‘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?
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