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This paper aims to investigate the extent to which social networking tools had an impact on academics’ patterns of informal scholarly communication in humanities and social science disciplines. Social networking tools, reinforced by proliferation and advances in portable computing and wireless technologies, have reshaped how information is produced, communicated and consumed.

A cross-institutional quantitative study utilized an online questionnaire survey sent to 382 academics affiliated with humanities and social science disciplines in two different academic institutions: one that belongs to a Western tradition of scholarly communication in Ireland, and the other to a developing country in Oman. Descriptive interpretation of data compared findings from both universities. Frequencies, percentages and means were displayed in tables to enhance the meaning of collected data. Inferential analysis was also conducted to determine statistical significance.

Overall findings indicate progressive use of social networking tools for informal scholarly communication. There is perceived usefulness on the impact of social networking tools on patterns of informal scholarly communication. However, nearly one-third of the respondents have never used social networking tools for informal scholarly communication. Institution-based data comparison revealed no significant differences on data except for few activities of informal scholarly communication.

Given that the number of study subjects was eventually small (total = 382) and that academics by their very nature are disinclined to respond to online surveys, results of the study may suggest non-response errors, and these may impact negatively on the acceptability of inferences and statistical conclusions. The results of the study are, therefore, unlikely to be useful for generalization, but they remain suggestive of a growing tendency among humanities and social sciences’ academics to use social networking tools for informal scholarly communication.

Empirical findings provide a broad understanding about the potential of social networking tools on informal scholarly communication in areas of humanities and social sciences disciplines. Multi-disciplinary investigation and qualitative studies may further deepen our understanding of the impact of social networking tools on patterns of scholarly communication.

This study aims to understand the extent to which scholarly networks are connected both in person and through information and communication technologies, and in particular, how distance, disciplines, and motivations for participating in these networks interplay with the clusters they form. The focal point for our analysis is the Graphics, Animation and New Media Network of Centres of Excellence (GRAND NCE), a Canadian scholarly network in which scholars collaborate across disciplinary, institutional, and geographical boundaries in one or multiple projects with the aid of information and communication technologies. To understand the complexity in such networks, we first identified scholars’ clusters within the work, want-to-meet, and help networks of GRAND and examined the correlation between these clusters as well as with disciplines and geographic locations. We then identified three types of motivation that drove scholars to join GRAND: practical issues, novelty-exploration, and networking. Our findings indicate that (1) scholars’ interests in the networking opportunities provided by GRAND may not easily translate into actual interactions. Although scholars express interests in boundary-spanning collaborations, these mostly occur within the same discipline and geographic area. (2) Some motivations are reflected in the structural characteristics of the clusters we identify, while others are irrelevant to the establishment of collaborative ties. We argue that institutional intervention may be used to enhance geographically dispersed, multidisciplinary collaboration.

Investigates whether faculty who use computer mediated communication (CMC) achieve greater scholarly productivity as measured by publications and a higher incidence in the following prestige factors: receipt of awards; service on a regional or national committee of a professional organization; service on an editorial board of a refereed journal; service as a principal investigator on an externally funded project; or performance of other research on an externally funded project. Also investigates whether faculty who use CMC at less research‐oriented institutions realize disproportional benefit from their use of CMC. Data were collected in Fall 1994. A positive relationship was found between the frequency of use of CMC and publications, including coauthored publications. CMC users also had a higher incidence of prestige factors. In addition to statistically significant relationships between CMC use and productivity measures, faculty judged CMC to be of some utility to their productivity. Nevertheless, there did not appear to be a “democratizing effect” which would yield disproportionate benefit to those from less research‐oriented institutions.

E‐mail based electronic conferences (e‐conferences) and journals (e‐journals) are an increasingly popular means of communication for scholars who have access to the academic networks BITNET or Internet. This article explains the technology that allows e‐conferences to form and proliferate, presents preliminary research on scholars' use of the networks, and then examines general issues informing and moderating e‐conferences.

The paper aims to explore the way in which the internet and e‐research are changing the nature of scholarly communities and the relationship between researchers and libraries; and to suggest how librarians can become more engaged with the e‐research process.

A survey and focus groups investigating internet use by academic staff and research students at Curtin University (Western Australia) for e‐research and scholarly communication purposes. The survey questioned respondents on their formal and informal scholarly communication practices and the extent to which these have changed due to internet access. Further questions explored the extent to which respondents' use of the library had been impacted by internet access to services.

The survey and focus groups indicate that research users are positive regarding the usefulness of the internet for research purposes and for expanding their scholarly community, but their attitudes are also marked by ambivalence. In particular they report that the internet may not replace the need for some more traditional forms of scholarly communication. Respondents report making less personal use of the library, but greater use of library services.

The paper concludes with observations about changes to scholarly communities and the opportunity offered for academic librarians to develop the concept of e‐research literacy as a means of enhancing their engagement with scholarly communities.

The purpose of this paper is to report the results from a study that investigated the extent to which an intervention to develop a community of library and information science (LIS) researchers – the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project – was successful in meeting its main objective three years after its implementation. Of particular interest are factors that support or hinder network longevity.

