Scholarly Communication Strategic Steering Team Charge

Owned by Emily Toner
Last updated: Feb 09, 2018
2 min read

Last updated 2/5/18

Principles

Scholarly communication describes the ways that faculty and students produce and share their research and creative works, engaging with a wider community in order to advance knowledge and the broader exchange of ideas.

The introduction of new technologies has made sharing scholarly materials easier. However, due to the rising costs of academic publications, researchers and the public are often unable to access content locked behind paywalls, limiting those who can actively engage in scholarly discourses. Over the long term, these rising costs are also unsustainable for academic libraries.

Temple University Libraries believe that scholarship should be open, transparent, and reproducible and that authors should have control over the works they produce. We support the idea that everyone benefits when knowledge flows freely and that access to information is needed for a fully-functioning democratic society.

We are committed to not only making content more accessible but also empowering researchers at Temple University to better navigate the changing world of scholarship.

Team Purpose

The Scholarly Communication Strategic Steering Team is a cross-functional group of library staff who support Temple University with the production and distribution of research and creative works in both traditional and emerging information landscapes. As a team, we aim to advance open scholarship, facilitate discourse within diverse communities, and establish the Libraries as a leading authority on changes in scholarly communication within Temple University.

The responsibilities of this steering team are as follows:

  • Facilitation: We will develop a holistic understanding of scholarly communication activities within the Libraries and the university more broadly in order to make connections for faculty, students, and researchers, improve communication, and reduce duplication of effort.
  • Coordination: We will provide support to the Libraries’ working groups, helping them to identify goals, develop policies, measure success, and collaborate with others in the scholarly communication sphere.
  • Education: We will foster education and outreach on scholarly communication topics for Temple University.
  • Strategic Planning: We will identify areas of need and anticipated future growth within the evolving scholarly communications landscape at Temple.

Goals & Objectives

To enable this, the team will work toward the following objectives in 2018.