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
jgsmith@watson.bcm.tmc.edu (James G. Smith) (10/03/90)
I think an electronic journal is a great idea. With the advent of easy to use hypermedia, I think all the technical problems could be ironed out in a year or two. The format would most likely be HyperCard/Toolbook. As for cost recovery, aren't there on-line services right now for which you need to pay a fee to get an account? All you need is a mail list for which you need to pay a subscription fee. I see the biggest hurdle as acceptance by the scientific community. Many don't know the Net exists and most don't know what you can do with it. The answer to this (and I hate to say it) would be advertising. *
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
davison@MENUDO.UH.EDU (Dan Davison) (10/04/90)
Dave Kristofferson sez: > 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). I have complete archives of these discussions. I can make them available if folks want. I don't think they should be posted as they are 58Kb in size. Should I put them up on the UH Gene-Server? dan -- dr. dan davison/dept. of biochemical and biophysical sciences/univ. of Houston/4800 Calhoun/Houston,TX 77054-5500/davison@uh.edu/DAVISON@UHOU "Comparing bad weather to rape: 'if it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it'" Clayton Williams, Republican candidate for Governor of Texas. ...And THIS is the kind of person and attitute most Texans find acceptable...in 1990...very sad. Disclaimer: As always, I speak only for myself, and, usually, only to myself.
Robert.H.Gross@MAC.DARTMOUTH.EDU (10/04/90)
I have actually discussed the possibility of electronic publishing with
several publishers of paper journals. They are very interested in the idea,
but have no idea of how to proceed. The problems with cost recover and
distribution are part of the difficulty. Let me raise a couple of interesting
ideas. I am not necessarily recommending these ideas, but merely pointing out
some interesting possibilities. Hopefully, this will generate some
discussion.
* Costs could be (partially) recovered by having electronic advertising in the
published electronic journal. Advertisers would pay as they do now.
Readers
would see the advertising when the look at the journal (as they do now).
* Readers could go to an online BBoard and read the table of contents of the
journal (after seeing the electronic ads?). If papers are of interest, they
could be downloaded and a fee charged to the user.
* If hypermedia links could be implemented, it should be possible to have
references in the text of the paper actually link to the referenced paper
itself. Clicking the reference in the text of the paper with a mouse would
then open another window containing the referenced paper. Obviously, this
will
take many years and many electronic publications to become at all feasible,
but
it might be an important long range goal.
* Again, utilizing hypermedia techniques, it would be interesting to allow
some
(refereed) comments to be attached to the published paper. These comments
or
notes could be accessed as in the last point with a mouse. For example, I
might attach a comment to text in the paper suggesting an alternative
interpretation of the data; the authors of the paper may attach new data at
a
later date that relates to the original paper (or at least attach a pointer
to
a newer paper). Thus the original publication can be considered dynamic.
The
old data always will be there, but will be put in the context of more recent
information and will benefit :) from comments of knowledgeable readers.
* The previous point raises the question of what constitutes a paper and
therefore what constitutes authorship. If I attach to a published paper a 4
page comment that contains experimental data and interpretive text, do I get
"credit" for a publication? Should the original authors be co-authors on
the
added "comment"? etc.
Bob Gross
Biology & Molecular Genetics
Dartmouth College
bob.gross@dartmouth.eduldow@biosys.UUCP (Leslie Johnston-Dow) (10/04/90)
Bob.Gross@MAC.DARTMOUTH.EDU writes: < lots of stuff deleted > >* If hypermedia links could be implemented, it should be possible to >have references in the text of the paper actually link to the >referenced paper itself. Clicking the reference in the text of the >paper with a mouse wouldthen open another window containing the >referenced paper. Obviously, this will take many years and many >electronic publications to become at all feasible,but it might be an >important long range goal. >* Again, utilizing hypermedia techniques, it would be interesting to >allow some (refereed) comments to be attached to the published >paper. These comments or notes could be accessed as in the last >point with a mouse. For example, I might attach a comment to text >in the paper suggesting an alternative interpretation of the data; >the authors of the paper may attach new data at a later date that >relates to the original paper (or at least attach a pointer to a newer >paper). Thus the original publication can be considered >dynamic. The old data always will be there, but will be put in the >context of more recent information and will benefit :) from >comments of knowledgeable readers. Well, what the above says to me is that electronically published papers might also be linked to the databases. or possibly included in the databases. For example, would the sequence and the features of the sequence ( in a DNA sequencing paper) really need to be included in the papers or could they exist as a pointer to a location in GenBank? This could help to solve the problem concerning researchers submissions of published sequences to GenBank. >Bob writes......> >* The previous point raises the question of what constitutes a paper >and therefore what constitutes authorship. If I attach to a >published paper a 4 page comment that contains experimental data >and interpretive text, do I get "credit" for a publication? Should the >original authors be co-authors on the added "comment"? etc. I would not be too concerned with the authorship problem if all of this was contained inside a database. I could envision an electronic journal existing initially as a separate entitiy. As newer 'volumes' are 'published' the older ones would be included in a database . This woudl be the obvious place to add on the comment updates etc. That way there would be different forums for the initial publication and the subsequent, ah shall we say......'comments' 8-) 8-) .. So when the 'comments become too extensive they could be published in a different format, in an original electronic journal. Would any of the GenBank people like to comment on the feasibility of this? Leslie Leslie Johnston-Dow ldow@apldbio.com Disclaimer "MINE MINE MINE"
