Questioning the coming age of multimodal research infrastructure

While, in the last 20 years, we have tamed the scholarly record, we should not be complacent.  As research becomes more multimodal, the scholarly record will need morph into something new.  The systems that currently contain it will not be fit for purposes; the ways in which we capture, record, and communicate scholarship will change.  The process of change has already begun, but are we thinking radically enough about the mechanisms and systems that we will need to put in place in this emergent world?

It is not just the systems of storing and reporting that will need to change, but also the way that we expect to search, interrogate, and evaluate.  Digital Science has spent the last few years considering these challenges, designing systems that begin a journey beyond publications and citations.  And yet, a publication-focus remains at the core of the analyses that academics, administrators, and policy makers continue to use to support their stakeholders.  Are we about to see another revolution or will research be held back by infrastructures that no longer fit our needs, as was the case in 2000?  In either case, a new age of innovation is almost certainly just around the corner, the only question will be whether our community leads or lags.