Main Sections

About this OER

What is this?

In this contribution to the Scholarly Communication Notebook (SCN), we have created a resource that will increase understanding of how a values-based approach to scholarly communication can address the challenges of publishing publicly engaged scholarship, with particular emphasis on humanities and social sciences. 

Who are we?

This OER is a collaboration between members of the HuMetricsHSS (Humane Metrics in Humanities and Social Science) initiative, which supports the creation of values-based frameworks to guide all kinds of scholarly processes, and the Publishing and the Publicly Engaged Humanities working group, whose working paper identifies challenges and model practices associated with publishing engaged work in the humanities. 

What can you expect from this OER?

The focus of this resource is primarily on the underrepresented area of publicly engaged scholarship. It addresses a wide range of MLIS students and LIS professionals based at universities, especially those whose mission explicitly encompasses engaged scholarship initiatives. The resource also spotlights publicly engaged publishing initiatives that provide examples of scholarly communications projects with social justice values such as equity, access, fairness, inclusivity, respect, ethics, and trust deeply embedded in their design. 

While examples shared in the first iteration of the resource will focus on model practices primarily in North America, the values-based nature of the resource will have global appeal. This resource describes the publishing challenges that publicly engaged scholars often encounter and offers a framework for tackling these challenges. Video interviews and insights are included to provide a range of viewpoints from scholars, advocates, and instructors. To test knowledge and understanding of the issues raised in this OER, we have embedded an exercise to guide MLIS students in the analysis of publicly engaged projects. 

The OER will also introduce the HuMetricsHSS values sorter tool (currently available in its beta version), which will guide MLIS students and LIS professionals in the creation of values-led activities and actions to use in conjunction with publishing initiatives at their institutions. In addition, anyone accessing the resource can link to the openly licensed values workshop resources and values framework materials produced by the HuMetricsHSS initiative.

This OER has been designed to encourage community-led inputs so that the resource grows dynamically over time, linking to supporting initiatives as and when they arise.

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand what is meant by publicly engaged scholarship
  • Describe the challenges and model practices of publishing publicly engaged scholarship
  • Recognize the usefulness of the HuMetricsHSS Values Framework in identifying the core values of publicly engaged scholarship
  • Learn how to use the HuMetricsHSS Values sorter
  • Create set of values-based scholarly communication publishing objectives


This OER was supported by a grant from the Scholarly Communication Notebook.

Last updated 2023-04-21.