oct05b.indd


scholarly
communication


Richard Fyffe and Scott Walter 

Building a new future 
Preparing “Future faculty” and “Responsible conduct of research” 
programs as a venue for scholarly communication discussions 

What do you talk about when everyone already knows how expensive jour­
nals are? As the Pew Foundation report “To 
Publish and Perish” reminded us more than 
seven years ago, the “seemingly permanent 
imbalance between the funds accorded to 
research libraries and the volume of scholarly 
output these libraries are expected to pur­
chase and manage” is not in fact “the library’s 
problem,” but one that has developed from 
the practices and traditions of scholarly writ­
ers and readers.1 

How can campus conversations be shifted 
from the cost of journals to the benefi t of 
scholarly communication, from library to 
scholar, from consumption of scholarly in­
formation to production, and from access to 
dissemination? 

One of the purposes behind the recently 
released ACRL Scholarly Communication 
Toolkit is to move campus discussions of 
emergent developments in scholarly com­
munication beyond the issue of cost con­
tainment. Although the toolkit does contain 
talking points on the issue of skyrocketing 
journal prices, it also points the way toward 
broader discussions of changes to copyright 
law, management of personal copyrights as 
an author, and the opportunities for dissemi­
nation and preservation of scholarly work 
presented by new business models, such 
as open­access journal publishing, and new 
initiatives, such as institutional and disciplin­
ary repositories.2 

What many librarians need, however, is 
a forum in which these broader issues can 

be raised for discussion. At the University of 
Kansas (KU), we have found that one effec­
tive approach is to promote discussions of the 
scholarly communication environment among 
the graduate student and faculty audiences al­
ready coming together for regular discussions 
of their professional work through programs 
such as Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) and 
Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). 
Just as undergraduate information literacy 
initiatives have found some of their most 
important partners through campus discus­
sions of general education and writing across 
the curriculum, we have found that programs 
like PFF and RCR provide fertile ground for 
collaboration on a cluster of issues related to 
scholarly communication. 

The PFF program 
According to its Web site, the PFF program is 
“a national movement to transform the way 
aspiring faculty members are prepared for 
their careers.” Now in place for more than ten 
years, PFF initiatives have been supported by 
the Council of Graduate Schools, the Associa­
tion of American Colleges and Universities, 
the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National 
Science Foundation. With more than 300 
institutions serving either as host schools or 
partner schools, PFF is a national initiative 

Richard Fyffe is assistant dean for scholarly communi­
cation, e­mail: r fyffe@ku.edu, and Scott Walter is 
assistant dean for information and instructional services, 
e­mail: slwalter@ku.edu, at the University of Kansas 
© 2005 Richard Fyffe and Scott Walter 

C&RL News October 2005  654 

mailto:slwalter@ku.edu
mailto:rfyffe@ku.edu


aimed at helping graduate students prepare 
for the full range of faculty responsibilities, 
including teaching, research, and service.3 In 
addition, some schools have built on the PFF 
model to develop programs focused more 
specifically on preparing graduate students 
for college­level teaching, or to encourage 
graduate students to consider how their 
education might benefit them outside the 
academy through broadly conceived Prepar­
ing Future Professionals (PFP) programs. At 
KU, we are lucky to have a PFF initiative that 
is also open to students considering a career 
in research outside the academy, which might 
be called a PFF/PFP initiative.4 

Over the past year, we have twice been 
invited to address the seminar program at­
tended by active members of the PFF/PFP 
program at KU. Our most recent presentation, 
which we called “Copyright 102: Challenges 
and Changes to ‘Fair Use’ in the Electronic 
Environment,” addressed a number of the 
issues highlighted in the Scholarly Commu­
nication Toolkit, including: 

• the impact that licensing agreements 
can have on access to scholarly material that 
would have previously been protected by 
common exceptions to exclusive copyrights, 
such as the doctrine of fair use; 

• the responsibility that scholars and pro­
fessionals now have for managing their rights 
to their own intellectual property; and 

• the availability of alternatives to the 
copyright agreements provided by pub­
lishers (such as the Creative Commons 
licensing models5 and the SPARC contract 
addendum6), alternative mechanisms for 
the dissemination of scholarly work (e.g., 
open­access journals), and opportunities to 
assure both open access to scholarly work 
and responsible stewardship of intellectual 
property through the use of institutional and 
disciplinary repositories. 

Because this seminar represented an op­
portunity to discuss broader initiatives at the 
KU Libraries, we also introduced issues re­
lated to scholarly communication, such as: 

• incorporating instruction in the ethics of 
information use into future teaching; 

• planning for the preservation of digital 
information; and 

• the significance of digital media and 
open­access dissemination for the appoint­
ment, promotion, and tenure process. 

Obviously, these are topics too rich for 
substantial discussion in one or two meetings 
with future faculty and professionals, but PFF/ 
PFP is an ongoing program with the promise 
for an evolving collaboration between the KU 
Libraries and the Graduate School. 

