(29 Jan 2024) The scholarly publishing sector is undergoing its second digital transformation. In the first, we saw a massive shift from paper to digital, but otherwise publishing retained many of the characteristics of the print era. In this current second digital transformation, many of these structures, workflows, incentives, and outputs are being revamped in favor of new approaches that bring tremendous opportunities, and also non-trivial risks, to scholarly communication.
In a report published today, with funding from STM Solutions and six STM members, we argue that a robust, nimble, and shared infrastructure is imperative to support the vital work of scholarly communication and effectively and efficiently meet the emerging service needs of different stakeholders. In the report, we review several key categories of existing infrastructure, such as identifiers and enterprise publishing systems, and offer recommendations about how they can be improved to address key needs. In addition, we identify several categories where new forms of shared infrastructure should be developed, offering specific recommendations for each, including
- to address the growing atomization of the scholarly article,
- to ensure the trustworthiness of the scholarly record,
- to enable deeper meaning to be drawn from research outputs,
- to address new business models, and
- to provide an alternative system for scholarly communication.
Ithaka S+R has the report and summary here.
