Scholarly Publication-- Michael Jensen

Jensen has been consistently at the forefront of thinking about how the publication of scientific information and scholarship can take advantage of new technologies. In a recent speech, he makes the following points:

"In a world of an ever-growing surfeit of content and distraction, when the clamor of voices for simplistic solutions to systemic problems, we must:

Promote our value to society, to justify our continued existence.

Further, we must:

Brand ourselves as becoming part of the CO2 solution, to our administrators and institutions, as part of *their* external messaging campaigns

Brand ourselves with the public as a key part of a civilized world trying to save itself

Brand ourselves as rethinking our relationship to scholarly communication

Brand ourselves as quality in a sea of content, by being openly accessible digitally

Brand ourselves as promoters of intellectual rigor and quality, online"

These last two points are worth repeating over and over. This is the difference that university faculty can make in regards to participating in the online world. It should also serve as a reminder that the point of new media is not to be "cool," but to produce high quality work.