The RCR program 
Our participation in the PFF/PFP program 
provided an entrance into another national 
initiative in graduate education and faculty 
development—the Responsible Conduct of 
Research (RCR) program. RCR is an umbrella 
term used for over a decade to describe in­
struction for graduate students in the physical 
and life sciences on a range of topics, includ­
ing: allocation of credit for scholarly work; 
data management; ethical use of human and 
animal subjects; and peer review, authorship, 
and publication.7 

KU is one of ten institutions across the 
country awarded a 2004 grant to develop 
demonstration programs in RCR education by 
the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS). Just 
as the KU Graduate School has taken a broad 
approach to the development of its PFF/PFP 
program, it has been equally inclusive in the 
development of its RCR program, which is de­
signed to appeal not only to bench scientists, 
but also to scholars in the humanities and the 
social sciences.8 Again, the local version of 
this national initiative provided an opportu­
nity for us to discuss scholarly communication 
within an established context. 

The Digital Diff erence 
For the demonstration program sponsored by 
our local CGS grant, we were invited to write 
a 70­page handbook entitled The
Digital
Dif­
ference:
Responsible
Conduct
of
Research
in
a

Networked
World and to present a seminar on 
its contents during “RCR Awareness Week.” 
Freely available through the KU institutional 
repository, KU ScholarWorks,9 The
 Digital


October 2005  655 C&RL News 



Difference
provides another example of how 
a broadly pitched discussion of scholarly 
communication issues may find an audience 
and an outlet through existing faculty devel­
opment programs. 

Divided into five chapters, the handbook 
introduces a number of issues related to in­
formation literacy instruction and education 
about the evolving landscape of scholarly 
communication, including: 

• Internet plagiarism and the integration 
of instruction in the ethics of information use 
as a foundation for the responsible conduct 
of research; 

• the impact of information technology 
on the responsible design of survey research 
and the implications for protection of privacy 
rights in the digital environment; 

• the responsible use of work whose rights 
are owned or controlled by others, including 
an overview of issues related to copyright, 
fair use, and licensing agreements; the use 
of digital images and digital representations 
of artifacts housed in museums, archives, and 
special collections; and appropriate citation 
of sources; 

• effective stewardship of intellectual 
property in the contemporary scholarly com­
munications environment, and the use of 
copyright agreements, open­access journals, 
and institutional and disciplinary repositories 
to assure broad dissemination of scholarly 
work; and 

• how to plan for the long­term preserva­
tion of scholarship that is “born digital.” 

Although the handbook was specifi cally 
designed for use as part of KU’s RCR Aware­
ness program (with reference to a number 
of local examples and resources), its use is 
governed by a Creative Commons “Share 
Alike” license so that our colleagues on other 
campuses with RCR education programs 
may adapt it for use with their own local 
audiences. 

Over the past several years, ACRL and its 
member librarians have done an effective 
job of outlining core competencies by which 
undergraduate (and graduate) students might 
demonstrate their mastery of a variety of in­

formation literacy skills. While we know that 
efforts in this arena must continue, we believe 
that our work in collaboration with KU gradu­
ate education and faculty development pro­
grams like PFF and RCR demonstrates that the 
instructional outreach model that has proven 
successful for librarians seeking to develop 
collaborative programming with campus ini­
tiatives in fi rst­year instruction, critical think­
ing instruction, and writing instruction also 
has potential for engaging a broad range of 
faculty (present and future) in discussions of 
scholarly communication. 

These discussions must transcend the col­
lective hand­wringing over journal prices that 
has defined much (though not all) of our local 
discussions of the “scholarly communication 
crisis” in order to present a multifaceted 
professional development program that can 
be embraced by our colleagues in graduate 
education, research compliance, faculty de­
velopment, and campus administration. 

The two examples described briefl y above 
are among the opportunities that we have 
pursued at KU, but both are simply local 
variants of national initiatives that can be 
found on the campuses of hundreds of ACRL 
member institutions. 

We encourage you to look carefully at the 
full scope of issues identified as germane to 
the discussion of scholarly communication in 
the Scholarly Communication Toolkit and to 
begin looking for local programs (especially 
in the areas of undergraduate research, gradu­
ate education, and faculty development) to 
which you might contribute. 

As the ACRL Scholarly Communication 
Toolkit recognizes, the question of how 
to foster changes in the scholarly commu­
nication environment must ultimately be 
addressed by teaching faculty, university 
administrators, and librarians alike. By build­
ing on the model of instructional outreach 
already established on many of our campuses 
in support of information literacy initiatives, 
we may find that the audience for this related 
discussion is simply waiting for us to ask. 

(continued
on
page
663)


C&RL News October 2005  656 



CHOICE editor: Irving Rockwood, 
Choice, 100 Riverview Center, Middletown, CT 
06457; e­mail: irockwood@ala­choice.org. 

