Sharing Knowledge: Scientific Communication - SSOAR

190 Hans E. Roosendaal, Peter A. Th. M. Geurts
gregating role between the repositories by providing access and linking to research
and teaching information stored on the various different sources of creation
or institutional repositories. This function can and probably will introduce a
quality filter as added value by giving access to specific certified material thereby
introducing editorial control on the material. It seems obvious that for research
information but probably also for teaching information such a certification
function should carry an international dimension.
As stated above this function can be assumed by a number of new or existing
public or private institutions or by the publishers. Each of these stakeholders has
to prove the value it adds to the information chain in terms of the functions that it
provides. It would mean that a number of the existing stakeholders will have to
assume new roles and will have to prove themselves in such new roles in the new
and emerging value chain. The academic institutions and therefore the generic
stakeholders, the author and the reader, will have an important position in this
new value chain. In the end it will be the generic stakeholders, and in particular
the author as the author has the first right of choice, who will decide on the efficacy
and efficiency of the scientific communication network in his/her desire for
empowerment. The value chain represents the ultimate competitive landscape, it
is not an instrument for public regulation.
The above sketched development means that we are gradually moving towards
a global, distributed network of scientific communication as a network of
repositories, archives, libraries, academic institutions and facilitators and aggregators.
Such an international and distributed network demands an international
and distributed ownership, or a strategic management involving all the stakeholders,
generic as well as institutional, involved in the value chain, albeit with different
weights commensurate to the values added and the functions performed
in the network. The primary task of this kind of strategic management is to facilitate
all stakeholders in realising their individual strategic and operational goals.
Needless to state that these individual stakeholder goals can and will be
competing. Such a development then also calls for new trust relations 13 between
the stakeholders for such a new mix of competition and co-operation in the construction
of a global scientific information infrastructure that is not needed in an
infrastructure for the distribution of paper-based information.
Establishing new trust relations is not a sufficient task, it certainly is a necessary
task. It is a prerequisite for creating new business models between academic
institutions and other stakeholders, and new distribution models on the basis
of such new business models.
13 Harry Hummels and Hans E. Roosendaal, “Trust in Scientific Publishing”. Journal of Business
Ethics, 34 (2001) 87-100