Data were collected by online survey/telephone and focus group. From quantitative data, a social network analysis (SNA) and network diagrams were generated. Focus group discussions were recorded and transcribed, and data from these were analysed manually.

Three years after the end of its formal funding period, DREaM endured as a loose but persistent network. Social ties were more important than work ties, and network members with the highest network centrality held roles in academic institutions. Physical proximity between members was important to the maintenance of network ties. Actor status did not appear to have a bearing on network centrality.

Discussion is limited to consideration of community development amongst core members of the network only. The “manufactured” nature of the DREaM network and unique context in which it was formed have implications for the generalisibility of the findings reported.

Social infrastructure is key to the long-term health of a network initiative. Continued ad hoc support would strengthen it further.

The findings add to understanding of factors important to the development of scholarly and learning communities. They extend contributions of earlier work that has deployed SNA techniques in LIS research and research in other fields.

Long-standing traditions of long-distance collaboration and networking make scholars a good test case for differentiating hype and reality in distributed, networked organizations. Our study of Canadian scholars in the GRAND research networks finds that they function more as connected individuals and less as members of a single bounded work group, often meeting their needs by tapping into diversified, loosely knit networks. Their internet use interpenetrates with in-person contact: the more they use one, the more they use the other. Despite digital networking, local proximity is important for collaboration and seniority for inter-team and interdisciplinary boundary spanning.

In today's digital environments, online engagement is a critical component of achieving successful, sustainable impact. Building an online presence that extends beyond the walls of academia is therefore an essential part of developing as a scholar during any stage of the career span. In this chapter, we discuss career-wide approaches for establishing yourself as a “networked scholar” (Goodier & Czerniewicz, 2015) to build connections and foster communication. We also explore ways to engage your audience through open, public outputs (publications, graphics, websites, profile tools, etc.). Using the key strategies presented, scholars can build an online academic presence and increase their scholarly visibility on the web or through social media. At the core of this chapter is an exploration of how academics can develop and communicate about themselves and their research interests, to achieve their goals both in the near-term and across their career span. While the approaches presented are not prescriptive, they are intended to encourage the reader to generate a plan for online engagement that helps establish their scholarly identity. These tried and tested activities can be leveraged for engaging different audiences in research in ways that promote networked scholarship and create pathways to impact.

“Scholarly Communication” is a frequent topic of both the professional and research literature of Library and Information Science (LIS). Despite efforts by individuals (e.g. Borgman, 1989) and organizations such as the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) to define the term, multiple understandings of it remain. Discussions of scholarly communication infrequently offer a definition or explanation of its parameters, making it difficult for readers to form a comprehensive understanding of scholarly communication and associated phenomena.

This project uses the evolutionary concept analysis (ECA) method developed by nursing scholar, Beth L. Rodgers, to explore “Scholarly Communication” as employed in the literature of LIS. As the purpose of ECA is not to arrive at “the” definition of a term but rather exploring its utilization within a specific context, it is an ideal approach to expand our understanding of SC as used in LIS research.

“Scholarly Communication” as employed in the LIS literature does not refer to a single phenomenon or idea, but rather is a concept with several dimensions and sub-dimensions with distinct, but overlapping, significance.

The concept analysis (CA) method calls for review of a named concept, i.e. verbatim. Therefore, the items included in the data set must include the phrase “scholarly communication”. Items using alternate terminology were excluded from analysis.

The model of scholarly communication presented in this paper provides language to operationalize the concept.

LIS lacks a nuanced understanding of “scholarly communication” as used in the LIS literature. This paper offers a model to further the field's collective understanding of the term and support operationalization for future research projects.

Online open access (OA) to research publications comes to scholarship as a vision that makes sense and is congruent with the aims of science and scholarship. It is argued that research, often funded out of the public purse, should be a public good. Given its visionary characteristics and its congruence with the aims of scholarship, the purpose of this paper is to examine why OA is not practiced by all researchers, all the time, or more encouraged by library managers.

The findings reported in the paper are built upon analyses of the literature, the current discussion occurring in e‐lists and other public forums, and upon qualitative research using observation, document analysis, interview techniques and thematic analysis conducted as part of a PhD study in two Australian universities.

One of the universities had a long‐standing institutional mandate to encourage OA and the other did not. In terms of findings, of the universities studied, the institution with the mandate not only had a far greater proportion of its research output in its OA institutional repository but also the researchers and authors interviewed there had a deep understanding of, and engagement with, issues surrounding not just scholarly publishing but also OA and other publishing options. Further, OA and the mandate policy were reported by university executives as providing benefits both to individual researchers and to the institution as a whole.

In analyzing the relationships and entanglements that exist between authors, universities, publishers and other actors we see how these reinforce the current publishing paradigm. While proposals for mandates are not new, this paper illustrates how one is acting in practice. It proposes that despite reservations among academic library managers a mandate can work in practice. Sometimes, a new actor, such as a mandate or deposit policy is required, to assist library and repository managers, to encourage authors to look beyond their existing frames and embrace OA.