At the junction of dissemination and implementation: Facilitating access to behavior analytic research

Research in scholarly communication is usually limited to the use and dissemination of scientific material by scholars. This excludes the transfer of knowledge from research producers to service providers. Some may argue the primary function of science is to investigate the conditions in the lab so everyday interactions with the environment are more effective and efficient. This is the underlying philosophy of the science of behavior analysis. Guided by dissemination processes studied in information science, this investigation revealed the content layer in behavior analysis is primarily comprised of journal articles. The information use environment for professionals in this field is very different than that of the scholars; most professionals do not have access to a university library. Therefore, the research producers are disseminating developments via communication channels some service providers cannot access. This investigation reveals the only dissemination channel that provides continuous access to the content layer is reaching out via informal communication; All other dissemination channels do not provide access to the entire content layer, do not provide the entire scholarly work, and/or include a barrier to access (often an associated cost). This affects the field of behavior analysis as professional recommendations cannot be based on the best available evidence if the evidence is not accessible. This affects the field of information science as the study of scholarly communication should not be limited to scholars alone. The process of scholarly dissemination should be extended to include alternate information use environments of other populations