Humanities scholars’ needs for open social scholarship platforms as online scholarly information sharing infrastructure

The contemporary scholarly communication environment is characterized by the growth in mandates and infrastructure for open access publication and open approaches to the research lifecycle, with a consequent explosion in the number of online platforms seeking to provide infrastructure for open scholarship. These include corporate academic social networks and scholar-governed infrastructure created as a reaction against those networks, as well as the recent major transformation of the social media landscape in the wake of changes at Twitter (now X), previously a major outlet for scholarly engagement with the public. Analysts of this environment have pointed out that most platform initiatives focus on narrow use cases rather than building up solutions through a holistic understanding of scholar workflows. This exploratory study uses focus group interviews to draw out responses to one academically governed platform, the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) Commons, in the context of humanities scholars’ existing work. It explores humanities scholars’ needs and behaviors related to sharing scholarly information with each other and broader audiences, particularly on the Internet. Feedback from participants sheds light on opportunities and challenges for academy-governed infrastructure for “open social scholarship.” Themes identified include technical fatigue and burnout in the current multi-platform environment, sustainability, and desires to reach and engage the right academic and non-academic audiences when appropriate.