Scholarly Communication

We work with McMaster faculty, graduate students and researchers to assess your publishing needs and help you to understand your options in a quickly changing publishing world.

Contact the Office of Scholarly Communication

Office of Scholarly Communication

Office of Scholarly Communication

Please contact the Office if you have questions about:

What is Scholarly Communication?

"Scholarly communication is the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. The system includes both formal means of communication, such as publication in peer-reviewed journals, and informal channels, such as electronic listservs."

"One of the fundamental characteristics of scholarly research is that it is created as a public good to facilitate inquiry and knowledge. A substantial portion of such research is publicly supported, either directly through federally-funded research projects or indirectly through state support of researchers at state higher-education institutions. In addition, the vast majority of scholars develop and disseminate their research with no expectation of direct financial reward."

Association of College and Research Libraries. White Paper. Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication 1 (June 2003)

Related Services

Open Access

What is Open Access?

Open Access (OA) is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

For more information about OA, please see the library web page on Open Access.

If you have any questions about OA at McMaster, please contact the Office of Scholarly Communication.

 

Open Educational Resources

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use. Generally, this permission is granted by use of an open license (for example, Creative Commons licenses) which allows anyone to freely use, adapt and share the resource—anytime, anywhere. - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

For more information about OER, please see the Open Educational Resources (OER) LibGuide.

If you have any questions about OER at McMaster, please email oer@mcmaster.ca.