I am not sure if Rogerıs vision of a regime for the evaluation, funding and
dissemination of research is utopian or dystopian. It certainly would not
fly within the centralised top down structures employed in the UK. His
vision depends on a free market model. As a bit of an old fashioned
socialist I run into problems when faced with a premise like this, not
necessarily because I would be ideologically opposed (although I would be
uncomfortable with it) but because I lack experience of working within such
a framework.
What would my vision be? I am not going to be as detailed as Roger because
my vision would disallow that. My preferred system would be something that
could not be described in advance as it would be the function of a process
of inclusive consultation. To seek to describe what the resulting system
might be would risk prejudicing the whole exercise. The sort of system I
would have confidence in would be developed through collegiate and inclusive
debate. Everyone who has something to offer to this debate, or who will be
effected by its outcomes, would have a voice in that process. Inclusiveness
is key, so it cannot be a self-selecting minority who do this. Proactively
engaging everyone would be essential. Participants would be required to
commit to placing research and inquiry at the top of their agenda, putting
aside their own institutional, political and economic interests.
This is probably asking too much :(
Thatıs why the free market model is attractive to some as it exploits the
worst characteristics of human behaviour, recognising (probably
realistically) that this is the best we are going to get. I guess my
inability to buy that argument renders me an irrelevant idealist.
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: roger malina <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: roger malina <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 11:30:08 +0200
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [NEW-MEDIA-CURATING] New Models of Academic Publishing
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
|
