Some phd students have created vlogs at youtube in which they are telling to the public what the life at the campus is and how complicate it is to write a thesis. The main reason why these students are doing so is because they want to share a phd lifestyle with the world. So a phd vlog can be interpreted as some kind of success story which is telling a plot.
This is a good starting point into the direction of open science, but what the readership is really interested in, is if the phd student exposes not only his personal life, but the phd livestyle in general. A possible attempt towards that direction was made by Lawrence Bacow, which is the 29th president of harvard university.
Similar to a normal phd student, he has choosen the youtube platform to tell the public something about his life on the campus. But instead of telling a success story, Mr. Bacow has a quite different story to offer:
Larry Bacow, Harvard University President: The future of higher education | LIVE STREAM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkd5sLbYCHI
What he is telling the public and other phd students as well is that higher education in general has no future. Most of the colleges and universities will close in the near future and the result looks sad, very similar the dystopia from the movie “Back to the future II”.
I'm not sure, if the president of Harvard has analyzed the economic situation of his university and other colleges correct, so perhaps he was only interested in getting more views. The video has a high quality and it make sense to take a look. Perhaps it make sense to explain, that Open Science is not the same as closing all the academic publishers and shutdown all the colleges. Open Science means, that the university life will become more relevant for larger part of the society, and that more people can attend higher education.
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