Libraries
 

Scholarly Communication

Informed by a larger movement to re-envision scholarly communication, IU Libraries are working in conjunction with the IU Digital Library Program and University Information Technology Services to direct new models of the creation, evaluation, distribution, and preservation of research and scholarship. These models are based on open access, digital publishing, and a move towards interdependent and self-sustaining publishing platforms by colleges and universities. IU scholars are encouraged to understand their author rights and modify publishers' copyright agreements where necessary.

Major IU projects include IUScholarWorks, which maintains an institutional repository and hosts open access journals, and the Digital Library Program's numerous open access digital collections.

How you can support new models of scholarly communication
IU faculty and students, as producers and consumers of research at a major research institution, have an enormous impact on the scholarly communication system. The publishing decisions that scholars make shape the future of scholarly communications.
To increase the accessibility and impact of your research, you can:

  • Understand publisher copyright policies before submitting your work. This will let you know if you can legally archive pre-prints or post-prints in a repository. These policies can easily be checked by journal title or publisher name by visiting the University of Nottingham-maintained SHERPA/RoMEO database. You can browse self-archiving policies by journal at e-prints.org.
  • Negotiate your contract or transfer only certain rights. Copyrights usually come bundled, so that all rights to your work are transferred to the publisher. If you want to use your work in a classroom, post your work on your website, or self-archive your work, you will probably need to specify these terms in your contract. You can generate a custom addendum from the Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine.
  • Explore new publishing models such as open access repositories and journals. Alternative publishing venues provide unrestricted access to your work and a quicker turn-around, both of which increase its impact. Most of these venues provide peer-review or other quality control methods and are responsible for the preservation of your work.
  • Support journals dedicated to reasonable copyright and price models by citing and publicizing them. You can ask your department's collection manager to help you identify these titles or you can look up individual prices in Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory (access licensed through IU).
  • Support open access journals by citing and publicizing them. You can find a list of open access journals at the Directory of Open Access Journals.
  • Deposit your work in an open access repository. Find a relevant repository at The Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), and deposit your work in IU's institutional repository, IUScholarWorks Repository. These repositories are searchable through the repository search engine, Google Scholar, and OAIster, the Open Archives Initiative’s union catalog of digital resources.