Electronic Dissertations LibraryExploring the development of the independent, electronic, scholarly journal, by Alison WellsIntroductionThe scholarly journal as we know it has been around for over 300 years and in this time it has barely changed. Now a revolution may be happening in the way scholarly communication is carried out, using the Internet. This dissertation concentrates on scholarly journals which are available electronically over the Internet, which are also free of charge to the reader, and attempts to evaluate the current extent of this emerging method of communication, and how this will affect the current scholarly communication model. The history of the scholarly journal from 1665 is discussed, followed by a look at the current scholarly communication model. An important part of scholarly communication is peer review, where a piece of work is commented on by other researchers working in the same field. With the advent of new technology there may be new, more efficient methods of validating research, as well as an inevitable change to a new scholarly communication model, although how this will evolve is still under debate. To see if electronic journals are worthwhile, I have compiled a list of advantages and disadvantages for both paper and electronic journals, and discussed possible future trends. Another important change that electronic journals may effect is a whole new way of paying for journals. The major economic models proposed are : traditional subscription or site licensing, author or page charges, priority charges, pay-per-view, the library takes over role of publisher and free journals. Another important area for discussion is that of readership, for example, why do journal owners need to know who is reading their journal, and if so, how do they go about doing it? Part of the dissertation involved sending out a survey on this subject, and the results are discussed here. The rest of the dissertation involved looking at various measurable indicators, for example, the country of origin, language, date of first publication, subject etc. With the data gained, I hope to present some estimates about the state of play of free electronic scholarly journals, and some conclusions and predictions for the future.
Exploring the development of the independent,
electronic, scholarly journal, by Alison Wells |