ken simon

i guess i would like to inject some futurism into this
discussion. How might one imagine the system in say
30 years.

Lets be optimistic and say that 30% of the planet
is connected to internet, and all print publications are also
available in digital form. And that digital archives now capture
80% of all prior written documentation.

(yeah we have solved global warming otherwise all this is
irrelevant)

What do artists and scientists want from a dissemination and
consulting system ?

As creators they want to be fully aware of prior work related
to their current project.

When they have a new idea they want to disseminate it
to influence other peoples perception of the world.

They want people interested in their topic to find their
work easily.

Some will want their name associated with that work,
and if they have had to invest significantly to produce that
work some of them will want a financial return somehow.

Artists and scientists with new work want their work to
be found and recognised wherever they work ( institutionally,
geographically) so that social/geographic status doesnt totally bias
impact.

And they want to be able to find the most relevant or most
original related work without having to spend an incredible
amount of time.

I imagine everyone on line has their own personal web archive
where they deposit their work. They can use various forms
of IP protection, advanced versions of digital commons. ie they
can open source/open archive it or protect it with a menu of options.
anything they post in their archive has embedded coding so the
source person or web is known and back trackable.

These personal web archives are free to depositors- in an extension
of the current advertising driven model for many internet companies today.

There is a system that is the equivalent of a stock market of ideas or
work that tracks whose work is having influence, or perceived value.
For instance i can look up Deleuze and see which of his ideas have
currency or impact today. I can see what kind of people he is currently
influencing.

This system uses both peer reviewed type
systems which 'aggregate' content by filtering depending on affinity
groups = eg as an astronomer I am interested in astronomical research
that has been filtered "via advanced peer review' by other astronomers.
But I can also look at aggregators that look at fringe ideas within
astronomy ( the voyager anomaly, or new theories of gravity or teleportation
eg)

when i start working on a new problem, i let looks a web spider that
sets up an continuous awareness search defined by the meta tags of the
problem i
am currently working on. It consults agregators already established in that
area.

If I am hiring someone, i consult the "stock market of ideas"
and can look at the persons impact through a variety of
recognition metrics ranging from ISI++ to web graphs showing the
evolution of the impact of the persons ideas or work in both
formal and informal systems.

Leonardo would be an aggregator aggregator for a specific community
of practice. A new topic appears on the radar. For instance how are
artists and scientists working collaboratively on topics related to natural
disasters. A group of 20 interested people is put together that inject
their
evaluations into a new company in the stock market of ideas. They filter
using advanced peer reviewing systems material that they rate highly to
that topic.

After 18 months the topic has currently and a 'reader' of most highly
ranked work is put together ( like the Sarai Readers ++) and a print book
is produced on demand or via electronic files. Access to the reader
involves a small fee.

Microcredit systems allow very small fees to be paid that go back to authors
per reader consultation, with a % back to the agregator.

Leonardo's expertise is working with a community of practice to identify
emerging topic and issues, putting together working groups around those
topics, running aggregator and filtering systems and promoting the
work of that community through internet marketing. A network of network
models.

If I am interested in someones work or a particular idea I can invest in
it financially via the stock market of ideas, my investment sets in motion
funding
feedback to the aggregators and authors around that work.

For instance if a new desease appears, then a science foundation can set up
an aggregator, seek investors and interested researcher are selected to
compose the working group. If I want to set up a global distributed art
research project the same mechanism can be used. Right now we need
really new ideas on how to culture shift to deal with global warming= good
place to invest in a stock market of ideas !

