What researchers told us about their experiences and expectations of scholarly communications ecosystems

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.349

Abstract

Publishers, vendors and librarians often discuss the needs of the researcher. However, it is not often that information professionals have the opportunity to sit down with a group of researchers, listen to their perspective and ask them questions. The UKSG One-Day Conference held in London in November 2016 offered such an opportunity with a panel session of researchers chaired by Charlie Rapple of Kudos.

The researchers shared with us their frustrations about scholarly communications ecosystems and their ideas for improvements. A major source of frustration is the need for academics to publish, and publish well, to keep their jobs and progress. In doing so, they face what seem to be often insurmountable obstacles that they feel powerless to address or change. Themes of the session were the lack of incentives to peer review and join editorial boards, the role of social networking sites, open access and collaboration with libraries.

The researchers who so generously gave us their time are Professor Andy Miah (University of Salford), Dr Mícheál Ó Fathartaigh (Dublin Business School) and Dr Sabina Michnowicz (Hazard Centre, University College London). 

Author Biography

Lorraine Estelle, COUNTER Project Director, UK

Lorraine Estelle began her career in the publishing industry before moving to Jisc in 2002. There she became CEO of Jisc Collections, the UK's academic library consortium. There she also conceived and led a number of research projects including the National e-books observatory project. She successfully won funding to develop a number of shared national services for UK academic sector including the Journals Usage Statistics Portal and Jisc Historic Text. She joined COUNTER as Director in the summer of this year, where she is focused on improving the utility of the COUNTER Code of Practice. Lorraine is also co-editor of Insights: the UKSG journal.

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Published

2017-03-10