Scholarly communication is the system through which research and other scholarly writings and knowledge are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. Scholars are the owners of the system, but the Library is here to support faculty in navigating, understanding, and bringing to bear their influence to improve the system. The traditional scholarly communication system has been changing rapidly, especially with regard to publishing. Knowing where to get information is a challenge. The UCSB Scholarly Publishing and Communication Discussion List is for sharing information about the changes, trends, developments, issues and challenges that impact researchers, the Library, and the university.

The goal is to bring together UCSB faculty, graduate students, librarians, administrators, editors, peer reviewers, and publishers to raise awareness of the changes that are occurring in scholarly publishing, share experiences, and provide a space for stakeholders to imagine what they want in a scholarly communication system of the future. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • UC policies, resources and services, like the UC Open Access Policies, eScholarship, the UC Publication Management System, and the Data Management Planning Tool;
  • author rights and other issues related to managing one's intellectual property
  • innovative publishing initiatives from university presses, independent, open access and traditonal publishers;
  • open source publishing platforms, tools, and technologies, and digital schoalrship;
  • alternative metrics (altmetrics), article level metrics, other impact factors;
  • researcher IDs
  • UC statements, priorities, and related licensing agreements and strategies concerning containing costs, removing or reducing impediments to the flow and availability of knowledge, and creating a more sustainable set of economic transactions among stakeholders; and
  • the mertricization of scholars and schoarly networks.

To join the list, using the email account you want to use for the list, email openaccess@library.ucsb.edu.