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What Is Scholarly Communication?
Scholarly communication is the process through which researchers and academic communities create, share, evaluate, preserve, and discuss research and knowledge. It includes formal publications such as journal articles and academic books, as well as other ways researchers communicate, collaborate, and exchange ideas.
For Afropus, scholarly communication provides important context for understanding how African research moves between researchers, institutions, journals, disciplines, and wider research communities. Afropus focuses on making these areas of African scholarship easier to discover and explore.
What Does Scholarly Communication Include?
Scholarly communication covers many activities and forms of academic exchange.
These can include:
- Publishing research in academic journals
- Writing and sharing research papers
- Presenting research at conferences
- Sharing findings through academic books and chapters
- Discussing research with other scholars
- Collaborating on research projects
- Sharing research data and other research outputs
- Referencing and building on previous research
- Preserving scholarly publications and records
Some forms of scholarly communication are formal and published, while others happen through academic discussions, conferences, networks, and research communities.
How Does Scholarly Communication Work?
Scholarly communication is an ongoing process rather than a single publishing event.
A researcher may develop an idea, conduct research, discuss preliminary findings with colleagues, present the work at a conference, and eventually publish the research in an academic journal. Other researchers may then read, reference, critique, or build upon the published work.
Universities, research institutions, academic journals, publishers, libraries, scholarly societies, and research platforms all contribute to this process in different ways.
The process allows knowledge to move between researchers and across academic communities.
Why Is Scholarly Communication Important?
Research has greater value when other people can find it, understand it, discuss it, and build upon it.
Scholarly communication helps researchers:
- Share new findings and ideas
- Engage with existing research
- Receive feedback from other scholars
- Develop research collaborations
- Build academic knowledge
- Preserve a record of research
- Connect with wider research communities
It also allows research to develop over time. New studies can respond to earlier findings, challenge existing assumptions, or introduce different perspectives.
Scholarly Communication and African Scholarship
African researchers participate in scholarly communication across many disciplines and research communities. Research is shared through academic journals, universities, research institutions, conferences, books, repositories, and other channels.
However, African scholarship can be difficult to discover when information is distributed across different publishing and institutional environments.
This makes research discovery an important part of the wider scholarly communication process.
Afropus is being developed with this challenge in mind. Its focus on African journals, researchers, institutions, research publications, topics, and disciplines provides a structured environment for exploring different parts of African scholarship.
Scholarly Communication at Afropus
Afropus is a new index for African scholarship, designed around the discovery of research and the connections between different parts of the scholarly landscape.
Its planned index includes:
- Academic journals
- Research papers
- Researchers
- Research institutions
- Topics
- Disciplines
The index is intended to cover scholarship across five African regions and 55 jurisdictions.
This makes Afropus relevant to scholarly communication because the platform can help users discover the research, people, institutions, and publications involved in the exchange of academic knowledge across Africa.
How Afropus Supports Scholarly Discovery
Scholarly communication depends partly on researchers being able to find work that is relevant to their interests.
A researcher studying a particular topic may need to identify relevant publications, researchers, institutions, and journals. A student may need to find scholarly literature for a research project. An institution may want to understand the research being produced within a particular field.
Afropus provides an African-focused research discovery framework for exploring these different types of information.
Its role is not to replace academic journals, publishers, libraries, or research institutions. Instead, it provides another layer through which information about African scholarship can be organised and discovered.
Scholarly Communication and Academic Journals
Academic journals are one of the most established channels for scholarly communication. They provide a formal publication environment where researchers can communicate findings and engage with existing literature.
Journal articles also create records that can be referenced by other researchers.
For Afropus, academic journals are an important part of its planned index. Journal information can be explored alongside the researchers, institutions, topics, disciplines, and research publications connected to African scholarship.
Scholarly Communication and Research Collaboration
Scholarly communication is closely connected to research collaboration.
Researchers communicate with colleagues to develop ideas, discuss findings, exchange methods, and work on joint projects. These relationships can lead to co-authored publications, conferences, research networks, and longer-term academic partnerships.
By making researchers, institutions, publications, and research topics easier to discover, platforms such as Afropus can provide useful context for understanding the broader relationships within African research.
Scholarly Communication and Research Discovery
Research discovery is one part of scholarly communication.
A research paper cannot contribute effectively to wider academic discussion if the people who need it cannot find it. Likewise, researchers may miss opportunities to connect with relevant scholars when information about their work is difficult to discover.
Afropus focuses specifically on this discovery layer. By organising information about African scholarship, it can help users find research and understand the people, institutions, journals, and subjects connected to it.
Scholarly Communication and Research Metadata
Metadata helps describe and organise scholarly information.
For a research publication, metadata may include the title, authors, institutional affiliations, publication date, journal, abstract, keywords, DOI, and other identifying information.
Consistent metadata makes scholarly works easier for research platforms, libraries, indexes, and databases to identify and organise.
For Afropus, structured metadata is therefore relevant to its broader goal of making African scholarship easier to discover.
Scholarly Communication and Open Access
Open access is another important part of scholarly communication. It refers to research that is made available to readers without requiring traditional subscription access.
Open access can increase the accessibility of scholarly work, although access conditions vary between publications and platforms.
Afropus’s role is different. It focuses on research discovery and indexing, helping users find information about African scholarship rather than serving as a publisher or repository for all of the research it indexes.
Why Scholarly Communication Matters for Afropus
Afropus exists within a wider scholarly environment where researchers create knowledge, institutions support research, journals publish findings, and academic communities engage with that work.
Scholarly communication connects all of these activities.
By focusing on research discovery across journals, researchers, institutions, publications, topics, and disciplines, Afropus can help make the African scholarly landscape easier to navigate.
The goal is not simply to make individual research records visible. It is to make it easier for users to find and understand the wider body of scholarship being produced across Africa.
FAQs
What is scholarly communication?
Scholarly communication is the process through which researchers and academic communities create, share, evaluate, preserve, and discuss research and knowledge.
What are examples of scholarly communication?
Examples include journal articles, academic books, conference presentations, research papers, research data, academic discussions, citations, research collaborations, and other forms of knowledge exchange.
Why is scholarly communication important?
It allows researchers to share findings, engage with existing knowledge, receive feedback, develop collaborations, and build upon the work of other scholars.
How does Afropus relate to scholarly communication?
Afropus is an African research discovery and indexing platform being developed to make African scholarship easier to find and explore. Its planned index includes academic journals, research papers, researchers, institutions, topics, and disciplines.
Is scholarly communication the same as scholarly publishing?
No. Scholarly publishing is one part of scholarly communication. Communication also includes conferences, research discussions, collaboration, data sharing, citations, and other ways researchers exchange knowledge.
Does Afropus publish academic research?
No. Afropus is a research discovery and indexing platform, not an academic publisher. Its role is to organise and make information about African scholarship easier to discover.
Why does scholarly communication matter for African research?
It provides the channels through which African researchers share knowledge and engage with academic communities. Better discovery of that research can help more researchers find, reference, discuss, and build upon African scholarship.