Pressing Forward in Scholarly Communities: Synthesizing Communication Technologies with the Researchers Who Utilize Them

Digital communication technologies have dramatically changed the ways in which scholarship is accessed, discussed, and shared. Joining the traditional journals and manuscripts are new ways to distribute and consume research, including blogs, podcasts, white papers, and more. There is more information available and more ways to access it than ever before, which presents new sets of challenges and opportunities. PressForward is free, open-source software that responds to these needs by combining the features of content aggregation, discussion, and publication into a single, user-friendly dashboard. Acknowledging that collaboration and networking is increasingly important in research development and fund- ing, PressForward has built-in, flexible user roles and workflows that allow communities of any scale to contribute in multiple ways. This article will review the history and features of PressForward, as well as describe the community partnerships that both utilize the software and influence the progress of the project.