What are other peoples visions of the future.

roger

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Simon Biggs <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I wouldn't argue with any of the points in Ken's email. My own email was
> not
> seeking to contest these. It should be noted though that ThomsonReuters
> will
> expect to be paid for the work associated with the UK's research
> evaluation
> (if it happens, which I think it will, in some form). In this respect
> vested
> interests (the publishers) will continue to be sustained.
>
> For artists and arts institutions who are engaged in (and whose academic
> jobs are to a large measure justified by) research this will make an
> interesting challenge. If the role of peer review in the UK research
> evaluation exercise is diminished or replaced by a citation index how will
> the current system, where artefacts and exhibitions can be evaluated as
> research outcomes, function? Is this the end, in the UK, of recognising
> the
> creative arts and their native modalities of outcome as research (as
> opposed
> to research about the creative arts)? If that is the case then numerous
> initiatives that many of us here have engaged with, including things like
> CRUMB, will be potentially compromised.
>
> There will be those who would be rather pleased with this eventuality.
>
> regards
>
> Simon Biggs
>
> Research Professor
> edinburgh college of art
> [log in to unmask]
> www.eca.ac.uk
>
> [log in to unmask]
> www.littlepig.org.uk
> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
>
>
>
> From: Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 23:42:49 +0100
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] New Models of Academic Publishing
>
> Hi, Simon,
>
> While I recognize your concern, there are two different issues here.
>
> Metrics is based on several factors. These include impact, publishing, and
> citation counts. ISI cites only to and from journals within the ISI
> database. To sell the database, they must cover the journals that have
> impact in a field. As a result, the growing impact of open access journals
> is changing the content of the ISI database.
>
> Engagement in wire services and news services means that ThomsonReuters
> has
> a longer history in electronic and online publishing than nearly any other
> publisher. They make money selling information. The information counts for
> more than the package -- digits and pixels make as much money for them as
> paper. They want to make money. If collaborating with online journals
> helps
> them to make money, they will embrace online journals for the ISI indexes.
> In fact, they aready do so.
>
> You can learn more at:
>
> http://www.isiwebofknowledge.com/
>
> As essay describing evaluation and inclusion criteria appears at:
>
>
> http://scientific.thomsonreuters.com/free/essays/selectionofmaterial/journal
> selection/<http://scientific.thomsonreuters.com/free/essays/selectionofmaterial/journalselection/>
>
> So first, ISI does incude electronic journals and will increasingly
> include
> more open source journals. Second, other issues at stake mean that metrics
> cannot exclusively favor ISI. The reason for this is that most specialized
> fields include highly rated journals with great specific impact that do
> not
> appear in ISI lists. Second, ISI does not cover monographs -- where in
> many
> fields, monographs from strong publishers have the greatest impact of all.
>
> It is vital to be watchful and to lobby effectively toward government for
> appropriate metrics. Norway's metrics are highly effective because they
> allow for articles in high ranked journals and good journals, as well as
> for
> books and book chapters.
>
> The system allocates 1 point for an article in any good journal (level 1),
> 3
> points for an article in a select group of high ranked journals (level 2),
> 5
> points for a book from a good publisher (level 1), and 8 points for a book
> from a top publisher (level 2). Book chapters from level 1 and 2
> publishers
> count for a fraction of a point or a full point.
>
> You can see the system here to judge its breadth and usability across
> fields. It is also a useful data base on journals and publishers:
>
> http://dbh.nsd.uib.no/kanaler/
>
> Publishers have a great deal of influence, but I would not agree that they
> are in control. I suggest that we can exert great influence as academics,
> and those who also hold administrative posts with budget authority over
> staff resources and research or library facilities can exert significant
> power if we also make a case for our position.
>
> Warm wishes,
>
> Ken
>
>
> On Sat, 10 May 2008 22:00:14 +0100, Simon Biggs <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >To take this back to where we began; open access to academic journals and
> >how this relates to vested interests in academe and publishing. Whilst I
> >noted that a stated policy aspiration in the UK is that all publicly
> funded
> >research will be published online and made freely accessable there is
> >another side to this �logic�. The UK is currently reviewing its methods
> for
> >evaluating academic research and thus how it is funded. It is looking
> very
> >seriously at adopting certain aspects of the US system. Specifically, it
> >would seem we will move, to a great or lesser degree, to a citation
> metric
> >to determine quality (how many citations a paper receives will determine
> its
> >value). Currently the proposal is that the system will be based upon
> >(perhaps partly run by) Thompson/Reuters Web of Science database. This
> just
> >about assures that vested interests (the publishers) will keep the whip
> >hand.
>