Scholarly Communication: Deconstruct and Decentralize?During the 1-year sabbatical I just spent at DANS in The Netherlands, I have familiarized myself with the motivations, standards, and technologies associated with the Decentralized Web movement, especially those that leverage the HTTP protocol stack. During this exercise, I have also explored whether and how these novel approaches could be used as a foundation for a global scholarly commons, and what a minimally viable platform could be. I have closely followed, and at times collaborated with, early career researchers that do pioneering work in this realm. My investigations have led me to believe that – technically – decentralized web approaches can be applied to arrive at a researcher-centric and institution-enabled system in which the core functions of scholarly communication (registration, awareness, certification, archiving) can appropriately be fulfilled. The standards required to arrive at an interoperable, distributed, web-native system are largely in place. The tools that illustrate this potential remain experimental and brittle, yet show a glimpse of a possible future. My enthusiasm regarding these technical opportunities is tempered by a healthy portion of realism regarding the mere possibility of initiating profound change in scholarly communication. My reservations are based on the modest progress that has resulted from a plethora of efforts over the past two decades (some of which I was actively involved in), and on the understanding that global collective action on behalf of academia is required to give a scholarly commons effort the momentum it needs to stand a chance of success. In this talk, I will share a snapshot of my evolving thinking about a future that could be, and hopefully inspire CNI representatives to explore complementary avenues, beyond the technical one that remains my focus.
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