Transitions in scholarly communications - a portfolio of research projects | Research Information Network

"The Research Information Network (RIN) ...[and its many partners] are now seeking to establish a joint portfolio of work to underpin and facilitate transitions over the next few years. The joint portfolio will focus intially on four projects, though more may follow. [1] E-only scholarly journals: overcoming the barriers, which will investigate the barriers...to moving to e-only publishing of scholarly journals, and ways in which those barriers might be overcome; [2] Gaps in access, which will investigate the extent to which journal articles and other research outputs are available, or not, to different parts of the research and other communities which could make use of them; and to identify priorities in seeking to fill gaps in access, barriers to filling them, and actions that might be taken to that end; [3] Dynamics of improving access to research papers, which will provide evidence for a better understanding of the dynamics of the transitions needed to reach a selection of plausible end-points, and the costs, benefits, opportunities and risks that this entails. Transition is understood to relate to changes in practice, business models and organisational culture within the relevant constituencies, and any new entrants, over defined timeframes. The end-points, to be defined in advance of the project, will be associated with four broad models: open access journals (gold OA); open access repositories (green OA); extensions to licensing; and transactional solutions....[4] Futures for scholarly communications, which will seek to develop a series of challenging scenarios for scholarly communications in ten years’ time...."