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Scholarly Communication, Open Access, and Publishing: AUC, Scholarly Communication & Open Access

This guide provides faculty, staff, and students information about the transformation in creating, distributing, providing access to, and preserving scholarly output within the academic community.

The AUC, Open Access & Scholarly Communication

The Atlanta University Center (AUC) Woodruff Library is committed to providing our faculty, staff and students the access to the "highest level of information resources" required to support their teaching, learning, and research needs.  In order to meet the needs of our AUC community, the library must balance ownership and access. Both strategies are affected by the changing landscape of scholarly communication. 

 

Open access is the ability to distribute and access scholarly research without restriction.  Scholarly communication or, the ability to produce, distribute, provide access and preserve scholarly output within the academic community has been impacted by factors which include:

 

  1. Rising costs associated with the acquisition of scholarly research
  2. Declining budgets and increased journal costs which hamper the ability to acquire research created by faculty
  3. Improved technologies to produce, distribute, access and preserve scholarly research at a sustainable level

For the Atlanta University Center community the library must assist in fostering an environment in which its primary users are familiar, engaged and enjoined in efforts to create a sustainable research marketplace.  A sustainable research marketplace ensures that the scholarly output of Atlanta University Center faculty and researchers remains accessible without limitation of cost to create, disseminate and/or access.

AUC Library Presentations

AUC Radar E-Scholarship Activity

Items which have been archived in institutional repositories such as AUC Woodruff Library’s RADAR (Repository of AUC Digital collections, Archives, and Research) enhance exposure to the research efforts of AUC faculty and students. For example, the full-text download statistics for open access journals currently on the repository are as follows:

1. Communication & Social Change

a. Full text downloads 2007-2019:  28,310
b. Full text downloads in 2018-2019:  1,386

 

2. Communications Arts Forum

a. Full text downloads 2007-2019:  4,865
b. Full text downloads in 2018-2019:  53

 

3. Endarch

a. Full text downloads 2009-2019:  7,706
b. Full text downloads in 2018-2019:  1,106
 
4. Challenge
 
a. Full text downloads 2016-2019: 7,845
b. Full text downloads in 2018-2019: 2,682
 
5. The Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center
 
a. Full text downloads 2018-2019: 5,472