Beyond the capabilities of the crowd? Industrialized processes for tomorrow s scholarly communication

Transcription

1 Christoph Bläsi Institute for Book Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (D) Beyond the capabilities of the crowd? Industrialized processes for tomorrow s scholarly communication The post-digital scholar ; Leuphana, Lüneburg, 11/12/14 Folie Nr. 1

2 Structure Introduction Scholarly publishing challenges and different approaches to deal with them Concerns in focus here Continuous consolidation Reaggregation / curation Enrichment Propositionalisation from metadata to semantic web representations Zooming out I: Publishing is an embedded activity Zooming out II: Integration of knowledge from outside academia Conclusions Folie Nr. 2

3 Introduction A complex transition requires complex analyses with a wide range of approaches That s why we re here, I guess My contribution as a scholar of book / publishing studies is oriented on material, processual aspects production processes Folie Nr. 3

4 Introduction Book studies (concept of the book) [ ] The concept of the book is a wide one and covers different forms of books including the dissemination of book-like content with the help of new media. (Rautenberg 2003) not yet part of top-level theorizing: erosion of authoritativeness, the transition of aspects of the fluidity of the signifier from authors downstream (collaboration organized by publishers, revisions triggered by readers, etc.), etc. Folie Nr. 4

5 Scholarly publishing challenges and different approaches to deal with them Folie Nr. 5

6 Scholarly publishing challenges and different approaches to deal with them Reformist top-down approaches a variety of business models and continued experimentation are desirable for the health of the sector (Phillips 2014) [business models] the electronic article will often be richer than its print version, containing more data and certainly more functionality (Philip Carpenter as quoted by Cope / Philips 2014) there is a wide range of primary data (Cope / Phillips 2014) Folie Nr. 6

7 Scholarly publishing challenges and different approaches to deal with them More radical bottom-up / user empowerment approaches; integrated example: MediaCommons (Avi Santos, cf. also Fitzpatrick 2011) write, publish, review, and discuss, in forms ranging from the blog to the monograph, from the purely textual to the multi-mediated digital monographs, casebooks, reference works, forums for media scholars, practicioners, policy makers, and users interconnections and [ ] openness for discussion and revision peer-to-peer review: gatekeeping -> determining, "how a text should be received", development of authors, deepening of ideas Folie Nr. 7

8 Concerns in focus here Continuous consolidation Reaggregation / curation Enrichment Propositionalisation (from metadata to semantic web representations) Zooming out I: publishing is an embedded activity Zooming out II: integration of knowledge from outside academia Folie Nr. 8

9 Continuous consolidation Requirement: Give an overview on the current status of research / the discourses in a domain Academics are typically parties in these discourses and there are no incentives for them to do something like that sustainably Required assets and competences: manpower, domain knowledge, impartiality Specific challenge: conflict resolution Folie Nr. 9

10 Continuous consolidation (example) Folie Nr. 10

11 Continuous consolidation (example) Folie Nr. 11

12 Continuous consolidation Analogy from another sector of publishing Crowd consolidation in the form of encyclopaedias works for general knowledge, but not in the same way for vertical domains, where specialists have standpoints and alternative options for activity with stronger incentives (cf. Open Source Software) Folie Nr. 12

13 Reaggregation / curation Requirement: Make scholarly discourses effective for different target groups Academics have standpoints and specific target communities Required assets and competencies: (impartial) knowledge from different domains, target group(s) knowledge ( economies of scope ) Cf. e.g. Gherab Martin / Gonzales Quiros 2014 Folie Nr. 13

14 Enrichment Requirement: Enable the drawing of own conclusions, make results more immersive, etc. Academics do not have the appropriate skillsets or units at their disposal Required assets and competencies: producer set-up (different skillsets, funds, project management capabilities) Cf. e.g. Shotton et al Folie Nr. 14

15 Enrichment (example) Folie Nr. 15

16 Enrichment (example) Folie Nr. 16

17 Enrichment Analogy from another sector of publishing Crowd multimedia enrichment for encyclopaedias does not work, since the development requires the top-down management of people with different skills (including licencing issues) and / or corresponding funds (cf. Open Source Software) Folie Nr. 17

18 Propositionalisation from metadata to semantic web representations Requirement: Make publications findable / discoverable / accessible (also for readers from other languages), make them accessible for machine processing (e.g. for ICTsupported reaggregation) Languages used have to be agreed on (top-down process) Required assets and competencies: authoritativeness, (impartial) domain knowledge, processes of quality assurance Cf. e.g. Shotton et al. 2009, Cope / Kalantzis / Magee 2011 Folie Nr. 18

19 Propositionalisation from metadata to semantic web representations (example) Folie Nr. 19

20 Propositionalisation from metadata to semantic web representations (example) Folie Nr. 20

21 Propositionalisation from metadata to semantic web representations (example) Folie Nr. 21

22 Propositionalisation from metadata to semantic web representations Academic publisher activities Springer: Bibliographic Metadata Manager : cross-linking of products, discoverability, usage (tool) one prerequisite: unique identifiers, e.g. for persons (Orcid), organisations (ringgold.com - z.b. Universität Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg - Universität Mainz, University of Mainz, etc.), research funding organisations (Fundref), conferences named entity recognition (chemistry terminology) Folie Nr. 22

23 Zooming out I: Publishing is an embedded activity Requirement: Support the whole research cycle in an integrated and seamless manner Academics do not have the appropriate skillsets or service units at their disposal Required assets and competencies: software engineering competencies, domain knowledge, funds Folie Nr. 23

24 Zooming out I: Publishing is an embedded activity Source: Wiley Folie Nr. 24

25 Zooming out I: Publishing is an embedded activity Analogy from another sector of publishing Workflow solutions from b-2-b publishers, systems that make content directly effective for customer processes Folie Nr. 25

26 Zooming out II: Integration of knowledge from outside academia Requirement: Acknowledge the valuable production of knowledge otside academia and connect to that Not accessible to publishing in academia by definition Required assets and competencies: domain knowledge, networks Cf. E.g. Cope / Kalantzis 2014 Folie Nr. 26

27 Zooming out II: Integration of knowledge from outside academia Folie Nr. 27

28 Conclusions The complex requirements of tomorrow s scholarly publishing will be met by a sensible combination of technology-enabled user-empowerment and technology-enabled and competence-based institutional professionalism The industrial processes make use of economies of scale and scope as well as of impartiality and they have (core) reputation economy external incentives (money, statuary mission) Parallel to changes in the role of the author, these tasks can be seen as further reductions and abstractions of traditional publishing house tasks selection / gate keeping -> reaggregation editing -> enrichment making public -> provision of discoverability services, etc., creation of products around content Folie Nr. 28

29 Thank you! Christoph Bläsi Univ.-Prof. Dr. Christoph Bläsi Institut für Buchwissenschaft Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Philosophicum, Jakob-Welder-Weg 18 D Mainz Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Institut für Buchwissenschaft, D Mainz Fon: +49-(0) Fax: +49-(0) Web: XING: LinkedIn: Folie Nr. 29

30 Literature Cope / Phillips 2014 in Cope / Phillips 2014 Cope / Kalantzis / Magee 2011 Fitzpatrick 2011 Gherab Martin / Gonzales Quiros 2014 in Cope / Phillips 2014 Peroni Philips 2014 in Cope / Phillips 2014 Shotton et al Folie Nr. 30