roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (10/03/90)
What do you think about an electronic journal? Not a newsgroup (even
a moderated one), but a real scientific journal in which manuscripts for
full-length original research papers are submitted by email, sent for formal
review by email, subjected to the same standards as for a (shall we say) old
fashioned hard copy journal, and distributed to the subscribers
electronically. Papers (does the term still apply?) published in such a
forum would "count" as publications, and would be cited as original research
articles.
Much as I think it's a neat idea, I realize the world isn't ready for
this quite yet. How to deal with figures, for example, is just one of many
technical problems. And I won't even touch the problems of peer acceptance,
or accesibility of archives via a conventional library. Just thought I'd
being it up as food for thought, and as a teaser to start some discussion.
Think about it. Do you think it's a good idea? Do you think it
could be made to work in a year? Two years? Five? Ten? Twenty? What if
the technical problems could be solved today, say by magically putting a 10
MIPS Megapixel greyscale X terminal on everybody's desk, with universal T1 or
better connectivity? Would you subscribe? Would you submit manuscripts to
it? Would your colleagues?
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
"Arcane? Did you say arcane? It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"westerm@aclcb.purdue.edu (Rick Westerman) (10/03/90)
> Think about it. Do you think it's a good idea? Do you think it >could be made to work in a year? Two years? Five? Ten? Twenty? What if 10 years, at least. >the technical problems could be solved today, say by magically putting a 10 >MIPS Megapixel greyscale X terminal on everybody's desk, with universal T1 or >better connectivity? A major problem is the connectivity and recovery of costs. Until the USA has a fast universal network (such as Internet) where commerical interests are allowed to recover costs (like CompuServe, Genie, etc.) -- and a commerical interest is needed for a good journal; someone has to pay for the editing/layup/etc. -- the journal won't be feasible. True, there is the technical problems of a univeral format for figures and technical problem of displaying the journal, but in my opinion, these problems pale in comparision of the political problem of universal, cost-recovery, networking. -- Rick Rick Westerman AIDS Center Laboratory for Computational Internet: westerm@aclcb.purdue.edu Biochemistry, Biochemistry building, (317) 494-0505 Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN 47907
gilbertd@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Don Gilbert) (10/04/90)
Drosophila Information Service is switching from paper to electronic. This was not a refereed journal, but a methods, notes and short research article journal for Drosophila workers. If you subscribe to Genetics, you'll get a notice about it. It will be January or so until papers are distributed, but there is now an e-mailing list for DIS. If you are interested in subscribing to the DIS list, then send an email message To: listserv@iubvm Subject: sub dis-l@iubvm If you want to unsubscribe to this list, send a message To: listserv@iubvm Subject: uns dis-l@iubvm For more information on the details of this list, please contact the moderator, Kathy Matthews at MATTHEWK@IUBACS.BITNET. -- Don Don.Gilbert@Iubio.Bio.Indiana.Edu biocomputing office, indiana univ., bloomington, in 47405, usa
kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson) (10/04/90)
There was a rather extended discussion of electronic publication on the BIO-MATRIX (bionet.molbio.bio-matrix) newsgroup about a month back and the subscribers on that newsgroup were quite interested. In fact at the MATRIX meeting in July, there was talk of starting an electronic journal for the BIO-MATRIX organization, but the press of everyday affairs appears to have kept much from happening since then. I would suggest continuing this discussion in that forum since the subscribers had many excellent suggestions and some may not subscribe to BIONEWS (bionet.general). -- Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson GenBank Manager kristoff@genbank.bio.net
UNASMITH@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Una Smith) (10/04/90)
