Future Professional Communication in Astronomy II (Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr for Astrophys., 13-14 Apr 2010) [poster]


Colloquium on the
Future Professional Communication in Astronomy
Brussels, Palace of the Academies, 10-13 June 2007

Programme

Abstracts of talks

Registered participants

Group Photograph

Pictures

Proceedings

Report published in The Observatory, Vol. 127 (2007) 375-379

Main Themes

- Electronic publishing: reviews/progress reports
- Evaluation and electronic publishing
- New publishing models
- The role of learned societies
- Bibliometric and other evaluation criteria

Rationale

Fifteen years after the first international meeting on electronic publishing (Strasbourg, October 1991) from which originated many of today's materializations and collaborations in the field, where do we stand? Electronic mailings and web postings have profoundly changed the way our community works and communicates, but when the time comes to publish refereed documents, we are still mainly producing electronic versions of documents printable or otherwise available on paper instead of practising full electronic publishing.

Why is that? While maintaining a diversity of media is certainly desirable, are there technical barriers (for instance at the level of archiving) to going fully electronic for our verified knowledge? Are there sociological limitations in a scientific community known for being usually at the leading edge of the related technologies? One of these limitations might be that, down to the real rating, evaluation committees (of programmes, of individuals, of institutions) primarily take into account refereed "papers" available through traditional channels. Should not the evaluation processes reflect the complementarity of the various media?

Commercial publishers are coming up with new publishing models. What are these and are we heading their way? On the other hand, authors/editors are delivering today finalized/immediately publishable material, but it can sometimes remain sitting for months with publishers or subcontractors not always producing satisfactory results. The question of rights is sometimes raised too as commercial publishers are reselling at high cost information to institutions from which it originally came. What role could learned societies play in this context? Should we accept proposals for community-supported minimum-work wiki-like servers? Are we ready for Open Access? And, if so, for which publications?

Bibliometric tools, mainly citation-based ones, have been multiplying of late. What are they measuring exactly? Should we opt for specific ones or for several, each adapted to specific needs? Should we develop other evaluation criteria?

Target

This meeting more particularly addresses editors, publishers, librarians, archives managers, officers of learned societies, as well as scientists involved in professional publishing and in evaluation processes.

Registration

Please return the registration form. Early registration is recommended as total attendance will be limited by the auditorium size. Pre-registration is mandatory as non-pre-registered persons will not be allowed within the Academy buildings.

Location

Brussels is easily reachable from all over the world and benefits from an excellent public transport network. The meeting will take place in the prestigious buildings of the Royal Academies, in downtown Brussels near the Royal Palace. [Checkout, for instance on this google map, the group of buildings between the Rue Ducale/Hertogstraat and Boulevard du Régent/Regentlaan near the Park of Brussels, the large green rectangle at the eastern inner edge of the Brussels central pentagon.]

Accommodation

Participants are requested to arrange their own accommodation. Several web sites provide comprehensive choices; for instance, http://www.hotels-belgium.com/brussel-center/hotels.htm as well as the generic site http://www.brusselstourism.com/.

Participants are advised to secure their rooms as soon as possible (European events can quickly saturate hotels in Brussels).

Contacts:

 André Heck                                           Léo Houziaux
 Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory                  Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences,
 "heck_at_astro.u-strasbg.fr"                         Letters and Fine Arts

Please check this page regularly for possible updates.