I think the fundamental problem, Sara, is that your chart is backwards. It should read right to left, not left to right. The customer is always right. Listen to researchers, figure out what they need to make their work better, and let the solutions flow from there (mixing in social and institutional objectives as needed to contain costs, improve access, etc.). It’s an overly simplistic reply to a complicated issue and question, but I think that’s the gist of why there’s tension---because we have constructed a policy house of cards that rests on no solid foundation, only our moral outrage that publishers make money and our presumption that open access is the answer to everything researchers want. We have inaccurately defined the problem, inaccurately constructed the solution, told the marketplace how to behave, shifted cost burdens, and not responded adequately to the shifting information environment, so why wouldn’t there be tensions?

 

I’m sorry if this sounds a bit snippy….trying to be more concise than usual 😊

 

Best regards,

 

Glenn

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)

 

 

Hi all,

Just updating the subject line to make convos easier to follow.

Jumping off from Danielle’s comments, I wanted to share some thinking I’ve been doing about scholcomm “tensions” as we navigate what feels like a very slow moving (yet strangely abrupt) paradigm shift.

 

I’ve attempted to paste the image into the email here but if you can’t see it – feel free to access the image here (CCBY-NC – please attribute!): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/75uh4nx01g5kqmum337vr/tension-stakeholders-slide.pptx?rlkey=1421uc664elmco0wqobbj8uvi&st=dgc5x72n&dl=0

 

I have been wrestling with this a lot lately and there are clearly stakeholders missing – I am focusing on the nonprofit lens so commercial publishers are missing but the tensions remain the same. There’s a piece of writing or keynote talk in here somewhere but I welcome the opportunity for open feedback (dare I say, PRC!??)

If anyone is attending R2R, I’m doing a whole 3 hour workshop on this as well (info here: “Open science in a resource constrained world” https://r2rconf.com/r2r-conference-programme/).

 

In my view, there’s a serious collective action problem that jeopardizes ALL our communities if we can’t start to unpack/realign our mental maps.

Welcome any thoughts, feedback, push back.

Sara

 

 

 

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