College & Research Libraries editor: 
William Gray Potter, University of Georgia 
Libraries, Athens, GA 30602­1641; e­mail: 
wpotter@arches.uga.edu. 

College & Research Libraries News 
editor: Stephanie Orphan, C&RL
News,
ACRL/ 
ALA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611­2795; 
e­mail: sorphan@ala.org. 

New publications editor: Hugh Thomp­
son, ACRL/ALA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 
60611­2795; e­mail: hthompson@ala.org. 

P u b l i c a t i o n s  i n  L i b r a r i a n s h i p  
editor: Charles Schwartz, Florida Interna­
tional University, Green Library, Univer­
sity Park, Miami, FL 33199; e­mail: tony. 
schwartz@fiu.edu. 

RBM: A Jour nal of Rare Books, 
Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 
editor: Richard Clement, head of special 
collections, University of Kansas, Spencer 
Research Library, Lawrence, KS 66045­
2800; rclement@ku.edu . 

Resources for College Libraries 
project editor: Marcus Elmore, Choice, 100 
Riverview Center, Middletown, CT 06457; e­
mail: melmore@ala­choice.org. 

(“Building
a
new
future”
continued
from

page
656)

Notes 

1. “To Publish and Perish,” 1998. Policy

Perspectives 7, no. 4 (March 1998), www. 
arl.org/scomm/pew/pewrept.html (accessed 
April 14, 2005). 

2. ACRL Scholarly
 Communication
 Toolkit,

11 March 2005, www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues 
/scholarlycomm/scholarlycommunicationtoolkit 
/toolkit.htm (accessed March 28, 2005). 

3. Preparing Future Faculty Program, 
PFF Web—Preparing Future Faculty, www. 
preparing­faculty.org/ (28 March 2005). 

4. University of California­Santa Barbara 
Graduate Division, Certificate
in
College
and

University
 Teaching (CCUT), www.graddiv. 
ucsb.edu/academic/ccut/ (accessed March 
28, 2005); Arizona State University Division 
of Graduate Studies, Preparing
Future
Profes­
sionals,
4 January 2005, http://www.asu.edu 
/graduate/pfp/ (accessed March 28, 2005); 
University of Kansas Graduate School, KU

Preparing
Future
Faculty
(PFF)
Home
Page,

www.ku.edu/~graduate/PFF/ (accessed 
March 28, 2005). For additional program links, 
visit the PFF Web at www.preparing­faculty. 
org/PFFWeb.Like.htm. 

5. Creative Commons, www.creativecom­
mons.org (accessed April 14, 2005). 

6. SPARC, Author’s
 Addendum,
 www.arl. 
org/sparc/author/addendum.html (accessed 
April 16, 2005). 

7. For an introduction to RCR and 
RCR­related instruction, see, for example: 
Nicholas H. Steneck, ORI
 Introduction

to
 the
 Responsible
 Conduct
 of
 Research.

Washington, D.C.: Department of Heath 
and Human Services, Office of Research 
Integrity, 2004; Committee on Science, 
Engineering, and Public Policy, On
 Be­
ing
 a
 Scientist:
 Responsible
 Conduct
 in

Research
(2nd ed.), 1995, www.nap.edu 
/readingroom/books/obas/ (accessed 
March 28, 2005); and Responsible Con­
duct of Research Education Consortium, 
RCR
 Education
 Resour ces—Online
 Re­
sources
for
RCR
Instructors, rcrec.org/r/ 
index.php (accessed March 28, 2005). 

8 .  C o u n c i l  o f  G r a d u a t e 
 S c h o o l s , 

G r a d u a t e 
 E d u c a t i o n 
 f o r 
 R e s p o n s i b l e 

Conduct
 of
 Research,
 www.cgsnet.org/ 
ProgramsServices/conductresearch.htm 
(accessed March 28, 2005); University of 
Kansas Graduate School, KU
Responsible

Conduct
 of
 Research
 (RCR)
 Home
 Page,

www.graduate.ku.edu/RCR/(accessed 
March 28, 2005). 

9 .  T h e  K U  S c h o l a r Wo r k s  c a n  b e  
viewed at hdl.handle.net/1808/230. 

October 2005  663 C&RL News 

www.graduate.ku.edu/RCR/(accessed
http:www.cgsnet.org
http:www.nap.edu
http:mons.org
www.creativecom
www.preparing-faculty
www.ku.edu/~graduate/PFF
http:http://www.asu.edu
www.graddiv
http:preparing-faculty.org
www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues
mailto:melmore@ala-choice.org
mailto:rclement@ku.edu
mailto:schwartz@fiu.edu
mailto:hthompson@ala.org
mailto:sorphan@ala.org
mailto:wpotter@arches.uga.edu
mailto:irockwood@ala-choice.org