Office for Scholarly Communication

Office for Scholarly Communication
Name	Office for Scholarly Communication
Type	University administrative unit
Established	varied by institution
Headquarters	often on-campus libraries or central administration
Services	scholarly publishing, open access, data management, training

Office for Scholarly Communication. The Office for Scholarly Communication is an institutional unit that coordinates scholarly publishing, open access, research data, and researcher support across universities, libraries, and research centers such as the Harvard University Harvard Library, University of California campuses, University of Oxford, Yale University, and Stanford University. It typically collaborates with entities like the Association of Research Libraries, SPARC, CrossRef, ORCID, and funders such as the National Science Foundation, Wellcome Trust, European Research Council, National Institutes of Health, and Horizon Europe to implement policies, infrastructure, and services supporting faculty, students, and staff. The office balances mandates from bodies such as the Plan S coalition, mandates by the United States Department of Education, and institutional priorities from boards like the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York and Regents of the University of California.

History and Mission

Many units emerged from collaborations among the Bodleian Library, British Library, Library of Congress, California Digital Library, and campus libraries following initiatives such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Berlin Declaration on Open Access, and reports by the Royal Society and American Council on Education. Early catalysts included technical projects at MIT Libraries, policy development at Princeton University, and advocacy from organizations like Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition and Jisc. The mission commonly emphasizes stewardship of scholarly outputs, aligning with principles from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, compliance with mandates from the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy, and support for scholarly communication frameworks exemplified by the Committee on Publication Ethics, DOAJ, and the OpenAIRE network.

Services and Programs

Offices provide publishing platforms, repository services, and copyright support, often integrating systems such as DSpace, Fedora (repository), DSpace-CRIS, Open Journal Systems, Hyrax (project), and identifiers like DOI and ORCID iD. They run programs in collaboration with campus partners including the Faculty Senate or Graduate School and units such as the Provost's Office, Office of Research, Information Services, and school libraries like Law Library or Medical Library. Typical offerings mirror services at institutions such as Cornell University, University of Michigan, University of Toronto, and University College London and include copyright advisement referencing law frameworks like the Copyright Act of 1976 and guidance consistent with rulings such as Authors Guild v. Google, Inc..

Open Access and Scholarly Publishing

Work on open access engages with initiatives and platforms including PLOS, PeerJ, eLife (journal), Springer Nature, Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, and community presses like Ubiquity Press and University of California Press. Offices negotiate transformative agreements with publishers exemplified by deals involving Project DEAL and consortia such as California Digital Library and Knowledge Unlatched, and they implement institutional repositories comparable to arXiv, bioRxiv, SSRN, and Figshare. They advise on copyright, licensing practices such as Creative Commons, and compliance with funder policies from Wellcome Trust and National Institutes of Health, while engaging with standards bodies like NISO and indexing services like Web of Science and Scopus.

Research Data Management

Programs cover data lifecycle services influenced by infrastructures such as Dataverse, Zenodo, Dryad, ICPSR, and national initiatives including European Open Science Cloud and DataCite. Offices collaborate with research offices and centers such as the Center for Open Science, National Center for Biotechnology Information, US Geological Survey, and domain repositories like GenBank and Protein Data Bank. Services address data management plans for funders including the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and European Research Council, integrating metadata standards such as Dublin Core and persistent identifiers like DOI and ROR.

Outreach, Training, and Partnerships

Training and outreach often involve workshops, consultations, and curricula delivered with partners such as Teaching and Learning Centers, Graduate Student Organizations, Academic Senate, and national networks like SPARC and Scholarly Communication Coalition. Offices host events featuring speakers from Association of College and Research Libraries, American Library Association, Ithaka S+R, Council on Library and Information Resources, and collaborate on initiatives with scholarly societies such as the Modern Language Association, American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, and American Historical Association.

Governance and Funding

Governance structures vary: some report to the Provost, others to the University Librarian or Vice President for Research and are overseen by advisory boards including faculty representatives from schools like School of Medicine, School of Law, and Business School. Funding sources combine institutional budgets, grant awards from entities like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Gates Foundation, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, revenue from publishing services, and cost-recovery agreements with departments. Policy alignment draws on model guidance from COPE, SPARC Europe, and governmental or international directives such as Plan S and funder policies from the Wellcome Trust and Horizon Europe.

Category:Academic administration