Scholarly Communication is, "the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. The system includes both formal means of communication, such as publication in peer-reviewed journals, and informal channels, such as electronic listservs.” (Association of College & Research Libraries, “Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication 1,” 2003).
While publishing may be the most prominent form of scholarly communication, it is important to know that the scholarly communication system and the publishing cycle encompass much more than publishing a work, such as a work's preservation, its reuse, and the manner in which the work is evaluated for quality (e.g. through peer review). Scholarly Communication also includes informal discussions of scholarship that may take place over listservs, blogs, or social media channels.
Image credit: ACRL Scholarly Communication Toolkit (http://acrl.libguides.com/scholcomm/toolkit/), Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