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
kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson) (10/04/90)
> Would any of the GenBank people like to comment on the feasibility > of this? Paul Gilna at LANL is in charge of GenBank interactions with journal editors and may care to contribute. The concept of using the database as a medium for publication has been suggested by the GenBank crew for several years now. GenBank's AuthorIn software is designed to provide a certain level of "automatic review" to assist in this process, and LANL is developing other sequence validation software for these purposes. There are also sociological issues that need resolution here and Paul has been working with journal editors on a variety of important issues for some time now. Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson GenBank Manager kristoff@genbank.bio.net -- Sincerely, David Kristofferson, Ph.D. GenBank Manager kristoff@genbank.bio.net
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? *
frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca (10/05/90)
I would like to offer my 2 cents worth concerning several threads of the electronic journal discussion. First, the concern has been expressed that electronic journals will be hard to start because, at first, funding agencies, tenure review committees etc. won't rank them as being equivalent in value to 'hard copy' journals, even if they subject to the same strict standards of peer review. Secondly, the issues of cost recovery and standardization have to be addressed. I, personally, am rather optimistic on these points, because I think that the following scenario is a likely one for how electronic journals will evolve. First of all, it seems to me that rather than starting electronic journals (EJ's) de novo (God knows we don't need any more journals!), the EJ's will simply be electronic versions of the hard copy journals already in existence. Much of the pieces of this are already in place. Some journals (NAR, CELL) prefer submission of manuscripts on diskette, and can read a number of word processor formats. Indeed, many word processors have the ability to read or write in 'foreign' formats. In a few cases, this capability even extends to digitized images. So, to create an electronic journal, we need journals like NAR and CELL to archive compressed versions of articles for availability via FTP. It doesn't cost them much (other than disk space) to set up, because most of the work has already been done! Most likely they will charge a fee for each article downloaded, with a discount per article if you download a whole issue. At first, the articles don't necessarily have to come to the user in the exact, final form that they appear in the hard copy journal. If your word processor can generate something fairly nice with the characters and graphics you get, that will often be satisfactory. These problems will iron themselves out. As people start to use this service, the demand for translation software will cause that software to be written; de facto standards in format will also arise by 'natural' selection, as they always do. As people begin to see the value of getting fresh, clean copy from their office computer, rather than having to truck over to the library and use an overworked, abused xerox machine, more subscribers will be willing to pay for access to electronic journals. As popularity increases still further, the more innovative users will take advantage of the fact that having journals in electronic form means that you can easily scan large numbers of articles by keyword, to find whatever it is you're looking for. Over time, electronic services provided by journals will be a significant percentage of the income of these journals. Libraries can save money too. After all, isn't it cheaper to build a shelf to hold journals on CD than it is to build a new wing? Who needs all that paper? By this time, the more innovative journals will have started including hypermedia concepts into their publications. This will pave the way to making the computer be what we really want it to be: a general purpose machine that finds and correlates data in response to queries. Ideally, the computer can be one big database (although I have a feeling that there is some sort or square or cube law that makes the interconnections among all these pieces of data get very complex very quickly). Anyway, the electronic journal is the place to start, and it should start with existing journals, as I have described above. In a short time, we'll wonder how we ever got along without them. =============================================================================== Brian Fristensky | "... and finally, after silent minutes of Dept. of Plant Science | reflection upon his sparkling image in the University of Manitoba | mirror, he was forced to come to grips with Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 CANADA | the shameful truth about what he had become: frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca | an Elvis impersonator." Office phone: 204-474-6085 | FAX: 204-275-5128 | from TALES FROM MICKEY'S SUBCONSCIOUS ===============================================================================
westerm@aclcb.purdue.edu (Rick Westerman) (10/05/90)
> frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes: > > (deleted) > >So, to create an electronic journal, we need journals like NAR and CELL to >archive compressed versions of articles for availability via FTP. It doesn't >cost them much (other than disk space) to set up, because most of the work >has already been done! Most likely they will charge a fee for each article >downloaded, with a discount per article if you download a whole issue. > > (rest deleted) But this charge scheme can't work because the current networks (Internet & Bitnet) are NON-COMMERICAL; there is no way to charge for FTPing, mailing, or anything else. The journals could be published on a commerical network such as Compuserve or Genie, but not all scientists have access to such networks, nor are these networks high speed. The journals could also set up their own bulletin board system with modems and a user subscription fee, but this is an incredible amount of hassle for little gain and, additionally, it is also low speed. Or the journals could publish a companion diskette to their paper-copy journals -- many computer magazines already do this -- but once again the gain is minimual. I repeat my position (mentioned a couple days ago): Until the USA has a high speed, near universal, commerical (or semi-commerical) network the concept of an electronic journal is just a dream, no matter what nifty hardware devices or software we envision using. -- 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
westerm@BCHM1.ACLCB.PURDUE.EDU (Rick Westerman) (10/05/90)
> frist@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes: > > (deleted) > >So, to create an electronic journal, we need journals like NAR and CELL to >archive compressed versions of articles for availability via FTP. It doesn't >cost them much (other than disk space) to set up, because most of the work >has already been done! Most likely they will charge a fee for each article >downloaded, with a discount per article if you download a whole issue. > > (rest deleted) But this charge scheme can't work because the current networks (Internet & Bitnet) are NON-COMMERICAL; there is no way to charge for FTPing, mailing, or anything else. The journals could be published on a commerical network such as Compuserve or Genie, but not all scientists have access to such networks, nor are these networks high speed. The journals could also set up their own bulletin board system with modems and a user subscription fee, but this is an incredible amount of hassle for little gain and, additionally, it is also low speed. Or the journals could publish a companion diskette to their paper-copy journals -- many computer magazines already do this -- but once again the gain is minimual. I repeat my position (mentioned a couple days ago): Until the USA has a high speed, near universal, commerical (or semi-commerical) network the concept of an electronic journal is just a dream, no matter what nifty hardware devices or software we envision using. -- 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
JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET (10/05/90)
One thing which concerns me about electronic publication, and that only occurred to after reading a couple of the posts on this subject, is this: I have done the bulk of my research in the tropics (I'm a coral reef ecologist; don't ask me why I'm in Ohio now, I don't really know...). It's hard enough to get PAPER journals there, let alone computer access to the net, or CD-ROM readers....we in the first world often forget that there are scientists in the third world, too, and they rely just as we do on journals for dissemination of information. I would urge the scientific community as a whole not to forget the economic realities in the non-technological parts of the world. ------ Josh Hayes, Zoology Department, Miami University, Oxford OH 45056 voice: 513-529-1679 fax: 513-529-6900 jahayes@miamiu.bitnet, or jahayes@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu Now look inside; what do you see? That's easy: that's a pickle.
kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson) (10/05/90)
> I repeat my position (mentioned a couple days ago): Until the USA has a > high speed, near universal, commerical (or semi-commerical) network the > concept of an electronic journal is just a dream, no matter what nifty > hardware devices or software we envision using. I tend to agree for any journal of major significance. Copyright issues are also a major problem for electronic distribution. However, I think it is still possible for smaller groups such as BIO-MATRIX to have their own specialty electronic journals. I would not be surprised if the readership of BIOSCI, for example, is larger than that of CABIOS. A moderated newsgroup would require a donation of time by some prominent scientists who would agree to review electronic papers and then post them to the newsgroup. This would not be flashy production, but it might work in small, but computer literate specialties. -- Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson GenBank Manager kristoff@genbank.bio.net
harper@csc.fi (Rob Harper (Supercomputer Centre Finland)) (10/06/90)
In article <90278.101449JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET>, JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET writes: > I would urge the scientific community as a whole not to forget > the economic realities in the non-technological parts of the > world. > ------ I was recently in Knoxville at an international meeting on Biological Nitrogen Fixation. I did some demo's of the BIOSCI newsgroups and the most enthusiastic people were from the "third world" who could not believe their eyes that the list of contents of major journals were being published online a couple of months before the journals would be available for sale. I also showed the ANU NEWS interface to a visiting Professor from Checkoslovakia who commented that when he gets Nature it is 6 months old, and he can never get reprints since they are all gone by the time he requests them. I also know of projects at the University of Guelph where they use a conferencing system called CoSy and they have collaboration with Univrsities in Indonesia. Say a research worker wants a literature search. There are people at Guelph who will run the search on their library mainframe, and dump it into the researchers mailbox for collection. I think that this type of "Scientific interaction" is perhaps the best possible "aid" that the first world can give to the third. Rob "do the right thing" Harper.
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