> Roy Smith < > What do you think about an electronic journal? [stuff deleted] Sounds great. But what you describe is mostly making the mechanics of submitting to a journal electronic, which some paper journals already are. While it is nice to read stuff via email, the pleasure is largely in the immediacy, not the act of looking at a monitor. Wouldn't it be nice to have extremely rapid turn-around of submitted manuscripts, and immediate receipt by subscribers be nice? Wouldn't it be nicer to have all that _and_ a paper copy for passing on to friends who don't/can't get email, or for filing away in existing filing systems? If a document isn't used often, there is little justification for keeping it on a computer, and paper archives are often more convenient and durable than computer tape archives. > Much as I think it's a neat idea, I realize the world isn't ready for >this quite yet. How to deal with figures, for example, is just one of many >technical problems. And I won't even touch the problems of peer acceptance, >or accesibility of archives via a conventional library. Just thought I'd >being it up as food for thought, and as a teaser to start some discussion. Figures are not really a problem. Let me explain with an actual example. You may have seen reports in the newspapers, whenever a new fast computer comes out on the market, that give figures from the Dongarra Report. This report is a carefully written, typeset manuscript authored by one Jack Dongarra at Los Alamos. The latest version is always available in a public archive from which interested readers can get a copy. The document is stored in MS Word format; to read it, each user downloads the paper to a Macintosh computer, and prints it from there. It is now possible, given agreement among the parties involved as to standard formats, for any document to be made available (and received by its readers) as soon as it is finished. It is not uncommon in Physics for this to happen. In countries without an electronic network infrastructure, fax machines are a good substitute. > Think about it. Do you think it's a good idea? Do you think it >could be made to work in a year? Two years? Five? Ten? Twenty? What if >the technical problems could be solved today, say by magically putting a 10 >MIPS Megapixel greyscale X terminal on everybody's desk, with universal T1 or >better connectivity? Would you subscribe? Would you submit manuscripts to >it? Would your colleagues? Why would you need such hardware to read a document? The document would naturally be tranmitted in its entirety to your machine, not spoon-fed across the ether. However 'interactive' a document may appear to be, with (let's imagine) sound and full color, it's still a static document. The personal computers sitting on most of our desks today, plus our better printers, are adequate to match or better the quality of delivery of any printed journal _today_, not n years from now. - Una UNASMITH@PUCC : BITNET unasmith@pucc.Princeton.EDU : Internet una@tropic.Princeton.EDU : Internet
jgsmith@watson.bcm.tmc.edu (James G. Smith) (10/05/90)
1. What role do people imagine the Xanadu system to play in this publishing. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, look up Ted Nelson's book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" (or maybe another one of his books.) Apparently the Xanadu system should be coming out soon (in a recent BYTE article Ted suggested next year, which I figure means 1992). Theoretically, this system would cover the technical details of general hypermedia publication. 2. Given hypermedia publishing, what do people think of making the raw data from experiments a part of the publication? *
dsstodol@daimi.aau.dk (David S. Stodolsky) (10/27/90)
Full paper to be posted shortly: Consensus Journals: Invitational journals based upon peer consensus Computer networks open new possibilities for scientific communication in terms of quality, efficiency, and rapidity. The current project is developing a method of scientific communication that has the economy of invitational journals and the objectivity of journals based upon the peer review. That is, all articles are published and the reader benefits from article selection based upon impartial refereeing. An additional benefit of consensus journals is that the negotiation process, that typically occurs prior to publication, is automated, thus saving efforts of participants. All readers are free to submit reviews that evaluate articles on multiple dimensions. A statistical procedure is used to identify the most knowledgeable representative of consensus positions and these referees are invited to submit articles that justify the review judgments they have submitted. A major advantage of this approach is the ability to develop reputation without article publication. The method includes a protection mechanism based upon pseudonyms, that substitutes for the protection of anonymous review typical with scientific journals. This reduces the potential for irresponsible behavior and facilitates reputation development. The level of quality enhancement is superior to that achievable with anonymous peer review. Eliminating the need for an editor and the delay associated with conventional refereeing makes message quality enhancement available in systems for educational and business environments. -- David S. Stodolsky Office: + 45 46 75 77 11 x 21 38 Department of Computer Science Home: + 45 31 55 53 50 Bldg. 20.2, Roskilde University Center Internet: david@ruc.dk Post Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark Fax: + 45 46 75 74 01