This Research Report studies an often-neglected market segment, that of small businesses. An online survey and individual interviews were conducted in June 2009, to explore the importance of information in research journals, level of use, quality of access provision, and suggestions for improvement. Users in larger businesses and in higher education were also surveyed for...

The aim of this project was to examine the costs and benefits of three alternative models for scholarly publishing - subscription publishing, open access publishing and self-archiving. The project involved two major phases: • Phase I: Identification of costs and benefits – sought to describe the three models of scholarly publishing, identify all the dimensions...

What happens to academic freedom in contemporary higher education institutions and systems, particularly those of the Westminster type (UK, Australia, New Zealand) asks Simon Marginson. The paper begins by identifying the constituents of academic freedom, here designated as academic self-determination, operating at the level of individual practices in academic units. The paper then considers the...

The environment in which research is being conducted and disseminated is undergoing profound change, with new technologies offering new opportunities, changing research practices demanding new capabilities, and increased focus on research performance. A key question facing us today is, are there new opportunities and new models for scholarly communication that could enhance the dissemination of...

This SPARC discussion paper proposes a federation of discipline-specific publishing cooperatives as an alternative operating model for society publishers. Publishing cooperatives would be owned, capitalized, and controlled by nonprofit publishers as users, with publishers sharing risks and benefits proportional to their use of the cooperative.