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Scholarly Communication Services Toolkit

About the SCS Toolkit

Scholarly Communication Wordle

FAU Libraries Scholarly Communication Services (SCS) provides support to all FAU campuses by addressing the wide range of issues related to creating, evaluating, disseminating, and preserving the outputs of research and scholarship.  We provide face-to-face and online consultations, presentations, and events for staff, students, faculty, and campus groups.

See the tabs for content on SCS topics written for library audiences.

The purposes of the Scholarly Communication Services Toolkit are to address the following among library liaisons and staff (later referred to as 'liaisons'):

  • Describe the knowledge and skills required for liaisons to advise and engage campus constituents on scholarly communication (SC) issues.
  • Provide information on SC concepts applied to library settings.
  • Promote professional development and continuing education in SC topics.
  • Dispense up-to-date information on SC topics.
  • Create an online space for SC presentations, handouts, and other documentation.

Scholarly Communication Services Research Guides are intended to do the following for campus audiences:

  • Inform on the FAU Libraries scholarly communication services.
  • Engage the campus to incorporate SC issues in teaching, learning, research, and publishing.

Goals and Statements

Goal Categories

  • Liaison Goals:  topic knowledge and skills; professional development; advising and consulting
  • Service Goals: library activities and events; collaborations with campus units
  • Instruction/ Programming Goals: SC topics in library instruction; discipline-relevant content; developmentally appropriate topics and instruction

Scholarly Communication Professional Development

Professional development (PD) activities facilitate the knowledge and skills necessary to provide responsive services and programming to the FAU community.  PD is offered through webinars and training sessions that will include activities (discussion sessions, further readings/ self-study, etc.).  Recordings or handouts are available whenever possible; see Liaison Resources for SC Google Drive, Basecamp, and other documentation. 

PD is intended to develop the competencies of library liaisons and other engaged staff in these key areas:

  • Copyright: Fair Use, Creative Commons
  • Journal/ Research Impact: Bibliometrics and Altmetrics
  • Open Access (OA)
  • Open Education Resources (OER)
  • Researcher Profile Management
  • Funder Public Access Mandates
  • Scholarly Publishing: Publishing Cycle, Selecting a Journal, Author Rights
  • Data Management

SCS also collaborates with the Libraries' Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives.

Statements of SC Competencies and Skills

The following SC competencies and skills have been identified by leading scholarly, publishing, and academic library organizations such as the ARL/ COAR Joint Task Force on Librarian Competencies (June 2016) and the Foster Open Science Learning Objectives (February 2015).

SCS is flexible and will evolve with the needs of the library and campus community.

Roles of the SC Coordinator:

  • Liaison Goals  
    • Create professional development opportunities in competency areas for liaisons:  develop topic knowledge and skills among liaisons in order for them to provide advising and consulting services in SCS.  
  • Service Goals
    • ​Coordinate library activities and events.
    • Collaborate with liaisons, library staff, and campus units to create SC activities within the library and on campus.
  • Instruction/ Programming Goals 
    • Conduct periodic assessments of the campus environment with regard to SC issues and works with appropriate units to identify gaps in services and knowledge.
    • Inform library and campus community on issues and development with SC.
    • Identify SC topics for library instruction:  discipline-relevant content, developmentally appropriate topics.
    • Collect statistics, create assessments and submit reports for SC activities.

Roles of Liaisons:

  • Participate and engage with professional development programs.
  • Complete assigned tasks related to SC within deadlines.
  • Explore and apply SC concepts into their respective subject areas.
  • Provide educational and advisory roles on SC topics.

Liaison Leads.  One or two liaisons are designated as leads in each competency area and have the following responsibilities:

  1. Have expertise in the skill-set categories.
  2. Advise the SC coordinator in meeting service, instruction/ programming, and liaison goals.
  3. Advise on the creation of promotional and instructional materials, and content for LibGuides.
  4. Create a boilerplate presentation on the subject to be used in instruction and outreach.