On Open Access

Controversy has been raging. The proponents of different sorts of open access have been fighting it out: greens vs golds in the style of skins vs shirts in an impromptu children's football match, and with the goal equally fluid. Liking, as I do, a good controversy I am tempted to join in, arguing perhaps for some sort of mixed model, greeny-goldish, but I simply have not got the heart for the fight. It is irrelevant. The real action is somewhere else entirely. We are on the edge of a complete transformation in scientific communication that has almost nothing to do with the disintermediation of publishers and everything to do with the ways in which we disseminate research.

The scientific paper we know now is the outcome of the evolution of the letters that 18th century 'natural philosophers' exchanged amongst themselves. Further refined in the 19th century German academy it has been bequeathed to us as the ultimate form of scientific discourse. We have vested authority in the form and privileged it over the content. "In a published paper" gives some stamp of quality almost entirely belied by the vast amount of rubbish published in dubious journals, and even some so-called archival journals.

I firmly, no, passionately, believe in the 'remaking' of scientific communication using the full potential of digital, social and media technologies. This to entail not simply an online and enhanced version of existing papers but a complete rethink, probably a fragmentation and a much greater transparency of the process of research. A reworking of forms, audiences, modes and workflows. I also believe that we are on the edge of precisely such a remaking. I am uncertain of what will emerge but I am convinced that it will happen soon. Scientific communication relies at base upon a combination of social consensus and organisational mechanisms. These can change and when they change the shift can come with great suddenness and rapidity.

Predicting such changes is of course a mug's game. When a change comes it will seem retrospectively to have been blindingly obvious. If the change is delayed by institutional factors my reputation as a pundit, never high, will be shot. I am ready to take that risk.

In the wake of change in scientific communication all sorts of other things may happen. Scientific and professional societies rely upon journals and databases of published articles. Conferences and scientific meetings rest upon proceedings. Universities measure their relative standing in terms of published papers. Students are trained in the existing modes of scientific communication. Individual scientists organise their work around the business of producing scientific papers. I am not sure that the university and scientific community, and beyond that the industry, funder and policy communities are prepared for the scope or scale of the associated disruption.

Actually, correct that. I am absolutely sure we, they, are not ready. Open access is, in this context, a distraction. What happens if we open the scientific literature and the game is somewhere completely different?