One of the key aims of the OSC is to “maximise dissemination of [your] work through academic and non-academic outlets, social media, alternative publishing platforms, specialist outputs and more”. At the OSC we are in frequent contact with researchers about their work, and their plans for communicating it. We are also aware of the new forms of publishing innovation, and, where possible, we are pointing researchers at new models that may be more appropriate for their work than those traditionally available.
In conversations beyond Kent, we are frequently hearing “Researchers don’t know about [Innovative dissemination route] so there is low uptake” and “There is nowhere for to put x because that is designed for y”. We hear statements such as “Senior Faculty are not interested in open access monographs”, “Arts, Humanities and Social Science researchers don’t care about data” and “Nothing will change until Institutions look at the reward system” From the other side we hear “My research doesn’t fit in existing structures”, “I can’t archive my work because no-one wants it” and “The language of open doesn’t fit my research”.
With this in mind, we are starting a new blog series “Innovation in Scholarly Communication”, with guest posts from both publishers (very broadly conceived) and researchers who are pushing the boundaries of scholarly communication. We hope this will form another small piece of the bridge in helping break down some of the misconceptions and presuppositions, to create a more collaborative relationship between those striving for a more open, sharing orientated research environment.
We are very happy to hear from more people, so if you’d like to write for us, do get in touch.