A taxonomy-based dataset of online venues for scholarly communication

This dataset provides structured and empirically informed data regarding the contemporary online scholarly communication landscape. Driven by digitisation and platformisation, the landscape of traditional academic publishing has unbundled into a fragmented network of diverse online venues. To bring clarity to this complex environment, this dataset captures the specific "communication patterns" instantiated by online venues for various units of scholarly information. The dataset is built upon a curated corpus of 465 online venues, encompassing both formal and informal channels such as aggregators & digital libraries, AI-powered literature analysis tools, CRIS, databases, electronic lab notebooks, preprint servers, publishers, repositories, review or comment venues, search engines & discovery portals, and social networks & communication venues. Data collection and validation relied on an exhaustive, direct consultation of each individual website alongside trusted sources (e.g., Open Policy Finder, DOAJ, CLOCKSS…). The dataset classifies the interactions between online venues and units of scholarly information across six core dimensions of scholarly communication and their possible characteristics: Registration: how do online venues contribute to the registration of a unit of SC? Editorial, Performative, Derived, Referential, or No contribution Certification: how do online venues facilitate the certification of a unit of SC? Invited, Spontaneous, Technical, or No contribution Long-term preservation: how do online venues contribute to the long-term preservation of a unit of SC? Guaranteed, Not Guaranteed, or Not Applicable Access: how do online venues allow access to a unit of SC? Direct, Restricted, or Referential Discoverability: how do online venues contribute to making a unit of SC discoverable? Indexed or Enclosed Dissemination: how do online venues contribute to the dissemination of a unit of SC? Pushing or No contribution In addition, for each venue, data includes the URL of homepage, about page, open access/open science page, and research integrity/ethics page, if available. The Year field is the reliable starting year of activity; we established it via the Internet Archive and considered a "stable year" defined as three consecutive years with available captures (to ensure actual operational existence rather than a mere domain registration). Conceived as a standalone research asset, this structured dataset serves as a multipurpose research instrument. It can support both synchronic and diachronic studies exploring the evolving editorial landscape, the integration of open science policies, commercial platform strategies, and structural shifts in the academic attention economy. The target user groups include scholars across library and information sciences, science and technology studies (STS), metascience, and the history, sociology, or philosophy of science.