The opportunities and competitive demands of scholarship in this new environment are here to stay. Practices that made sense in the print environment must now be reconsidered and adapted to the possibilities of digital scholarship.
The opportunities and competitive demands of scholarship in this new environment are here to stay. Practices that made sense in the print environment must now be reconsidered and adapted to the possibilities of digital scholarship:
- In an article in University Affairs, Dr. Arthur Carty, Canada’s National Science Advisor points out that there is a growing impetus for faster and wider dissemination of research outputs. “Science is increasingly international and interdisciplinary; it often crosses traditional barriers of institutions, geography, language and culture. State-of-the-art research involves creating and using data sets of unprecedented size and complexity. With the world looking to science to find solutions to global problems, the need to safeguard, evaluate and exchange information and knowledge has never been more pressing.”
- The SSHRC Consultation Framework Report also talks about emerging research environments: “Sophisticated technology is proving increasingly important, in the humanities and social sciences alike, for accessing material and for manipulating large amounts of information. In addition, leading-edge research in several disciplines is itself shaping, even generating, new technological applications.”
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- A team of renowned scientists in wide-ranging fields assembled to look at the coming transformation of science suggests that the scientific paper “will inevitably evolve in response to scientific needs and new enabling technologies.” They envision “the rise of new kinds of publications, not merely with different business models, but also with different editorial and technical approaches” serving research needs that will evolve with science itself. “These developments will not only reflect changes in the way research is done but in some cases may also stimulate them.” (Towards 2020 Science, p. 20)
- Researchers, research centers, universities and their libraries, societies, research funders — all are partners in change. Institutions are supporting digital scholarship by building and supporting modern information and technology infrastructures. Around the world, researchers are exploring new pathways to knowledge.
- While it is important to retain the best elements of our legacy, many old ways are yielding to new norms and new opportunities brought by digital scholarship.
- To explore how scholarly communication is adapting to these changes, visit New Modes.