The new currency in academia
Edinburgh
25 October 2013
Jason Hoyt, PhD
CEO & Co-founder - PeerJ
@thePeerJ / @jasonHoyt
“Silicon Valley”
THE APPLE II IN 1666
THE ARTICLE AS THE ONLY CURRENCY
HAS LED TO TWO MAJOR PROBLEMS
300+ years on we now have this

The academic career pyramid
Final available output (a PDF writeup)

Cause ya know, the research paper is the only INCENTIVE to get ahead

FILTERED & HIDDEN CONTRIBUTIONS
Filtered & hidden contributions
A WORLD OF HIDDEN
INFORMATION
WE DIDN’T STOP WITH THE APPLE II
NOW A CONNECTED
(& MORE OPEN) WORLD
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_map_1024.jpg
Great in 1666
Not so much now

WHY CAN I ASK MY PHONE FOR REALTIME TRAFFIC,
BUT NOT IF MY PCR LOOKS LIKE
SOMETHING RELEVANT?
WE NEED TO STOP THROWING THIS
OUT IN ORDER TO SOLVE OUR
GREATEST CHALLENGES
Contributions are being collected

Blogs
+ most contributions from machines
The next stage of academia

THE CONTRIBUTION NETWORK
From Peurto Rico To Reddit
The article & data is reusable

JSON / XML / RDF
4,000
unique visitors
on first day
But….
75,000
unique visitors
on first day
Capturing the hidden contributions
That contribution is reusable by others
The Contribution Net

PROVIDES NEW CURRENCY FOR
INNOVATION & JOBS
Academia - Then & Now (we just don’t realize it yet)

FROM PYRAMID TO NETWORK OF
OPPORTUNITIES
IMAGINE WHAT COULD BE DONE
WITH A RESEARCH WORLD LIKE THIS
WHO WILL OWN THE
CONTRIBUTION NET?
WHICH WILL IT BECOME ?
OPEN|CLOSED
WILL WE BE ABLE TO SETTLE ON
OPEN DATA STANDARDS?
Jason@peerj.com
@thePeerJ / @JasonHoyt

Changing the currency in academia with the Contribution Net