Matthew,
You may be correct that we are still focussed too closely on the article as the basis of communication (as in the past we were too focussed on the journal as the carrier and quality controller). However, I still feel that any new system still needs to play the same roles as the old, e.g., quality control, recognition of work done, etc. However do you feel that even these (what I see as) fundamental requirements are in fact artefacts of the old system that do not need to be carried over to the system you envisage?
You did say you wanted to 'up the level of abstraction' :-).
BTW - Your note reminded me of a paper by Ana Baptista from the University of Minho entitled 'Tea for two: Bringing Informal Communication to Repositories' where she considers how to include these inter-researcher communications in the IR model. See:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may07/baptista/05baptista.html
Regards,
John Smith.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:JISC-
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Matthew J. Dovey
> Sent: 11 March 2008 12:39
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Central versus institutional self-archiving
>
> Since everyone seems in a mood to debate and challenge the status
> quo, I'd like to raise the debate up a level of abstraction.
>
> Personally (take that as a hint this is a personal view which may
> not necessarily reflect any JISC policy), I feel that the current
> scholarly communications methodology places too much emphasis on
> the research paper being the end deliverable of the research
> process, rather than being just a means of communication during
> the research process. I feel that this is a relatively new
> phenomenon (some may argue reinforced and artificially induced by
> the various assessment mechanisms) - Newton's or Einstein's
> correspondence (etc.) is regards as an important contribution to
> the research areas as any of their papers. I have read
> philosophical papers which are really letters debating a matter to
> and fro but published in a public media (indeed almost blogging).
>
> I'd really like pose the questions: whether and how we get the
> scholarly comms process back to being a communications mechanism
> during the research process - rather than the paper being the end
> goal and final objective of the process; whether and how we make
> this a continuous process of discourse, rather than a discrete
> process with the paper being the quantum; and whether I'm
> completely off the track here ;-)
>
> I feel that some of the Web 2.0 social community/networking stuff
> may provide some of the answer here - but also realise that this
> raises real challenges, fears (not all unfounded) and possibly
> entrenchment from researchers, those attempting to assess research
> and the publishing community as a whole.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Matthew
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