The Diminishing Importance of the Article: An Overview of the Emerging Modular, Multi-modal Research Landscape

The formal, peer-reviewed scholarly article is declining in importance to many scholars and researchers—and especially to their funders. Increasingly, research needs to be communicated on an ongoing basis throughout the research lifecycle. The surge in preprints is a manifestation of this trend. New formats are emerging, such as the new NISO Content Profile/Linked Document format, that facilitate publishing research in smaller, more frequent chunks and incorporating the research data, software, protocols, results, and other important components of the research that have become essential to enable thorough review and replication. Multimodal publication, incorporating videos, 3-D imaging, animation, and other advanced technologies, has become invaluable in communicating some types of research. And platforms have been developed that enable real-time collaboration throughout the research process. This session will provide a broad overview of this new research landscape and a discussion of its potential ramifications, such as the reconceptualization of authority and tenure.

Foundational: Focus on awareness and relaying information; appropriate for those with limited experience of the subject seeking introductory understanding of the content area(s).