Recommendations to Campus Leaders A number of related actions are also provided here. The scope of a university’s dissemination responsibility should not be limited to traditional forms of faculty publications. The discussion of dissemination must broaden and take into consideration all of the products of university faculty including data, analyses, new forms of scholarship, working papers, conference proceedings, monographs, journals, and creative works such as performances. Embracing responsibility for disseminating the new knowledge arising from faculty work requires individual universities to pursue both inter- and intra- institutional and collective strategies. Coordinated action can arise out of formal collaborations, but also from informal synchronization of actions at multiple institutions. Some specific institutional strategies include: Initiate a process to develop an institutional dissemination plan by explicitly evaluating existing dissemination activities, policies relating to promotion and tenure, and policies regarding faculty copyrights. For instance, charge a campus blue ribbon task force to advise the provost on key issues raised by the emergence of new forms of scholarly publishing and the gains that might be had by utilizing more effective ways of sharing the high-quality results of the processes of scholarly and creative endeavor. With this foundation, develop priorities for supporting new dissemination strategies that enhance the value of the multifaceted investments in faculty research and scholarship by promoting the broadest possible access to it. Engage departments on campus in developing fresh articulations of the crite- ria that are appropriate for judging the quality of contributions to their disci- pline, criteria that embrace emerging forms of scholarly work, where those possess the same attributes of quality and contribution to new knowledge, and do not rely solely on traditional publications and historic practices. RLI 262 4 The University’s Role in the Dissemination of Research and Scholarship—A Call to Action ( C O N T I N U E D ) FEBRUARY 2009 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC Primary Recommendation: Campuses should initiate discussions involving administration and faculty about modifying current practices and/or its intellectual property policies such that the university retains a set of rights sufficient to ensure that broad dissemination of the research and scholarly work produced by its faculty occurs.
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