<div dir="ltr"><div>On the infrastructure point, I think we need to be clear what we consider to be infrastructure, and also what we think must be a public good vs. something which we are ok with business models being developed around. Not to make too much of the "roads and bridges" analogy, but I do fear we'll just end up
talking past one another and not make the progress that is needed on
this critical topic of infrastructure if we don't actually mean the same
thing when we say the word.<br><br>Right now, the way I think about it is that the identifiers and resolvers and standards that allow you to point from one object to another and to reuse an object in another place are infrastructure, but the things and places themselves aren't infrastructure. A road is infrastructure but a shop on the side of the road isn't, likewise a DOI is infrastructure, but the repository which holds the document identified by the DOI isn't. The pipes which deliver the water to your home are infrastructure, but the water itself isn't. Water is considered a public good, but it's also sold for a obscene markup by massive corporations, precisely because consumers feel value has been added through distribution, filtering, and marketing. Hmm... sound familiar? Open source software is a public good, but IDEs and hosting and SLAs and support and stuff are may not be. <br><br></div><div>This is just the way I'm currently thinking about it - not any sort of official company position - but if someone has a different idea about infrastructure, let's hear it, please, so we can mean the same thing and move this important conversation forward.<br></div><div><br><br><br><br></div><div>(ps: it's worth thinking about how user communities fit in with this. For example, even if you could fork Mendeley, you couldn't fork our community of users. This shows to me the value of a healthy ecosystem of apps and why commercial players shouldn't be feared in the services space - if Mendeley starts doing bad stuff, people will go use Zotero or Papers or whatever other tool they like. Different economics entirely from selling access to unique content.)<br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><br>William Gunn<br>+1 (650) 614-1749<br><a href="http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/about/" target="_blank">http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/about/</a></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 4:34 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pm286@cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">pm286@cam.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 11:22 PM, Éric Archambault <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:eric.archambault@science-metrix.com" target="_blank">eric.archambault@science-metrix.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Isidro<br>
<br>
Not so sure. Two weeks ago while visiting university libraries in Europe I saw that many of them are switching/considering to switch to their CRIS instead of continuing to rely on their traditional repositories and the mostly open source software. We'll have to see how far it goes but the rise of national research assessment exercises and national OA mandates, there is growing pressure to consolidate research data and expect Elsevier, Holtzbrinck (->Digital Science->Symplectic), and Thomson Reuters (and whomever acquires the IP & Science unit - which the rumor mill suggests could be acquired by BC Partners, itself Holtzbrinck's partner in Springer Nature - thus possibly more consolidation on the way) to increase their stronghold on research data and research intelligence.<br>
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Only fools think we are witnessing an opening of research knowledge dissemination. The winners of open data and open access will be large corporates concerns. Research is big business and there are huge economies of scale in that industry, just as in so many others. Consolidation is the name of the game, and amateur bricolage solutions are giving way to corporate professional solutions, whether we like it or not.<br>
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Eric<br>
<br>
<br>
Eric Archambault, Ph.D.<br>
President and CEO | Président-directeur général<br>
Science-Metrix & 1science<br>
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T. <a href="tel:1.514.495.6505%20x.111" value="+15144956505" target="_blank">1.514.495.6505 x.111</a><br>
C. <a href="tel:1.514.518.0823" value="+15145180823" target="_blank">1.514.518.0823</a><br>
F. <a href="tel:1.514.495.6523" value="+15144956523" target="_blank">1.514.495.6523</a><br>
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<br></span></blockquote><br><div><div>Completely agree with Eric. It's the increasing privatizing of academic Infrastructure that terrifies me. Geoff Bilder has also cogently argued this. <br><br></div><div>Open (whether Green or Gold) is almost irrelevant if the material is held in non-discoverable fragmented repos. A commercial "solution" - TR, Elsevier, DigitalScience will effectively lock in discovery and access. The primary value of CC-BY open is that you can fork it. You can't fork Green. You can't fork <a href="http://academia.edu" target="_blank">academia.edu</a> or Researchgate. You can't fork Mendeley (whose contents are "open" in name but not forkable in practice).<br><br></div><div>My prediction is that DigitalScience and Elsevier will compete to manage university repos. What do repos cost? Peter Suber said 1.5 - 5 FTE/year. Multiply across UK (*150) and you get ca 400 FTEs. cost this at 100K real costs (e.g. RC costing) and you get 40 Million GBP. And that's for 5% of output. Suppose Digisevier goes to VCs or HEFCE or JISC and offers to do it for half and allow those valuable library staff to be "repurposed". <br>
</div></div></div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">We must build our own Open infrastructure. It's a matter of crisis. If we don't do it in the next 12 months it will be too late.<br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">There is enough Open technology to do it. If Universities, Funders, Libraries scholars and citizens get up and shout for Open infrastructure we can pool resources and do it. If we out-source our thinking and planning to Digisevier we shall be sidelined within 5 years.<br><br></div><span class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div>Peter Murray-Rust<br>Reader in Molecular Informatics<br>Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry<br>University of Cambridge<br>CB2 1EW, UK<br><a href="tel:%2B44-1223-763069" value="+441223763069" target="_blank">+44-1223-763069</a></div>
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