The Research University Imperative to Distribute Scholarly Research

Research universities historically have relied on faculty publication for distribution of the research of their faculty.    While traditional publication routes remain important for refereeing such work, they are increasingly poor vehicles for disseminating it to academics, industry, practicing professionals and the general public.   Inclusion of faculty research in university digital archives can radically improve distribution while producing benefits for faculty, scholarship, and universities.   These benefits are magnified when faculty bodies adopt deposit mandates.

Disruptive Transformations and Open Access

The digital information revolution has dramatically shifted the underlying economics of creation and delivery of content. From recorded music to movies to the daily newspaper, business models that historically relied on control of the distribution channel to capture revenues for authors have been challenged. Scholarly communication is no exception, and conventional commercial publishers are adapting their businesses to harvest the benefits of digital transformations for their shareholders. Open Access publishing is a model that channels the benefits into broad dissemination of information to a global audience. It provides one approach to addressing the new quandary: Who will support the creation of original content when perfect reproductions are virtually “free”?