Open Access, Open Science, Open Government, Open Education. We often see these as new movements, set against an old world of broken – and closed – systems of scholarship and education. New technologies, primarily the web, have lifted the veil from our eyes to let us see this new world. If only we could build the right technology...mandate the right behavior then a new utopia of open scholarship will be upon us! The problem with this view is that it sees the disruption of the web as a one-off event that once worked through will provide a solution for all time. Framed that way this is obviously not true, but the challenge goes deeper than that. Scholarship, in its western institutionalized forms, has increased in scale continuously for at least 400 and possibly 2000 years. No social or institutional system can scale continuously over several order of magnitude. Therefore we must expect structural historical breaks.
The question is not how to fix scholarship, but how on earth it has managed to last this long? I will argue that what sits at the core of this survival is a set of normative cultural values that privilege openness. Their application has been far from perfect but the concepts of communication, criticism, civility and inclusion have deep roots in our institutions and communities. At the same time community and identity are critical to scholarship, and both of these imply exclusion and boundary work to define community. My argument is that the culture, forms and values of western scholarship have held these two tendencies in productive tension, allowing the academy to address the ongoing scaling (and consequent inclusion) problem through social, technical and economic innovation. Our challenge is not simply to solve today's problems, but to re-imagine our institutions so that they continuously generate and are able to adopt the innovations necessary to continue to solve the scaling problem into the indefinite future.
41. Many of the discussions of the future at
CERN and the LHC era end with the
question – “Yes, but how will we ever keep
track of such a large project?”
42. Many of the discussions of the future at
CERN and the LHC era end with the
question – “Yes, but how will we ever keep
track of such a large project?”
https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html
48. He who receives an idea from me, receives
instruction himself without lessening
mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me.
Thomas Jefferson
49. [ideas are as if] benevolently designed by
nature, when she made them, like fire,
expansible over all space, without
lessening their density in any point;
Thomas Jefferson
50. . . . I dare speak confidently and
positively of very few things, except of
matters of fact.
Robert Boyle
51. “Of my being somewhat prolix […] I thought
it necessary to deliver things circumstantially,
that the Person I addressed them to might,
without mistake, and with as little trouble as
is possible, be able to repeat such unusual
Experiments”
Robert Boyle
52. [I will answer Linus’ objections] partly,
because the Learned Author, whoever he be
having forborne provoking Language in his
Objections, allowes me in answering them to
comply with my Inclinations & Custom of
exercising Civility, even where I most dissent
in point of Judgement.”
Robert Boyle
53. [I] speak so doubtingly, and use so often,
perhaps, it seems, it is not improbable,
and such other expressions, as argue a
diffidence of the truth of the opinions I
incline to, and that I should be so shy of
laying down principles
Robert Boyle
55. “that not alone scientific readers, but those
of every class, [...] to approach the source
from whence this species of knowledge is
derived”
James Samuelson and William Crookes
56. “…merely an amateur, a lover of truth,
who was impelled by curiosity ”
Grant Allen
57. “Science” is an old culture that has
survived over a long period
63. He who receives an idea from me, receives
instruction himself without lessening
mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me.
Thomas Jefferson
71. A culture of openness
Latour, Politics of Nature
72. How can one take new beings into
account if one cannot radically change
the position of one’s gaze?
Latour, Politics of Nature
73. [They are]…precisely inventing through
the intermediary of instruments and the
artifice of the laboratory, the
displacement of points of view that is so
indispensable to public life.
Latour, Politics of Nature
74. How can one take new beings into
account if one cannot radically change
the position of one’s gaze?
Latour, Politics of Nature