期刊名称：Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science
出版年度：2013
卷号：39
期号：4
出版社：American Society for Information Science and Technology
摘要：The future of scholarly communication needs to be inclusive of diverse local contexts of the developing world and tailored to address national development goals, not simply address the needs of scholars working from privileged positions in the global North, including North America and Europe. However, a recent and unprecedented number of visionary minds have been attempting to reshape scholarly communications through the introduction of new journals, new technologies, new services and, most recently, new metrics, specifically altmetrics, which focus on measuring scholarly impact in the online environment and away from citation counting. These efforts are borne from a desire to break away from the limitations of the current system of communicating and carrying out research. Yet, most scholars, who have a tremendous effect on global scholarly communication practices, have simply ignored the fact that the legacies of the current system are the most pervasive, or most abhorrent, in the developing world. In this essay, I argue for the potential for altmetrics to serve what I am calling “alternative scholars” and, by doing so, challenge the current global order of scholarly communications that heavily favors the North.
