Changing styles of informal academic communication in the age of the web. Orthodox, moderate and heterodox responses

Published date11 September 2017
Pages825-842
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2016-0083
Date11 September 2017
AuthorAhmed Shehata,David Ellis,Allen Edward Foster
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet
Changing styles of informal
academic communication
in the age of the web
Orthodox, moderate and heterodox responses
Ahmed Shehata
Department of Library and Information Science, Minia University, Minia,
Egypt, and
David Ellis and Allen Edward Foster
Information Studies, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study to investigate the changes in
scholarly communication practices among a group of scholars in the UK and build upon the resultsthat were
published in a previous paper.
Design/methodology/approach The study deployed a naturalistic inquiry approach using semi-structured
interviewsas a qualitative researchtool. A sample of 40 participants fromfour UK universities wasinterviewed
to explore thechanges in informal scholarly communication behaviour.
Findings The analysis of the interviews revealed that there are three ideal types of behaviour: the
orthodoxuses formal and traditional scholarly communication approaches; the moderateprioritises
formal communication approaches, but at the same time is trying to get benefits from informal channels; and,
the Heterodoxuses all channels available in the scholarly communication.
Originality/value The value of the current study lies in usi ng a naturalistic inquiry appr oach to
investigate the chang es in scholarly communic ation practices, and t o explore the different s cholarly
communication styles . In the context of this study, the use of a n aturalistic approach and grounde d theory
principles in connect ion with coding provided a stance that allo ws for the gathering of rich information t o
enable understandin g and explanation of schol arly communication ac tivities in addition to un covering
themes that related to sc holarly behaviour.
Keywords Scholarly communication, Scholarly publishing, Social web, Information seeking,
Informal communication, Scholarly collaboration
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In the past two decades, the scholarly communication process has changed significantly.
An increasing number of researchers are using Web 2.0 applications to communicate with
other researchers, collaborate with peers, publish and disseminate their research among
scholarly community. In the past, researchers were restricted to journal papers, faculty
hallways, and conferences to communicate and share knowledge. However, modern
communication technologies changed how they communicate, blurring the boundaries
between formal and informal communications, allowing them to share their research with a
huge number of scholars without restrictions.
Scholarly commu nication is defin ed as 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(Association of College and Research
Libraries, 2006). While many definitions have been provided to explain the scholarly
communication process, all of them categorised the scholarly communication process
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 73 No. 5, 2017
pp. 825-842
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-06-2016-0083
Received 21 June 2016
Revised 18 February 2017
Accepted 25 February 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
825
Orthodox,
moderate and
heterodox
responses
into two activities: formal and informal communication (Garvey and Griffith, 1971;
Barjak, 2006; Martin, 2014):
Formal scholarly communication is the published material that has been reviewed
by peers, edited by publishers, and is retrievable through various information
systems(Pikas, 2006, p. 5). It allows researchers to create, disseminate, review,
evaluate and retrieve scholarly work. Therefore, scholars and scientists carry out
several physical and intellectual activities to achieve these goals. These activities
include searching, collecting, reading, writing, and collaborating (Regazzi, 2015, p. 8;
Palmer et al., 2010).
Informal scholarly communication describes the communication activities that
happen between researchers outside the formal means of communication, such as
scholarly journals or conferences (Pikas, 2006). This interaction happens in many
ways. For instance, informal communication could happen face-to-face, by telephone,
fax, post, electronic mail, personal websites (blogs), conferences meetings, e-mail lists
and even through social networks available on the internet. Informal channels differ
from the formal ones in that they allow more interaction between the transmitter of
the information and the receiver, which is difficult in formal channels (Russell, 2001).
The obvious benefit of informal communication is that it can help to identify a
suitable research idea and hypothesis, define the research approach, refine the
findings, and put them in the context of other research (Mahmood et al., 2009).
Amidst a background of new scholarly communication channels, and the huge number of
papers that discuss scholarly communication on the social web, it is notable that few
researchers have investigated changes in the balance of approaches used in scholarly
communication. The current study attempts to give a better view of the changes in research
practices and scholarly communication practices.
Scholarly communication models
A number of models of scientific communication have been developed over the years.
The earliest model was that of Garvey and Griffith (1972). This model was considered by
practitioners on the field to be applicable across both the physical and social sciences as it
provides details of the stages of scholarly communication within a time frame, starting from
initiating the research, to the integration of the research as an accepted component of
scientific knowledge. At the end of the century, a study by Roosendaal and Geurt (1998)
explored the forces that play a role in allowing the description of the scholarly
communication dynamics of the market. The study also analysed the change from the
traditional linear scientific information chain to the network form. In addition, the study
identified four main functions of scientific scholarly communication which are registration,
awareness, certification, and archive.
The millennium saw increasing interest in scholarly communication models. Hurds
(2000) model which included both modernised and transformed features. This model
considered the effect of the internet and the digital environment in the process of scholarly
communication. The study claimed that behavioural and organisational determinants are
important factors in shaping the future of scholarly communication. The UNISIST model
was also one of the earliest models in scholarly communication literature, which described
the scholarly communication process through traditional channels. Sùndergaard et al. (2003)
presented a revision of this model in 2003. This study found that there is a need to revise the
old model because of the developments in electronic communication, which were not
included in the earlier model. They proposed that there is a need to compare and
emphasise the scholarly communication practice within the humanities and social sciences,
as the UNISIST model has only covered scientific and technical communication as a whole.
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