Scholarly Communication is usually understood to be about the way academics publish their research, and the way researchers get access to it.

For the purposes of this Institute, we’re defining it more broadly. New technologies have radically changed how scholars get access to information, analyze it, transform it into knowledge, share insights, influence policy, and contribute to broader understandings and uses of the issues they study. In addition to simply communicating research, we think of it as an opportunity to engage with people outside of the academy, to learn from each other, and to produce work that is mutually beneficial.

We encourage participants in the Institute to think about scholarly communication as involving all of these processes, and including creators, contributors, collaborators, and audiences beyond the academy. We encourage participation from people who may not usually see themselves as doing “scholarly communication” per se, but who are teachers, students, authors, readers, researchers, journalists, artists, or anyone else who creates, interprets, transforms, or communicates knowledge to broad audiences. If in your work or daily life you interact with scholarship in any of these ways, then you should consider yourself a potential participant in this program.