Research practices and scholarly communication in the digital environment

This paper examines changing research practices in the digital environment. A review of the literature and our own field research in Australia suggest that there is a new mode of knowledge production emerging, changing research practices and bringing new information access and dissemination needs. Adjustments will be required to accommodate these changes, but new opportunities are emerging for more cost-effective and sustainable information access and dissemination. It will be necessary, however, to take an holistic approach and treat the creation, production and distribution of scholarly information, the management of information rights and access, systems of review and evaluation and the underlying infrastructure as parts of a single research information and scholarly communication system.