Recently, scholars, especially Andy Hoffman at the Erb Institute - University of Michigan, have started stressing the urgent need for academic scholars and the public to engage and have an informed dialogue on globally pressing topics such as climate change. I agree. If we want to avert predicted and not yet predicted disasters of climate change, we all need to work much closer together.
In the Michigan Meeting, a conference on the topic, which was held a few days ago, three of the main questions were:
- What is the role of the academic scholar within the discussions of the global challenges that are relevant to society, such as sustainability, health care, gun control, fiscal policy, international affairs, etc.?
- How do scholars engage in a world in which knowledge is becoming democratized through social media and the proliferation of knowledge sources (both credible and biased) clouds public debate?
- What are the social, professional and institutional obstacles to such engagement?
The second question (though obviously interrelated with the other two) is especially interesting. It says that knowledge is becoming more democratised through social media and the proliferation of knowledge sources. I think, to a certain extent that is true. But to a large extent this is merely an assumption:
One element that hinders the public and academic scholars to engage more, is how academic work is published and promoted. It takes months if not years till research has gone through a journal's reviewing process and then, when it is finally published, it is at the terms of the publisher, which means most of the time, accessibility of the publication is restricted to a paying, limited audience, which mainly are institutions and libraries and their members. Those who are not members and who cannot afford to pay (the price for one scientific article is so high that no average citizen could pay for it!) are not able to read.
That's not how we can promote collaboration!
Academic publication and review processes need to become more dynamic, democratic and decentralised.
How to go ahead
This can happen, for instance, through open source, open access publishing and reviewing platforms. Such platforms would speed up the publication process and results could be openly reviewed and commented on by the scientific community and also the public.
Real-time publication on open access platforms can make research not only more dynamic, but also geographically dispersed researchers could collaborate in a better way or at least build upon each others' knowledge and findings in a more efficient manner.
Maybe publication would then also not be so much about getting good citations but about creating impact through collaboration with communities and individuals, finding synergies and communicating research results to a much wider audience.
How to go ahead
This can happen, for instance, through open source, open access publishing and reviewing platforms. Such platforms would speed up the publication process and results could be openly reviewed and commented on by the scientific community and also the public.
Real-time publication on open access platforms can make research not only more dynamic, but also geographically dispersed researchers could collaborate in a better way or at least build upon each others' knowledge and findings in a more efficient manner.
Maybe publication would then also not be so much about getting good citations but about creating impact through collaboration with communities and individuals, finding synergies and communicating research results to a much wider audience.
What could such a platform look like? There is a platform for poetry, which lists all kinds of poets, poems, categories, one can comment on poems, share sections, ... Something similar could be possible for academia and academic work. There could be researchers' profiles, their areas of interest, their work and recent projects and publications all on one platform under different categories, labels, tags. Maybe one could start with a group of researchers, who are close to the topic of climate change and sustainability and who are willing to make their papers openly accessible.
Public and Academia will not be able to engage sufficiently as long as research results remain in the hands of publishers. Researchers need no longer wait for journals and publishing houses to make the required steps to become more open. They need to take things into their own hands and push the creation of open platforms. Only then, engagement between Academia & Academia and between Academia & Public can become more dynamic and collaborative and maybe also support mitigation of climate change and other pressing issues on a community as well as individual level.
Further links:
Further links:
- Andy Hoffman on twitter
- Andy's article "Isolated Scholars: Making Bricks not Shaping Policy" in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 February 2015
- Academic Engagement on twitter #AcadEng
- Cartoon by Carole Levy
- Michigan Meeting on "Academic Engagement in Public and Political Discourse", held 13-15 May, 2015 at Michigan University
- Online platform of the Poetry Foundation
- Virginia Barbour's article "Publisher pushback puts open access in peril" at THE CONVERSATION, 21 May, 2015
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