Preface -- Scientific Scholarly Communication: Moving Forward Through Open Discussions -- Access to Scientific Knowledge: A Historical Perspective -- On the Road to Unrestricted Access to Scientific Information: The Open Access Movement -- Sharing Scientific Data: Moving Towards "Open Data?" -- Free Flow of Scientific Information vs. Intellectual Property Rights -- Preserving the Quality of Scientific Research: Peer Review of Research Articles -- Measuring the Impact of Scientific Research -- Assessing the Societal Impact of Scientific Research -- Final Thoughts: Scientific Scholarly Communication - The March Forward.

This book critically examines the historical developments and current trends in the scientific scholarly communication system, issues and challenges in scientific scholarly publishing and scientific data sharing, implications and debates associated with the influence of intellectual property rights on scientific information sharing, and new trends related to peer reviewing and measuring the impact of scientific publications. Based on thorough examination of published literature, the book illustrates the involvement of many stakeholders-scientists, science educators, university administrators, government entities, research funders, and other interested parties-in this complex and dynamic system. The discussion highlights the roles these stakeholders have to play, individually and collaboratively, to help transform the future of the scientific scholarly communication system.