The document discusses the future of scholarly communications, emphasizing the need for evolving practices in research dissemination due to pressures on traditional systems. It highlights the importance of replication, data integration, and diverse approaches in addressing the challenges faced in scholarly communication. Additionally, it advocates for enhanced publication practices and long-term planning for access to scientific records beyond single institutions.

2. Prepared for
The Scholarly Communications Symposium
Georgetown University
April 2012
(One possible)
Future of Scholarly Communications
Micah Altman,
Director of Research, MIT Libraries
Non Resident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

3. Obligatory Disclaimers
Personal Biases:
Social/Information Scientist, Software
Engineer, Librarian, Archivist
“It’s tough to make
predictions, especially
about the future!”*
*Attributed to Woody Allen, Yogi Berra, Niels Bohr, Vint Cerf, Winston Churchill, Confucius,
Disreali [sic], Freeman Dyson, Cecil B. Demille, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Edgar R.
Fiedler, Bob Fourer, Sam Goldwyn, Allan Lamport, Groucho Marx, Dan Quayle, George
Bernard Shaw, Casey Stengel, Will Rogers, M. Taub, Mark Twain, Kerr L. White, etc.
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4. Collaborators*
• Leonid Andreev, Ed Bachman, Adam Buchbinder, Ken
Bollen, Bryan Beecher, Elana Broch, Steve Burling, John M.
Caroll, Tom Carsey, Thu-Mai Christian, Patrick Clemins,
Kevin Condon, Jonathan Crabtree, Merce Crosas, Diane
Fournier, Jeff Gill, Myron Guttman, Gary King, Patrick
King, Tom Lipkis, Freeman Lo, Christian Laevert, Jared Lyle,
Marc Maynard, Michael P. McDonald, Nancy McGovern,
Emily Ann-Meyers, Kevin Novak, , Thomas Plewes, Andrew
Reamer, Ken Rogerson, Lois Timms-Ferrarra, Akio Sone,
Bob Treacy
• Research Support
Thanks to the Library of Congress, the National Science Foundation,
IMLS, the Sloan Foundation, the Harvard University Library, the
Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
* And co-conspirators
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5. Related Work
Reprints available from: micahaltman.com
• Board on Research Data and Information, Forthcoming, For Attribution: Developing Data
Attribution and Citation Practices and Standards, National Academies Press.
• Altman, M., & McDonald, M. P. (2012). Technology for Public Participation in Redistricting. In
G. Moncrief (Ed.), Redistricting and Reapportionment in the West. Lexington Books.
• M. Altman, J. Crabtree, “Using the SafeArchive System: TRAC-Based Auditing of LOCKSS”,
Proceedings of Archiving 2011, Society for Imaging Science and Technology.
• Novak, K., Altman, M., Broch, E., Carroll, J. M., Clemins, P. J., Fournier, D., Laevart, C., et al.
(2011). Communicating Science and Engineering Data in the Information Age. Computer Science
and Telecommunications. National Academies Press.
• M. Gutmann, with Abrahamson, M, Adams, M.O., Altman, M, Arms, C., Bollen, K., Carlson,
M., Crabtree, J., Donakowski, D., King, G., Lyle, J., Maynard, M., Pienta, A., Rockwell, R,
Timms-Ferrara L., Young, ) 2009. "From Preserving the Past to Preserving the Future: The
Data-PASS Project and the challenges of preserving digital social science data.”, Library Trends
• M. Altman, Adams, M., Crabtree, J., Donakowski, D., Maynard, M., Pienta, A., & Young, C.
2009. "Digital preservation through archival collaboration: The Data Preservation Alliance for
the Social Sciences." The American Archivist. 72(1): 169-182
• Micah Altman, K. Rogerson. 2008. " Open Research Questions on Information and
Technology in Global and Domestic Politics -- Beyond 'E-'", PS: Political Science and Politics.
• M. Altman and G. King. 2007. “A Proposed Standard for the Scholarly Citation of
Quantitative Data”, D-Lib, 13, 3/4 (March/April).
