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Outline – Synergies Business and Sustainability Plan Rowland Lorimer 1 of 11
Outline – Synergies Business and Sustainability Plan
Outline – Synergies Business and Sustainability Plan .................................................................................... 1
Executive Summary: ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Synergies in a Global Nutshell ....................................................................................................................... 2
The Changing Nature of Scholarly Communication ...................................................................................... 2
Synergies Specifics ......................................................................................................................................... 3
From Services to Catalyst ............................................................................................................................... 4
Current Realities in Scholarly Communication: An Environmental Scan ...................................................... 5
Emerging Technological Capacity of the Synergies Project .......................................................................... 6
Reorganization of Financial Support .............................................................................................................. 6
Addressing Organizational Challenges in Support of Journal Publishing ...................................................... 7
SSHRC support .......................................................................................................................................... 7
University, research institute, and learned society support ........................................................................ 7
Library participation as users and hosts ..................................................................................................... 7
Journal participation .................................................................................................................................. 8
A Committee for the Restructuring of Scholarly Communication in Canada ................................................ 8
The NSSHRC 3 Mandate ................................................................................................................................. 8
NSSHRC 3 Membership and Operations ......................................................................................................... 9
A Proposed Agenda for Negotiations ........................................................................................................... 10
Executive Summary:
This document outlines a framework for the creation of an accessible electronic
repository of Canadian social science and humanities research with specific emphasis on
the adaptation of scholarly journals to current and future technological changes in journal
publishing, dissemination, and access. It outlines the nature of the Synergies project and
the organizational changes needed to take full advantage of the catalytic potential
inherent in Synergies initiatives. The paper concludes with a proposed for moving
forward.
Digital realities provide enormous opportunity for research dissemination; however,
achieving the full benefits of those realities requires a reorganization of the publishing
infrastructure inclusive of both production and consumption. By encouraging journals to
shift to electronic media as a primary means of dissemination, and by extending the roles
of libraries to include electronic publishing services and universal access, a public system
can be created that will maximize service to the research community and the general
public.
A key component of that research dissemination system is Synergies, a national research
platform representing a $12 million investment by federal and provincial agencies in
collaboration with a number of universities. Synergies offers world-recognized journal
publishing software and a national database of Canadian social science and humanities
research complete with query tools that have the potential to make Canadian social
science and humanities research publicly available, worldwide.
To achieve the goal of worldwide public access to Canadian SSH research requires
oncerted action by stakeholders and the re-allocation of existing funding. It requires the
continuation of SSHRC support; a slight enhancement of support provided by universities
to resident journals; continued support of journal publishing by scholarly societies and
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