| abstract: |
This project explores how ICT and the lessons learned from the social Web can be applied to provide a radical paradigm shift in the way scientific knowledge is created, evaluated, and maintained. We argue that the novel technologies can enable a transition of the “scientific paper” form its traditional “solid” form, (i.e. a crystallization in space and time of a scientific knowledge artifact) to a Liquid Publication (also called Scientific Knowledge Object hereafter), that can take multiple shapes, evolves continuously in time, and is enriched by multiple sources. The intended benefits of this novel approach are:
- to increase the early circulation of innovative ideas (and hence a more effective dissemination);
- to optimized the time spent by researchers in creating, assessing and disseminating knowledge;
- to develop a new credit attribution process based on social networks, team/community work, collaborative problem solving, social reputation, and distribution of knowledge;
- to deliver innovative services and business models for publishers of Liquid Publications.
We aim at achieving these objectives by considering “papers”, publications, and scientific knowledge in general as a complex (software) system characterized by three main interacting components: Scientific Knowledge Objects, (SKO), People, and Processes. Besides investigating SKOs and their lifecycle, the project aims at designing and developing a proof-of-concept SKO service center, a set of tools that manages the entire lifecycle, from the initial dissemination to its continuous evolution. Moreover, we believe that the described context is actually an instance of a much general problem related to the knowledge creation life-cycle in a number of relevant application areas ranging from Web 2.0, the social Web and corporate knowledge management. As often is the case, we expect a percolation of ideas, methods and tools used in the production of scientific knowledge into common knowledge processes |
