Electronic Dissertations LibraryExploring the development of the independent, electronic, scholarly journal, by Alison WellsPossible changes to traditional modelIn their model for a "Scholar’s Forum", Buck, Flagan & Coles (1999) list these requirements for a new scholarly communication model:
Their proposal sees a partnership between the universities, learned societies and authors, based around a document database much like Ginsparg's xxx preprint archive, with an "intermediate buffer layer" containing papers which have been subjected to peer review. In a response, Harnad, (23.4.99) while agreeing in principle to the model, points out that it is "trying to create an ALTERNATIVE to the current peer-reviewed journal literature" and is "attempting to compete with the existing journal corpus for authors". He feels that it will be impossible to lure authors away from tried and tested prestigious journals to a new untried system, and that instead the new system should concentrate on competing for readers: "Let them continue to give their papers away to publishers to sell, but let them also archive it online, for free. That is all it will take! Readers will vote with their eyes." As a result, he continues, readers will stop reading print journals, libraries will cancel them, and then publishers will become mainly review bodies for online-only literature. Any costs incurred in reviewing (still carried out for free) and administration will be covered by author page charges, paid for by their institution as the money is freed after journal subscription cancellations. The two critical parts of this new model are author self-archiving, and the decoupling of peer review from distribution and administration. Harnad again says that authors must not be "intimidated into signing copyright agreements that deprive them of the right to self-archive on-line". Will publishers sit by and let this happen? Already, many journals (e.g. Science) do not allow their authors to self-archive their papers on the Web, either before or after review, although some of the more enlightened publishers (e.g. the American Physical Society) do, as long as the authors do not gain financially from that, which is fair. This probably highlights the differences between the learned society type publisher against the truly commercial. If publishers do make authors sign this sort of contract, then will enough refuse and force the publishers to drop them? An important note to make in the context of this dissertation, is that in another response, Harnad (26.4.99) states that "no new online-only journals are needed", that publishers will continue to make available the same titles as now, with the same reviewers, except that they will be online and paid for by the author page charges, instead of subscription. This should overcome the problems all new journals (particularly electronic) have, of acceptance and attracting a critical mass of papers. The burden of archiving will fall to the consortium of universities, learned societies and authors envisaged in the original proposal, instead of the publisher. If publishers want to add extra services and charge for them, then that is fine as long as the access to the basic paper is free somewhere. Electronic publishing can change the communication model by making traditional mass-medium, one way publishing interactive (Clarke, 1998; Nadasdy, 1997). In fact Hitchcock et al. (1998) thinks that not only can it be changed, it should be changed: "dependence on the print publishing model, ... , will be a constraint on the continuing development of e-journals". Ginsparg (1997) notes that traditional print on paper is difficult to produce, distribute, archive and duplicate, which leads to the central role of the University library. "The electronic medium shares none of these features and thus naturally facilitates large scale dis-intermediation, with the resulting communication of research information both more efficient and more cost-effective". Edwards (1997) and Odlyzko (19.1.99) both envisage the role of archiving to fall to the publishers rather than the libraries. However these two entities could become one and the same according to Monty (1996) and Willis (1995) with academic libraries starting their own journals and redirecting subscription costs towards creation, maintenance and access. There is also the possibility that the communication model could start and end with the author, as Odlyzko (19.1.99) believes that they can produce reasonable typographical quality without the aid of a publisher, and then they could publish their research on their own homepages. According to Moret (1997), in computer science, "home page publications have completely supplanted the traditional departmental technical report as the primary means of early and rapid results". Franks (1993) however, calls this the 'vanity press model' and while conceding that this is a fast way of publishing research, feels that it has flaws because it has no peer review, little marketing, no-one to oversee language and presentation and problems with archiving if for example the author leaves the institution or retires. These faults lead one to the "Scholar's Forum" model (with some of Harnad's modifications) mentioned above. Summing up, Willis (1995) modifies his model of scholarly publishing like this:
where a "Web group" could be a society, commercial publisher, university press, university library or an individual. ReferencesBuck, A., Flagan, C. & Coles, B. (March 1999). Scholar's Forum : A new model for scholarly communication. [http://library.caltech.edu/publications/ScholarsForum/]. Site visited at 14.6.99 Clarke, R. (1998). Key Issues in electronic commerce and electronic publishing. [http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/Issues98.html]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Edwards, J. (July 1997). "Electronic journals - problem or panacea?", Ariadne, 10. [http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue10/journals]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Franks, J. (January 1993). What is an electronic journal? [gopher://wiretap.spies.com:70/00/Library/Article/Publish/electron.jnl]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Ginsparg, P. (February 1996). Winners and losers in the global research village [http://www.library.uiuc.edu/icsu/ginsparg.htm]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Harnad, S. (26.4.99). Response to the "Scholar's Forum" proposal. [http://library.caltech.edu/publications/ScholarsForum/042699sharnad.htm]. Site visited at 15.7.99 Harnad, S. (23.4.99). Response to the "Scholar's Forum" proposal. [http://library.caltech.edu/publications/ScholarsForum/042399sharnad.htm]. Site visited at 15.7.99 Hitchcock, S., Carr, L. & Hall, W. (December 1998). Making the most of electronic journals. [http://xxx.lanl.gov/html/cs.DL/9812016]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Monty, V. (January 1996). Electronic journals : new publishing paradigm. [http://www.library.yorku.ca/staff2/vmonty/ejournal.htm]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Moret, B.M.E. (September 1997). "Bridging the gap between theory and practice", Journal of Electronic Publishing, 3(1). [http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-01/JEA.html]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Nadasdy, Z. (September 1997). "A truly all-electronic journal : let democracy replace peer review", Journal of Electronic Publishing, 3(1). [http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-01/EJCBS.html]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Odlyzko, A. (19.1.99). Competition and co-operation : libraries and publishers in the transition to electronic scholarly journals. [http://www.research.att.com/~amo/doc/competition.cooperation.txt]. Site visited at 16.4.99 Willis, J. (1995). Bridging the gap between traditional and electronic scholarly publishing. [http://www.coe.uh.edu/~brobin/Educom95/EducomJW/index.html]. Site visited at 16.4.99
Exploring the development of the independent,
electronic, scholarly journal, by Alison Wells
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