• Altman, M., Gill, J., & McDonald, M. (2003). Numerical issues in statistical computing for the
social scientist. New York: John Wiley & Sons
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6. This Talk
Disruptions!
Could this be a good thing for science?
Community initiatives
Shameless plugs
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7. Disruptions!
"At the risk of stating the obvious, the complex system
of relationships and products known as scholarly
communication is under considerable pressure."
– Ann J. Wolpert*
Nature 420, 17-18, 2002
* Director, MIT Libraries; Board Chair, MIT Press; my boss
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8. Observations
• Practice of science – researchers, evidence base,
and publications are all shifting to edges
• Filtering, replication, integration and reuse are
increasing in importance relative to publication
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9. S o m e B i g C h an g e s i n
Lots More Data
SOpen o lars h i p Evidence Base
More
ch Shifting
High Performance Collaboration
(here comes everybody…)
Publish, then Filter
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10. N B T ? … M o re , M o re ,
M o re
M o b i le
F o rm s o f p u b li c ati o n
C o n tri b u ti o n &
attri b u ti o n
C lo u d
Open
P u b li c ati o n s
I n te rd i s c i p li n ary
P e rs o n al d ata
M as h u p s
S tu d e n ts
R e ad e rs
F u n d e rs 10

11. plus ça change, plus c'est la même
folie*
(And BTW the regular stuff ain’t necessarily easy, either…)
•Budget constraints
•Invisibility
•Deadlines
•Matching skillsets
•Legacy systems & requirements
•Personalities
•Bureaucracy
•Politics
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12. Could this be a
good thing for
science?
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13. Observations
• The publication is not the science – it is a
summary of it
• Much of the record of science and the evidence
base for it is not well-maintained
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14. Problems with current
practice…
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15. Unpublished Data Ends up in the “Desk Drawer”
• Null results are less likely to be published
• Outliers are routinely discarded
Daniel
Schectman’s
Lab Notebook
Providing
Initial
Evidence of
Quasi Crystals
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16. Increased Retractions, Allegations of
Fraud
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17. Erosion of Evidence Base
• Researchers lack Examples
archiving capability Intentionally Discarded: “Destroyed, in accord with
[nonexistent] APA 5-year post-publication rule.”
• Incentives for Unintentional Hardware Problems “Some data were
preserving evidence collected, but the data file was lost in a technical
malfunction.”
base are weak Acts of Nature The data from the studies were on punched
cards that were destroyed in a flood in the department in
the early 80s.”
Discarded or Lost in a Move “As I retired …. Unfortunately,
I simply didn’t have the room to store these data sets at my
house.”
Obsolescence “Speech recordings stored on a LISP
Machine…, an experimental computer which is long
obsolete.”
Simply Lost “For all I know, they are on a [University] server,
but it has been literally years and years since the research
was done, and my files are long gone.”
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Research by:
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18. Compliance with Replication Policies is Low
 Compliance is low even
in best examples of
journals
 Checking compliance
manually is tedious
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19. Some possible
publication forms of
enhanced publication…
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20. Embed Real Data Archives in
Journals
• Embed remotely managed
data archive in journal
• Replaces “supplemental
materials”
• Ads
– Online analysis
– Independent storage
– Persistent identifiers and
citation
– Data versioning
– Enhanced discoverability and
interoperability
– Fixity and replication
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21. Streamlined “Data Paper”
Publication
• Data Paper =
Data + Citation + Abstract + Docs
Tools can help
• Standard templates & metadata
• Data citation and persistent ID
• Reviewer workflow
• Overlay/embed data in journal
system
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22. Enhanced Publication
• Link from online journal
systems to data in
repositories
• Connect tables and
figures with abstracts,
verifiably
• Enable on-line analysis
• Showcase articles with
live data collections,
updated results
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23. What will the map of science look like, when we can
see also how all research contributions connect?
