namely, the Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences (ISSN:
1364-503X), and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B:
Biological Sciences (ISSN: 0962-8436).
·
The American Journal of
Science (AJS) (ISSN: 0002-9599), founded in 1818, was the earliest scientific
journal published in the United States. It has been published continuously
since 1818.
·
The Asiatick Researches, or
Transactions of the Society Instituted in Bengal, for Inquiring into the
History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature of Asia, was the
earliest scholarly journal published in Asia published by the Asiatic Society,
India. Its first volume was released in 1788. It is one of the oldest scholarly
journals published from the global South. It is presently published as the
Journal of the Asiatic Society (ISSN: 0368-3303).
These
scientific societies were membership-based and principally supported by the
individual contributions of the scientific members. Century old scientific
societies are largely non-profit institutions, engaged in creation and
dissemination of scientific research. Of late, most of these societies have
transferred their journal publishing ventures to the for-profit publishers or
business enterprises. Whereas, many other scientific societies still retain
their journal publishing activity to primarily engage with qualitative science
dissemination and to provide cross-subsidy into their research and training
activities. Many of the world’s distinguished scientific journals are surviving
for more than a century. So are the scientific societies. They have made deep
impact on scientific inquiries, advancement of knowledge, and growth of subject
areas. Many of them have facilitated the formation of new scientific
disciplines. In the era of online publishing, many of them command higher
attention of scientific communities than the newer journals. These academic
journals also have increased online and social media presence for outreaching
to worldwide audiences. These academic journals essentially capture frontiers
of science and scholarship. They provide wider avenues of interactions,
academic discourses, knowledge creation and knowledge enrichment. Many of these
journals led to development of subject specific journals with narrower focus.
Some of these journals were bifurcated or trifurcated into different parts or
sections to disseminate research findings in more specific subject areas.
Delivery mechanism of journal contents was also changed in the late twentieth
century. In addition to print edition of academic journals, online editions of
these journals were introduced during this time (i.e., late 20th century) to
make electronic or online delivery of journal issues and journal articles
through electronic journal gateways and journals’ own websites. With this
introduction of online delivery, the scholarship became more reachable and
instantly accessible to the worldwide audience than earlier times.
References
and Further Reading
Gu, Feng & Widén-Wulff, Gunilla (2011). Scholarly communication
and possible changes in the context of social media: A Finnish case study. The
Electronic Library, 29(6), 762-776.
Knapp, M. L., Daly, J. A., & International Communication
Association. (2004). A guide to publishing in scholarly communication journals.
Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Parekh, H. (1999). Internet in the scholarly communication process.
Mumbai: KnowledgeWare.
Shorley, D., & Jubb, M. (2013). The future of scholarly
communication. London:Facet Publishing,
Online
Videos Tutorials
Flanders, Julia (2012). Defining Scholarly
Communication. available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aybpzHLZuo
Garfield,
Eugene (n.d). Communicating science.
available at http://www.webofstories.com/play/eugene.garfield/72
Raff,
Martin (n.d). Advice to Young Scientists: Do Important Science! available at http://www.webofstories.com/play/martin.raff/5
University
of Guelph (2014). Introduction to Scholarly Communication. available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9WcbnAOPVA
The Tutorial is customized from UNESCO’s Open Access
(OA) Curriculum modules prepared for academicians and library professionals for
promotion and propagation of open access movement