What is Scholarly Communication?

Rowland (1997) outlines four functions of a scholarly journal in general; such criteria also describe a scholarly nursing journal:

• Dissemination of information
• Quality control
• The canonical archive
• Recognition of authors

Although the first of these functions is the most obvious, it is not the most important. More important than the dissemination of information is that we maintain quality control of the information through peer review, that can be organized into an archive to provide direction for a discipline. This quality control is assured through the peer review process. Individuals in any field of human activity must go thorough rigorous work to provide a theoretical base for practice. Writing up the results to make them available to others in the field is essential. Such works are usually considered research based but may also include those by practitioners. These individuals may present observations in a speculative, inductive manner to generate hypotheses or change the frame of reference for looking at established procedures. In the end. in any clinical practice. established procedures must be based on reliable and available information that that has been accumulated in a rigorous manner. Only then is safe nursing or any clinical practice possible.

Those of us in academia live with the "publish or perish" reality.

The fourth function of scholarship outlined by Rowland (1997) is an important one for nurses in academia. Those of us in academia live with the "publish or perish" reality. Academics depend on publishing for promotion and tenure and career advancement in general. Clearly there is a pecking order for journals and individuals are expected to publish in those journals pertinent to their respective field. Today academicians are expected to be researchers so that publication in scholarly research journals (print or ejournals) is essential for viability as an academician. These individuals will continue to submit articles to those research journals considered prestigious.

In November of 1998, the American Nurses Association (ANA) conducted an informal survey at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) meeting in Washington, D.C. This organization is made up of Deans from the various colleges of nursing across the country. Forty-one deans were randomly sampled. What follows are the questions asked and the responses given:

• Do you read articles from any "online" journals? Yes: 31 (76%)
• Would you publish in an "online" journal? Yes: 32 (78%)
• Would you publish in a print over an "online" journal? Yes: 26 (64%)
• Within your University,does a print journal carry the same prestige as publishing in an "online" journal? Yes: 22 (54%)

Although this was an informal survey (a more complete and rigorous study is reported by Schloman later in this issue) and we do not claim scientific rigor here, the findings do show a general impression that deans have of online journals compared to print journals. In sum, over two thirds of these deans read online articles and would publish in an online journal. However, nearly two thirds would publish in a print journal over an online journal and believe that the online journals carry less prestige within their university in relation to promotion and tenure.

ANA also asked "why" these evaluations were given. Overall, the reasons were twofold: the impression by deans that print journals were peer reviewed while online journals were not; and that print journals were indexed in Medline and Index Medicus while online journals were not. These two criteria for scholarship are consistent with the literature. The curious nature of the finding, however, is the impression that online journals are not peer reviewed or indexed in the traditional classification for scholarly works. No mention was made by the deans of the "degree of scholarship of content" of online compared to print journals.

Living in an academic community, our own impression is consistent with the deans. view that the prestige of online journals carries less weight for promotion and tenure in academic settings. Our interpretation is that the newness of online journals precludes enough familiarity for evaluators to make the distinction between the content of the journals and the presentation media. Secondly, the ease with which a webpage can be developed has resulted in a plethora of webpages and publications on the Internet by authors with great unevenness in authority, objectivity, accuracy, and knowledge. It is difficult for scholarly publications to be seen in a different light than the pack of unscholarly, informational publications. Thus, it is essential that websites be evaluated and critiqued for use by scholars. One form for criteria for web evaluation has been developed by Dr. Barbara Schloman and can be found at www.library.kent.edu/internet/criteria.htm . More information on web evaluation can be found in the OJIN Information Resources Column on evaluation (www.nursingworld.org/ojin/infocol/info_1.htm).

This paper concentrates on scholarly journals only. Consistent with the literature, we use a broad definition of a scholarly journal that has two characteristics: (1) peer review of articles and (2) referencing in the traditional nomenclature of Medlines and Index Medicus. A scholarly journal is one that uses the peer review process to filter writings with the goal of maintaining a high quality of information that is disseminated through the journal. In the "hard sciences," scholarship generally refers to the publication of verified research results. In nursing, an applied discipline, scholarship for a research journal similarly means reporting verified research results that have been deemed worthy (through a peer review process) of dissemination to the nursing research community. In this research arena, opinions are cheap while research findings are sacred and nursing has several high quality research journals that provide this dissemination of results.

The process of peer review can break down. For example, Sokal, a physicist, submitted a paper with an impressive reference list to the journal, Social Text (1996.) The editors did not notice that the paper was a parody. Sokal then admitted the deception in a subsequent paper in a different journal, Lingua Franca. His point was that the peer review process is not foolproof and the peer reviewers interpret the facts through their own culturally defined beliefs. There is no doubt that if the information in the paper coincides with the peer reviewers' own beliefs, including what the reviewer deems important, it is viewed differently than if the information disagrees with those beliefs.

Nursing, however, is a multifaceted discipline that has social, political, legal, and ethical overtones so that scholarship has a much broader meaning than just the reporting of verified research results. Within nursing there are numerous specialty journals that disseminate various types of information and opinions . sometimes based on theoretical concepts and research results and sometimes not . related to many topics. Often the targeted audience is a specialty group, if the content is limited to a specific entity such as psychiatric nursing or critical care nursing. The key indicator for all of these journals is the peer review process. Although articles are rejected through the peer review process, it is not simply a binary act of accept or reject. Rather, information is critiqued by peers, suggestions given for the work, and modifications made. Subsequent critiques may then be made to the work with further suggestions or rebuttals by readers and counter rebuttals by the original author(s). It is irrelevant in this process whether these journals are print, dual in presentation, or electronic only. And it is irrelevant whether the journal is a specialty journal or has a much wider targeted audience.

For example, OJIN is a peer reviewed "issues" journal with a very broad targeted audience including the academician, administrator, and the staff nurse. Our goal is to present issues that are common to the different types of nurses and discuss the issues from the different points of view of these nurses. Our contention is that the process of linking and exchange of facts and opinions is more efficient with an ejournal; in the sense of scholarship, it is irrelevant whether the journal medium is electronic or paper. However, we believe that an ejournal provides a medium for exchange of ideas and fluidity of knowledge that is not possible with printed journals.

The second criterion (classification) here is a function of the first.

The peer review process assures that the information...

The peer review process assures that the information in the journal is reliable and the indexing assures that the information is available. Because electronic journals are new to publishing, it is more difficult to meet the second criteria for scholarship.

We question if ejournals should meet the same criteria of print journals or should they be evaluated by new methods. If ejournals represent a new paradigm or means of disseminating knowledge, do new criteria for classification need to be developed in order to meet the new conceptual framework of the new media? Or, are the old methods inclusive enough to address the new medium? These are questions currently being addressed and debated by scholars.