Research & Node Layout: Kevin Boyack and Dick
Klavans (mapofscience.com); Data: Thompson ISI;
Graphics & Typography: W. Bradford Paley
(didi.com/brad); Commissioned Katy Börner
(scimaps.org)
Seed Magazine, Mar 7, 2007
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/scientific_m
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24. Community
Initiatives
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is
the only thing that ever has.”
-- attributed to Margaret Mead
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25. Observations
• Since knowledge is not a private good 
Pure-market approach leads to under-
provisioning
• Planning for access to scholarly record should
include planning for long-term access  beyond
the life of a single institution
• Important problems in scholarly
communications, information science &
scholarship increasingly require diverse multi-
disciplinary approaches.
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26. Knowledge is not a Private good
Storage
Provisioning
Software
Source: © Hugh Macleod,
Gapingvoid Art, gapingvoid.com Best
Practice
• Libraries often operate on “cost-
recovery-minus”
• Subsidize knowledge production, Funding
long-term access, reuse (Thin
Preserved Market)
• Recognize costs necessary for
Digital
broader impacts in research Content
budgets 26

27. National Digital Stewardship Alliance
Stewardship Members of the NDSA are committed to managing digital content for
current and long-term use. The members of the NDSA are actively ensuring sustained
access to the digital content that constitutes our national legacy and empowers us as
leaders in the global knowledge economy. Individually, these organizations support the
management of digital resources; as an Alliance, we commit to protecting our nation's
cultural, scientific, scholarly, and business heritage.
digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/
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28. ORCID
ORCID aims to solve the author/contributor name ambiguity problem in
scholarly communications by creating a central registry of unique identifiers for
individual researchers and an open and transparent linking mechanism
between ORCID and other current author ID schemes. These identifiers, and
the relationships among them, can be linked to the researcher's output to
enhance the scientific discovery process and to improve the efficiency of
research funding and collaboration within the research community.
orcid.org
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29. LOCKSS & PLN Organizations
lockss.org
lockss.org/community/networks/
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30. DataCite & CoData
datacite.org
codata.org
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31. Shameless Plugs
“A shill, plant, or stooge is a person who publicly helps a person or
organization without disclosing that he has a close relationship
with that person or organization. Shill typically refers to someone
who purposely gives onlookers the impression that he is an
enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of
ideas) for whom he is secretly working.”
-- Wikipedia
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32. • Easy to use tools give curators the power to define replication policies, examine digital
content and generate audit reportsEnsures replicated collection are geographically and
institutionally distributed.
• Enables institutions in peer-to-peer networks to monitor replication.
• Reduces threats to digital storage and replication.
• Produces an auditing trail to support standards such as Data Seal of Approval,
Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification and ISO 16363.
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33. • Archive social science
data collections at-risk of
being lost.
• Catalog and promote
access to archived
collections in the Data-
PASS shared catalog.
• Replicated preservation of
archived collections.
• Advocate best practices in
digital preservation.
data-pass.org
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34. Integrated Replication Data Publishing
+
Submission, review, and publication of articles & data together
thedata.org
pkp.sfu.ca
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35. Parting
(Free)
Advice
“Past returns are not a guarantee of future
results.”
– Niels Bohr (?)
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36. Recap
• Practice of science – researchers, evidence base, and publications are
all shifting to edges
• Filtering, replication, integration and reuse are increasing in
importance relative to publication
• The publication is not the science – it is a summary of it
• Much of the record of science and the evidence base for it is not well-
maintained
• Since knowledge is not a private good 
Pure-market approach leads to under-provisioning
• Planning for access to scholarly record should include planning for
long-term access  beyond the life of a single institution
• Important problems in scholarly communications, information science
& scholarship increasingly require diverse multi-disciplinary
approaches.
• Understanding scholarly communications requires understanding the
research information lifecycle
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37. Approaches
• Participate in collaborative multi-institutional
efforts to improve scholarly communication
• Identify your organization’s core
competencies at the most abstract level
• Prepare for new opportunities by betting on
people
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38. Questions?
E-mail: Micah_altman@alumni.brown.edu
Web: micahaltman.com
Twitter: @drmaltman
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