An Executive Summary of "Assessing the Impact of Evolving Information and Communications Technologies and Trends on ACS"

The American Chemical Society Board of Directors established a 2006 goal to examine how the Society can ensure the fulfillment of its charter mission of providing scientific information globally, via Chemical Abstracts Service, Publications, meetings, and/or alternative means, in the context of changing technological and sociological trends. ACS proposed to study technology and related trends in an unprecedented cross-divisional review to ensure that ACS remains in the forefront in the 21st century. In January 2006, the ACS Board launched a multiphase project titled "Assessing the Impact of Evolving Information and Communications Technologies and Trends on ACS."

The objective of the project is to identify key emerging technologies and user trends that will shape scientific and other communication over the next several years, assess the implications for ACS, and recommend actions to better position ACS to succeed in the coming decade. The aim of this project is to inform decisions on how ACS should alter its services to stay competitive in a changing technological landscape. It was also timed to advise the development of the ACS strategic plan.

The project began with extensive external research on technology and user trends relevant to the Society's leadership in delivering quality scientific and other information to its members and stakeholders. Interviews were also arranged with various outside experts across sectors to draw input on technological and user trends relevant to scientific organizations. ACS then arranged a half-day workshop in March of ACS managers across the Society to discuss the relevance of initial findings to ACS products, programs, and services.

The combined outcome of these efforts shaped the development of the centerpiece of the project, a leadership workshop in Baltimore that was held on June 19–21. The workshop was attended by 84 people, including leaders from the ACS Board of Directors, the ACS Governing Board for Publishing, and other governance units, as well as senior ACS staff and outside experts. The goal was to have a forward-looking, interactive discussion on how ACS can better serve its stakeholders as evolving information and communication technologies and consumer trends transform Society services in the future.

Following a kickoff address by renowned futurist Thomas Frey, the workshop program began with a plenary session discussion on a range of emerging technologies, user trends, and external forces that will affect ACS and its environment. Rik Kirkland, senior editor of Fortune magazine, noted that organizations "tend to overestimate change in the short run and underestimate it in the long run." He highlighted the remarkable pace of economic and scientific progress in China and India and set out major challenges for publishers in the coming decade.

Plenary session panelists discussed how users are increasingly taking control of information and demanding fast, portable, wireless, and visual content. Trends suggest that users want information that is more personalized and connective and available "anytime, anywhere." Speakers also discussed the importance of content that is integrated, prioritized, and manageable and the importance of social software for associations and societies.

Other panelists discussed the impact and future of ubiquitous computing and advanced search tools in a world of user-generated, bottom-up content. It was noted that even if technical and economic barriers to research and publishing continue to fall, there will still be a major role for content aggregators, filters, and evaluators.

Concurrent afternoon panel discussions focused on future trends and technologies related to scientific collaboration and the future of information management and delivery. Panel presentations set the stage for breakout exercises in which participants mapped potential threats and opportunities for ACS in these areas.

Participants were unanimous in identifying improvements to ACS's Web presence as a significant opportunity for the Society, particularly development of online communities. They also saw a mix of major opportunities and threats in new publishing technologies (in particular, wikis and self-publishing technologies), business models (especially open access), data mining and visualization, and future automated "post-human Internet" technologies.

This idea of ACS as an enabler and sustainer of scientific and professional networks reappeared in the third and most interactive part of the workshop. In this session, eight groups of participants assumed one of eight "personas," representing current and potential future users of ACS services, and considered how ACS could craft a "winning proposition" to attract them to the society. Even though the eight personas were highly varied, ranging from young Ph.D.s to mid-career and retired scientists to an expert system, the groups essentially converged on a single vision of the future.

In this vision, ACS would use a combination of automated and social networking tools to allow members to communicate with each other, create and publish information, and better manage and search content; maintain its traditional roles as distributor and guarantor of scientific knowledge; increase its day-to-day presence in the lives of both current and new members; and move vigorously to become a more global society.

