This communication if a part of the panel Minor forms of academic communication: revamping the relationship between science and society? at the World social sciences forum http://www.wssf2013.org/fr/panel-comit%C3%A9/minor-forms-academic-communication-revamping-relationship-between-science-and-society A blind spot? Digital infrastructures for digital publishing, and for academic blogging in particular Author: Mr. Marin Dacos - OpenEdition After several centuries of development, knowledge technologies today form a highly organised ecosystem, structured around books and journals and with its own clearly identified professions, infrastructures and actors. From publishers to librarians, authors to booksellers, a book industry has emerged and encourages the circulation of ideas. With the rise of the network, these roles are slowly being redefined and new actors are rapidly emerging. The 2006 ACLS report (“Our Cultural Commonwealth: The Report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences”) is one of the first signs of recognition of the need for digital infrastructures. These infrastructures are not simply confined to “noble” publications i.e. books and journals. They also concern the so-called minor forms of academic communication. Yet developing such infrastructures requires much more than simply installing a server under a desk. On the contrary, digital infrastructures necessitate the creation of platforms, which in turn entail the emergence of new teams and new professions – those of digital publishing. These platforms are often developed or bought up by predatory multinationals (for example, Mendeley absorbed by Elsevier). Academic-led alternatives do exist (Zotero for bibliographies, Hypotheses for blogs), yet the academic community has failed to fully recognise the associated opportunities and risks. The academy has every interest in making sure it does not become marginalised within its own infrastructures. The alternative is to reproduce the vagaries of the extraordinarily concentrated global publishing system, which has stripped the research sector of some of its intellectual and budgetary initiative-taking capacities.

1. A blind spot?
Digital infrastructures
for digital publishing
and for academic blogging in particular
Marin Dacos – CNRS
OpenEdition –Director
2013 October 14th

3. •
•
•
•
A. The big conversation
B. The rise of the platforms
C. Hypotheses as a platform
D. The digital infrastructures gap

4. Academic blogging : the missing
link
public
(conference)
(publication)
written
oral
(conversation)
(correspondance)
private

5. The conversation is the essence of collective
thinking and research (disputatio)
Woodcut carved by Johann von Armssheim (1483). Portays a disputation between Christian and Jewish scholars (Soncino
Blaetter, Berlin, 1929. Jerusalem, B. M. Ansbacher Collection). http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disputation.jpg

6. A conversation : comments
Average # of comments per post
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

7. A conversation : tweets
Ratio Nb tweets by document
sept 2014
0.14
0.12
0.10
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0.00
OpenEdition Books
Calenda
Revues.org
Hypothèses

8. The silent conversation :
fidelity of readership (sept. 2013)
Fidelity score
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
Revues.org
Calenda
Hypotheses
Hypotheses (english)
Hypotheses (german)

9. Conversation again : referrers
sept 2012-sept 2013 – Source : OpenEdition – Search engines are removed.
242 000
54 000
161 000
22 000
70 000
500 000
*
(1500 other refferers)

10. •
•
•
•
A. The big conversation
B. The rise of the platforms
C. Hypotheses as a platform
D. The digital infrastructures gap

11. The Web is dominated by platforms

12. Welcome in the platforms age for publishing

13. Platforms
Critical mass of documents
Visibility
Critical mass of partners
Scale economy
Critical mass of features
Capacity of the platform to survive/evolve

14. Network effect

15. •
•
•
•
A. The big conversation
B. The rise of the platforms
C. Hypotheses as a platform
D. The digital infrastructures gap

16. Hypotheses as a common platform
The place where we test and share « Hypothesis » before publishing

17. Number of blogs
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013 projection

18. Hypotheses - Millions of visits
14
People are there ! Both scholars and society
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
2010
2011
2012
2013 (projections)

19. Adding value workflows
1
2
3
4
5
Application
Technical
creation
Catalog +
ISSN
Headline
Headline
slider
No visibily
Very light
visibility
Good
visibility
High
visibility
Very high
visibilty
Zero
value
Very light
value
Good
value
High
value
Very high
value

22. Language based committees

23. anguage based documentation ressource

24. A platform dedicated to scholarly work
• Footnotes
• Citability
• Zotero compatible
• ISSN for each blog
• Librarything plugin
• Etc.

25. Community manager
Image © http://www.eemi.com/community-manager

26. Optimization of the user experience
Image © http://www.eemi.com/community-manager

27. Developping Interoperabilites
:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wongjunhao/2761709029/in/faves-revuesorg/

28. Data center in Lyon
(CC IN2P3)

29. Redundancy

30. Scalability and load balancing

31. •
•
•
•
A. The big conversation
B. The rise of the platforms
C. Hypotheses as a platform
D. The digital infrastructures gap

32. Birth of National
And continental
CyberInfrastructures

34. Construction cost (M€)
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Social Sciences and
Humanities
Environmental Sciences
Energy
Biological
Materials&and
Analytical Facilities
Source : Strategy Report on Research Infrastructures - Roadmap 2010
Physical Sciences and
Engineering

35. Construction costs (%)
1% 8%
27%
16%
22%
26%
Social Sciences and Humanities
Source : Strategy Report on Research Infrastructures - Roadmap 2010

36. Nevertheless, these are the new archives and libraries
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giesenbauer/4130759704/in/faves-revuesorg/

37. Open Access
.. to classic forms of publishing – books and
articles
… and to new forms so-called « minor forms »
Is a key to reconnect HSS to Society
We call it « Le canon à idées »
« A cannon for ideas »
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giesenbauer/4130759704/in/faves-revuesorg/

38. Marin.dacos@openedition.org
http://openedition.org/
http://cleo.openedition.org
http://oep.hypotheses.org
http://lab.hypotheses.org