Pub+Lab: Study And Experiment On A Scholarly Communication Mechanism Integrating Scholarly Publishing With Research Lifecycle

In traditional scholarly communication,the "informal ones" during research and the "formal ones" represented by commercial or scientific publishing were separated from each other.Therefore,the ideal mechanism of “research creating communication and then communication promoting research” was not fully established.The multiinteractive communication was fragmented and even isolated.With the development of digital contents and information networks,the new models of scholarly information dissemination represented by Open Access(OA)and social media(Twitter,Facebook,Linked In,Research Gate,Weibo,We Chat,etc.)have emerged,which significantly improved the scope,abundance and interaction of scholarly communication.At present,nearly all research elements can be digitally characterized,labeled,revealed,published,and correlated,which are the natural objects of communication.Most scientific research processes could be digitally organized,described,managed and related to other elements.This will profoundly change our understanding of the scholarly communication.It is very difficult for the traditional and digital scholarly publishing to work with the scientific research communities,as well as the rich information resources and interactions among them.Meanwhile,it is difficult to effectively track sources of published research elements.It is also hard to present the relevant research elements' evolution,as well as connect research communities and related resources.The traditional academic publishing mechanism cannot become a reliable support for scientific discovery,research management,and research quality control.Therefore,it is necessary to build new scholarly communication systems according to the evolution of research and the change of the scientific communication.This study will also explore the techniques for such mechanism's embedding,integration,convergence community,and support management.Finally,This study will conduct experiment on the possible roadmap from existing mechanisms to the new ones.The main achievements of this paper include the following four parts.(1)Analyzing needs of scholarly communicationIn the digital scientific environment,"formal communication" and "informal communication" are integrating,while the "explicit communication" and "hidden communication" are complementary to each other.Meanwhile,the explicit communication and non-explicit iterative feedback are closely combined.Openness,collaboration,as well as effective quality control and rights management are the basis of communication.Thus,this study proposed a multi-integration,multi-directional embedded scholarly communication model,which provided intrinsic,convenient,efficient and gradually intelligent support for this new communication mechanism.The proposed model is much needed by the research process systems,and research community or academic publishing platforms.Based on the current and future digital research and open scientific environment,this study analyzed the needs and behaviors of scholarly communication throughout the research lifecycle.This study also examined the whole process of digital research and their elements(plan,process,method,tool,material,etc.).This study investigated various mechanisms from domestic and foreign institutions,research communities and sci-tech publishers.This study also studied "scholarly communication needs based on the lifecycle of research" through focus group interviews.Through the system dynamics method,this study analyzed the key obstacles facing scholarly communication,which provided the basis for establishing the new model.(2)The Pub + Lab scholarly communication mechanismThe scholarly communication mechanism supporting the above-mentioned exchanges of research information can be explored from the perspectives of platforms for research process management,research community exchange,and academic publishing.This study proposed a new scholarly communication mechanism:Publishing + Laboratory(Pub + Lab).It focuses on the research community,and integrates publishing into research lifecycle,aiming to embed scholarly communication into the research process.Pub + Lab model transforms the scientific journals from knowledge carriers into knowledge tools.It also helps publishing platforms provide more support to research rather than content sharing.Thus,this study removed the existing barriers between academic publishing and research,and connected scholarly communication to scientific research groups' knowledge creation.(3)Design description norms for research elementsThis study analyzed the research elements from different stages of research lifecycle and designed description norms for them.They were constructed based on information management systems for scientific projects,research registration mechanism,and scientific data management plan,etc.From the perspective of scientific journal,this paper studied the relationship between the knowledge elements of articles and research.This study also established the structured description of these articles based on research elements,which transformed the traditional journals to structured knowledge platforms throughout the whole research lifecycle.(4)Implement the Pub+Lab platform for scholarly communicationThis study created the structure and the functional modules of the Pub+Lab system,aiming to build a multi-integration,multi-directional embeddable scholarly communication model.With the help of the description norms,the new system recommended relevant scientific journal articles for various research elements.The Pub+Lab platform promotes the interaction among research achievements,research elements,related projects,communities,and knowledge domains.It also improves the mining and discussion of research process and results.Therefore,the Pub+Lab platform enhances the transparency of scientific research,and further supports the fine-grained knowledge recommendation/re-use and deep knowledge mining.The expected goals of the research have been reached.