Version 0.15 October 2012 (working draft)
The Pathways are being redeveloped. Resulting from the Global CIARD Consultation in 2013, the Pathways structure and content are undergoing substantial change. Watch this space for ongoing developments
Intended audience: Information/IT managers/professionals, researchers, research managers
Introduction
The world of digital information management has enabled the online collection of research outputs of many types. Research publication in journals represents the primary form of scientific communication of the last 350 years and still has great significance in research communities. However, that picture is changing now. Different types of output are created as part of, or are the aim of, a piece of research or larger body of work. They may be: peer reviewed journal articles; review articles; books, book chapters, or other sub-units of books; ‘grey’ material, including theses, conference papers and presentations; reports from government, business and institutional research; maps and images; learning objects of various sorts; and, increasingly, raw data. All of these can now be captured digitally and put to work.
There are different ways in which these digital research outputs can be captured, made accessible, and shared with existing and new audiences. If this is not being done effectively the potential usefulness of the information is being lost – information needs to be shared to be useful. Further, developments in the areas of interoperability of, and relationships between, different types of information and data are bringing new possibilities to information management and sharing.
This Group of Pathways introduces the user to the ways in which research information and data can be collected and made more available and accessible.