Maximizing Accessibility Of Academic Publications: Applications Of Electronic Publishing Technology

Abstract

Professors at higher education institutions often feel pressure to “publish or perish” in order to maintain their standing in the academic community, yet a large number of these publications languish in obscure technical journals or are presented only once at a conference or online journal. While these methods achieve the goal of spreading personal research to colleagues and other professionals, more can be done to make this information available to curious individuals. This paper examines the efficiency of using electronic publishing technology such as Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing to publicize scientific research in order to disseminate knowledge and ideas through the academic community. Ten publications of an educator’s research in the field of geospatial science were compiled into a single book, which was then published online using Kindle Direct Publishing. By making this information readily accessible, anyone with an interest in the material could use these publications to facilitate their own work. The increased availability of these publications was beneficial for students who needed access to such research for classwork, as well as professionals who benefited from the information contained in these reports. In this manner, ideas were more effectively disseminated among the geospatial community, thus increasing the potential for scientific collaboration and advancement. Additionally, this research is being utilized to stem the aspects of publish text books digitally by faculty for courses on campus. This method of information dissemination can be easily applied to all fields of research and education with similar results. The research contained in this paper will outline the challenges and methods used to publish academic scholarly knowledge on a more widely accessible platform.