A little under a year ago this was posted on the Library and IT News blog (see original post here). Now the team is up to full strength, we’re working on the final few pages worth of content for our new website and deciding on refreshments for our launch event taking place in a few weeks’ time.
Background: what is it?
The aim of an Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC) is to provide a one-stop shop for supporting academic staff and researchers in maximising the impact, in the widest sense, of their work. It includes information about academic and non-academic outlets, open access, research data, social media, public engagement, and alternative publishing platforms.
What will it do?
Harvard, Princeton and Columbia, all have an established Office for Scholarly Communication.
In the UK a number of universities are considering how to increase impact through new models of scholarly communication. Some, most notably Cambridge, have established their own Office for Scholarly Communication to streamline support for academic staff by aligning more closely their Research Office and Library functions. Kent’s Office for Scholarly Communication will create conditions for expanding global research networks, boosting Kent academic citations and increasing research profile and impact.
Who is going to be involved?
The Office of Scholarly Communications at Kent aims to create a centre for excellence in scholarly communication that is:
- highly visible
- highly accessible
- understands the needs and concerns of the academic community across all faculties
- a building block for Kent’s inclusive, supportive and positively disruptive research environment.
Based in the Templeman Library, the Office for Scholarly Communications is hosted by Information Services. It will bring together members of Research Services and Information Services, who will contribute to the office alongside their regular roles.
There will also be two new roles created: a Head of Scholarly Communication, and a Scholarly Communication Administrator.
What does it mean for you?
Not only will the OSC create a single point of contact for researcher support. It will also free up staff to better support you on an individual basis by simplifying processes and removing duplication of effort between teams.
The OSC will also be able to support you to achieve best practice in Research Data Management, public engagement, and open access, as well as helping you to raise the profile of your academic outputs, build your research network, and maximize your research impact.