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When everything is in a state of flux, we need opportunities for ideas to collide, innovations to be shared, concepts to be rehashed and mashedup, and iterative improvements to occur. Education today - at all levels - faces the challenge of tremendous change and unstettledness. Rigid systems break in periods of flux.

The concept of open badges could also pose a challenge to existing educational institutions, given that they might no longer be the chief conduits for awarding qualifications. Will they fight against the concept of badges or make fundamental changes to become part of the lifelong learning ecosystem, recognising badges in the entry process and awarding badges for more than just the core skills set out by a course, e.g. awarding value badges and recognising badges awarded by peers?

"Youngsters, who might be expected to embrace new ways of doing things, must therefore publish in existing, reputable journals if they want recognition and promotion. And the definition of "reputable" changes slowly, since journals with the best reputation get the pick of new papers."

Speaking of the future of scholarly publishing, and the role of publishers, Velterop says, "The evolution of scientific communication will go on, without any doubt, and although that may not mean the total demise of the traditional models, these models will necessarily change. After all, some dinosaur lineages survived as well. We call them birds. And there are some very attractive ones. They are smaller than the dinosaurs they evolved from, though. Much smaller."