First Workshop on Scientific Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Evaluation, January 2009.

The world of scientific publications has been largely oblivious to the advent of the Web and to advances in ICT. Scientific knowledge dissemination is still based on the traditional notion of a paper publication and on as quality assessment by peer review. The current approach encourages authors to write multiple, incremental papers to get more tokens of credit, generating unnecessary dissemination overhead for themselves and for the community of reviewers. Furthermore, this approach does not encourage or support reuse and evolution of publications. Any small progress on a subject requires that a new paper be written, reviewed, and published, often many months later.

The inefficiency and limitations of the current research dissemination model and its lack of scalability are widely acknowledged. However, solutions to these crucial issues are still missing.

The First Workshop on Scientific Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Evaluation (the LiquidPub Snow Workshop) aims at studying how the scientific community can improve knowledge dissemination while reducing dissemination and reviewing overhead, encouraging releases of early results, and ensuring a rating process that is as fair and effective as possible. The workshop is sponsored by the Liquid Publications project, and is meant to be the first of a series of interdisciplinary workshops on this topic. Registration is free.

The first Workshop will be held in the Dolomite Mountains near Trento, Italy from 28-31 January 2009.

The Snow Workshop is over. Discussion of the panels and photos contributed by the participants are on the LiquidPub Wiki Workshop page.

Workshop Structure

The workshop is interdisciplinary and includes communities ranging from computer science to physics, philosophy, economics, and scientific publishing.  Its structure is very informal: it is meant to be a venue for discussions. Presentations will be kept to a minimum. There will be no pre-workshop proceedings and all material will be made available online.

Workshop Schedule

• 7pm : Welcome Dinner

Thurdsay, 29 January:

• till 3pm : Skiing or Spa
• 3pm-5pm : Panel session: The Ideal Knowledge Generation Process
• 5:30-7:30 : Panel session: The Review and Evaluation Process
• 7pm-8pm : Dinner
• 8pm-11pm : Free discussions
  

Friday, 30 January:

• 9:00am-10:45am : Panel Session: ICT Support for Scientific Publishing, and Novel Notions of a "Paper"
• 10:45am-11:15am : Break for appetizers and snacks.
• 11:15am-1pm : Panel Session: The Role of Publishers and Libraries in a Liquid, Open-access World
• 3pm-7pm : Social Event on the snow
  
• 7pm-8pm : Dinner
• 8pm- : Informal discussions
  

Saturday, 31 January:

• 8am-12pm : Workshop Wrap-up: The LiquidPub Conference Series
  

Topics and Panels

We plan to consider the past, present and future of topics of importance to the worldwide scientific community. We have put these topics and a first cut of the panel organization in a Google Documents for all attendees to collaborate.

Email Jim Law (jamesblaw [at] gmail.com) if you would like to contribute and need an invite. The initial topics are:

The ideal scientific knowledge generation process

What is the ideal way in which scientist collaborate to create knowledge? Do we believe that early dissemination, more collaboration, and more feedback would benefit scientific production?  What are the tools and metrics / credit attribution methods that help achieve this? How do metrics bias the way we produce, disseminate, and consume scientific knowledge. Do metrics help us or do they stand in the way? Which metrics can be borrowed from the social web or open source development? Which metrics encourage scientific efficiency? What is a contribution? Are comments and blogs contributions? How do we evaluate them?

The review and evaluation process

The history of peer review. What works? What doesn't work?  How should reviews and evaluations be done? What are the biases?  How does it impact academic careers?  The project evaluation lifecycle.  Funding agency review and evaluation processes.  New conference or journal processes: How about Liquid Journals?  How do we foster collaboration?  Which tools will scientists use?  Which tools won't scientists use?  Which abstractions are successful?  What interaction and conference models are successful?

ICT support for scientific publishing and novel notion of "paper"

How can tools support and help us achieve a "ideal" scientific knowledge creation and dissemination process?  Should we go towards a "liquid paper" model?  How do liquid papers evolve?  How do books evolve?  Should we move towards a notion of liquid books?

The role of publishers and libraries in a liquid/open access world

What roles do publishers and libraries currently play?  How is open access changing their roles?  What are the issues for open access and long-term preservation?

The Liquid Publications Conference series (Saturday morning Wrap Up)

How should the community organize this conference series?

Venue

The LiquidPub Snow Workshop will be held in the Dolomite Mountains near Trento, Italy at the Sporthotel Alpenrose. The workshop discussions will be held afternoons and evenings leaving time for skiing during the morning (thus, the Snow Workshop). The Dolomites in winter are a great place for skiing, if that is among your passions. The resort where the workshop will be held also provides a Spa-Wellness Center and ample opportunities for other kinds of relaxation.  Please bring some winter clothes and feel free to bring ski equipment if you want. Skis can also be rented locally.

The most convenient airports are Verona, Italy and Innsbruck, Austria.  Bolzano, Italy also has a small airport.  Trains run from Verona and Innsbruck to Bolzano. We will be posting directions from Bolzano to the hotel as soon as we finalize the plans.  Please contact us if you have questions.

Trento, capital of the Autonomous Province of Trentino, is a university city and hosts advanced research centers and international cultural institutions. Its geographical position is on the ancient trade routes between the Mediterranean and Central Europe. Due to Trento's strong bond between man and mountain, it is often described as an alpine city. Trento cultural offerings include a wide range of castles, archaeological sites, sanctuaries, and the wonderful lakes of the Dolomites.

Participation

The first workshop includes participation from the main communities in computer science (as represented by the advisory board of the LiquidPub Project) as well as publishers, philosophers, physicists, economists, foundations, and government. Everybody is encouraged to attend. Attendance is limited, both to keep it manageable and to maintain its informal, discussion-oriented nature.

Workshop attendance is now closed.

The current participants are:

Contact Information

For workshop arrangements and questions, please contact Jim Law at jamesblaw@gmail.com .

Related Links

• Liquid Publications