Defining the Scholarly Commons - Reimagining Research Communication. Report of Force11 SCWG Workshop, Madrid, Spain, February 25-27, 2016

Abstract

'Today’s dominant modes and models of scholarly communication stem from 350 years of tradition around scholarly and scientific dissemination through printed materials. As has been often noted, current forms of electronic communications recapitulate these practices and perpetuate the reward systems built around them. Too often, scholars are unaware of the origins of current practices and accept the status quo because "that’s how it's done". But what if we could start over? What if we had computers, an internet, search engines and social media, but no legacy of journals, articles, books, review systems etc.? How would we be acting as scholars to communicate our research and put it to maximum use? What would consumers of this scholarship expect? To what extent is the promise of new modes of communication enabled by 21st century technology fostered or held back by these traditions?The first workshop of the Force11 Scholarly Commons Working Group, held in Madrid on February 26-27, 2016, aimed to answer these questions. The workshop brought together experts and new voices across disciplines and countries in a lively format to rethink scholarly communication from scratch. Through this exercise, we began defining principles that should govern the production, dissemination and flow of scholarly objects within what we are calling the 'Scholarly Commons'. Here, we report on both the workshop process, with emphasis on the role of facilitation and visualization, the workshop outcomes and the future plans of the Scholarly Commons Working Group.