Scholarly Impact Metrics
What are Scholarly Communications?
Scholarly Communications was defined by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL, a division of the American Library Association) in 2003 as "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 mailing lists"
Scholarly communications in a formal manner include formats such as:
- Term Papers
- Essays
- Theses and Dissertations
- Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- Books
- Book Chapters
- Conference Presentations
- Presentation Materials
- Conference Proceedings
- Presentation or Conference Posters
- And More!
Scholarly communications in an informal manner include formats such as:
- Social Media Posts (including short form blogging platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter)
- Blog Posts
- Podcasts
- Flyers
- Newsletters
- Mailing List Items
- And More!
Scholarly Communications Lifecycle
Scholarly Communications is often represented by the cyclical nature of scholarly communications, similar to the graphic below.
- Scholarly Communications Lifecycle
This lifecycle, taken from the ACRL Scholarly Communications Toolkit, displays the typical process of formal forms of scholarly communication are produced and disseminated.
Image Attribution: ACRL Scholarly Communications Toolkit, accessed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA) license.