Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate scholars’ attitudes toward informal publishing and dissemination to provide a view of the challenges and advantages of using such channels. Although considerable research has been carried out in relation to peer-reviewed scholarly publishing, relatively few studies have investigated the adoption of informal scholarly communication platforms in the scholarly publishing process. Design/methodology/approach – The paper deployed a grounded theory approach using semi-structured interviews as a qualitative research tool. A theoretical sample of 40 researchers in 4 universities were interviewed to gather data regarding informal publishing, platforms, factors that affect the researchers’ decision and the use of informal channels in dissemination. Findings – Results of the interviews suggest that there is an increasing trend among researchers toward informal publishing and dissemination throughout the scholarly communication cycle. The paper shows that there ar...
['Ahmed Shehata', 'David Ellis', 'Allen Foster']
Scholarly communication trends in the digital age: Informal scholarly publishing and dissemination, a grounded theory approach