The issues that received the most votes and/or attention throughout the workshop included

• Social software
• Data mining/visualization (Web 3.0)
• Open access
• E-learning
• Ubiquitous computing
• Virtual meetings
• New business models
• New publishing media
• Globalization
• Peer production

Overall, the conference accomplished what it set out to achieve: a forward-looking, interactive discussion among a select group of ACS leaders, staff, and outside experts that produced a range of new ideas and insights on how ACS can better prepare to meet user needs as new information and communication technologies shape the future value of ACS.

Given the broad scope of the project and the focus on evaluating trends and technologies years ahead, a wide range of ideas and challenges were presented over the course of six months. The challenge following the workshop was to review the technologies and trends that received the most attention during all phases of this project, identify key and overlapping themes, and assess the key implications and potential actions for ACS across divisions.

Information and insights gathered during this project suggest that four trends warrant particularly careful consideration by ACS because of their disruptive potential to scientific information and communication: open access and production, social software, emerging information and communications technologies, and the globalization of science. Two other trends were emphasized during the project given their underlying role in the direction of these trends and the overall future of ACS: the career and communication patterns of young scientists and the growing interdisciplinary nature of chemistry.

One mega trend that has the potential to profoundly alter the environment for scientific communication and publishing is open access. While it remains unclear whether open access publishing will become widespread, and while there is serious doubt about its economic viability for thousands of journals, the movement has established a foothold in the U.S. and the U.K., and the prospect of a greater share of full-text research articles being made available for free—within a year after publication or even at the time of publication—is real.

The issues are urgent and serious, especially as governments consider new mandates that could reduce the economic value of, and subscriptions to, ACS journals and databases. As open access initiatives and pressures grow, publishers must confront their implications carefully and creatively.

Another mega trend, social software, could be even more disruptive. These Web-based platforms combine "bottom-up" information sharing with collaborative content management and connectivity tools in ways that could transform communications among scientists and the dissemination of scientific content. While open access disrupts the economic value of traditional content through free dissemination, social software creates value by enabling new content and collective interaction around it.

Such networks allow scientists to distribute content widely; better manage it; contribute to and learn from the collective ranking, filtering, and enhancements by others; and make new connections to others in online communities. While blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking services are important on their own, it is the combination of their features that makes social software such a potent force.

The disruptive potential of information and communications technologies on the horizon deserves equal attention. Emerging technologies that received the most attention during the project (given their relation to other trends) were visualization and data mining technology, semantic tagging, ubiquitous computing, flexible displays, and e-books. Taken together, they have the potential to affect scientific communication as powerfully as the growth of the Internet.

A fourth major trend that garnered significant attention is the accelerating globalization of science. Advances in communications technologies coupled with increased emphasis by governments on developing knowledge-intensive economies suggest that the globalization of science will continue apace and gravitate toward Asia. As scientific talent and discovery become more distributed and new global power centers emerge, scientists abroad will play increasingly important roles in research collaborations, online communities, peer production, and future markets for scientific content.

The increasingly interdisciplinary nature of chemistry is also an important trend underlying these mega trends. Its role must be considered, particularly with respect to global research collaboration, online communities, new research directions, and new markets for ACS content.

Finally, the communication and career patterns of young scientists will clearly influence these trends. In addition to young scientists' growing nontraditional career expectations and frequent moves among fields, their notable use of social software, lead role in adopting new technologies, and enormous makeup of key Asian populations garnered significant attention during this project.

Technologies and user behaviors stemming from these six trends are changing rapidly, and ACS is currently making notable investments and playing a lead role among peers in many of these areas. The final project report under development, however, sets out cross-divisional implications for ACS with regard to key disrupters over the next several years and action steps for the Society to consider to enhance the value of its services. The ACS Board of Directors will determine their appropriateness and feasibility and the implications for ACS resources and programs.

Note: ACS worked in partnership with the Institute for the Future (IFTF)—a highly respected nonprofit research organization with more than 30 years of experience in long-term data-based forecasting—on this project.