Beyond the PDF 2 Conference: Revolutionizing Academic Publishing
New technology has created a multitude of avenues
through which academics, scholars, publishers, librarians, and other related
fields can communicate. The challenge, however, is using such technology to
communicate effectively and change old habits that no longer seem to be
working. This is a challenge that the participants of the Beyond
the PDF 2 conference have sought to tackle.
“Individually and collectively, we aim to bring about a change in modern
scholarly communications through the effective use of information technology,”
states Force11, the organizers of the Beyond the PDF 2 conference, held in
Amsterdam in mid-March.
Force11, which stands for the Future of Research Communications and
e-Scholarship, is an online community that aims to transform how scholars
communicate and engage, particularly in the digital age. The group arose from the
first Beyond the PDF conference held in 2011.
Aside from generally enhancing communication between scholars, the conference brought
to light how dramatically the world of academic publishing has shifted in
recent years. As conference attendee Peter Brantley explains in Publishers Weekly, academic publishing has been confined to the pages bound in books and
academic journals for decades and far too long. Technology has broken the spine
of these books and journals and has allowed for academic publishing to
experiment with new technologies. “What is
happening now is that academic researchers are beginning to reconsider the
underlying, fundamental workflow of research and publication,” claims Brantley.
Nothing illustrates this more than Beyond the PDF 2’s winner of the “Agent of Change” award, Carole Goble.
Goble’s suggestion, titled “Don’t
Publish. Release!,” argues that the idea of
an academic publication being complete is ultimately flawed. Given all the new
attributes of the digital age and the ability to modify data with a
click of the “edit” button, it appears that nothing can ever be finished, nor
should it.
“Let's face up to the fact
that we release research rather than publish it. Let’s start applying a 20th
century software release paradigm instead of a 18th century print a book
paradigm to scholarly communication,” stated Goble, who insists that data and
methods will inevitably change and impact previous research, requiring
academics to repair and re-work previous publications.
One clear message from the conference is the need for academics, scholars, and
publishers to embrace the change that has come, and that the current academic
revolution taking place will do more good than harm.
Force11 has a list of outcomes, reflections, and summaries from the Beyond the
PDF 2 conference which can be found here.
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