Dissemination strategies for scientific journals in digital environments
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54167/rei.v4i1.2444Keywords:
scientific journals, scientific dissemination, visibility, altmetrics, social media, editors, journal portals, scientific marketingAbstract
In this issue of School of Editors, I discuss the importance of developing dissemination strategies for scientific journals in digital environments. I begin with a simple premise, though one that editors sometimes forget: an academic journal does not finish its work when it publishes an article. Publication is merely the starting point of a broader chain of visibility, circulation, reading, downloading, use, and eventual citation. Drawing on recent evidence, I present arguments supporting the idea that dissemination actions can increase visits, downloads, social media attention, alternative metrics (altmetrics), and, in some cases, citations. I also review the different dissemination strategies that scientific journals can employ: video abstracts, visual abstracts, infographics, social media posts, multichannel campaigns, plain language summaries, editorial blogs and web notes, newsletters and content alerts, press releases, podcasts, search engine optimization, dissemination packages for authors, thematic collections, and integration with repositories. The purpose of this article is to offer practical recommendations so that journals can move beyond conceiving their portals as passive repositories and instead manage them as platforms for the active circulation of knowledge.
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