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Date:         Thu, 21 Jan 1993 12:10:42 CDT
From:         John Franks <john@math.nwu.edu>
Subject:      What is an electronic journal? (part 1 of 4)

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
              What is an Electronic Journal?  (Part 1 of 4)

        by John Franks
        Department of Mathematics
        Northwestern University
        Evanston, IL  60208-2730
        john@math.nwu.edu

        January 1993

There is considerable enthusiasm among scholars for creating purely
electronic journals which can be distributed via the internet.
However, in discussing this with colleagues and other interested
parties, I find that there are widely varying conceptions, many of them
conflicting, of what should constitute an electronic journal.  Most
scholars, when asked, are supportive of the idea of such a journal.
But, often they have only a vague sense of what it should mean --
sometimes little more than the hope that like electronic mail, articles
which interest them will magically appear on their desktop computer.

In this article I would like to explore some alternative possibilities
for an electronic research journal and comment on the strengths and
weaknesses of these alternatives.  My focus will be a narrow one --
restricted to a scholarly research periodical, marketed primarily to
research libraries.  In particular, I want only to address a
publication whose authors and editors are unpaid.  The addition of
royalties paid to author or editor could have a major effect on the
issues considered here.  Likewise, the electronic publication of a
book, even one with a narrow scholarly audience, might entail quite
different considerations.  Moreover, I want only to address the
possibilities for journals distributed via the internet, rather than
say, publication in CD-Rom or magnetic tape formats.

WHY DO WE EVEN NEED A JOURNAL?

The first question for an author in the internet arena is why publish,
in the traditional sense, at all?  Why not simply write articles and
make them freely available on the internet to anyone who is
interested?  After all, there is no direct monetary incentive for the
author.

In fact, journals are not an absolute necessity.  Making articles
freely available via the internet is one way to publish electronically
and some authors will choose this method.  I would call this form of
electronic publishing the ``vanity press model.'' Like all the models
of electronic publishing considered here it has some advantages and
some disadvantages and we will try to enumerate both.

The Vanity Press Model

First, let's look at the drawbacks, and answer the question why have a
journal at all.  There are at least three important functions which a
journal can provide beyond mere distribution of text.

The first of these is certification.  A journal has an editor who
chooses a referee or referees to read a submission and attest to its
scholarly worthiness.  The editor also maintains quality control in
non-content areas such as language and presentation (usually with the
aid of a copy editor).  Different journals have different scholarly
standards.  This process provides a peer review mechanism for
certifying the quality of scholarly work.  Academic institutions rely
on this process when judging the merits of an individual for promotion
or tenure.  While an author may have no direct monetary incentive
to publish in a journal, the indirect one can be significant.

The second important function is  archiving.  An author would like
to know that twenty or thirty years from now, perhaps after she has
retired, her work will still be available to other researchers.
Additionally, scholars in the field would like to have an authoritative
version of the author's text together with, at least, a definitive date
of its creation.  Traditionally, archiving is a function not provided
by the journal, but by libraries which purchase the journal and
maintain its preservation.

The third function which a journal offers is marketing.  If I
simply write an article and make it available from my personal or
departmental computer to  anyone on the internet, how will other
scholars know of its existence?  By contrast, if I publish in a
recognized journal, other scholars are much more likely to be aware of
my work.  This might be because the journal is in their library and
they glance at its contents on a regular basis, or because they consult
a second order table of contents such as  Current Contents.

These three functions, certification, archiving, and marketing
constitute the primary value added for the author who publishes in a
journal rather than using the ``vanity press'' model.  As we discuss
other models of electronic publishing we will want to see how well they
all perform these author support functions.

It is equally important to ask how well an electronic journal supports
subscribers.  This is the area where there are the greatest potential
advantages over traditional paper journals.  Indeed, if an electronic
journal is not substantially better or cheaper than a traditional
journal, its success will be limited.  And if it offers less
functionality than a traditional journal it is difficult to see how it
will be able to survive in the long run.  At an absolute minimum, it
must be possible for the subscriber to an electronic journal to print a
hard copy of an article of interest, which is of the same quality as a
photocopy of an article in a printed journal.  Simply viewing an
article on a computer screen will not be acceptable, nor will a printed
copy in a markup language.

Beyond this minimum, two of the most important criteria by which we
should judge different models of electronic publishing are their ease
of access and and the quality of their user interface.  These are the
areas where an electronic format can surpass the functionality of a
traditional journal. It might, for example, allow the scholar to browse
and search electronically on his desktop computer before printing a
copy, on his own printer, for detailed study.

Despite its seeming weakness in the author support functions, the
vanity press model does quite well in these scholar support areas.
Since the scholar downloads the electronic text to his personal
computer, he has complete freedom and flexibility in the choice of how
he views it, searches it, or prints it.

Another big plus for the vanity press model is speed.  An article can
be made available to the scholarly public, literally the instant it is
completed.  This is such an important asset that many authors already
use this model, in addition to publishing in a traditional journal.
This practice, of posting an article to a so-called ``preprint data
base'' can take different forms.  Typically, an author submits an
abstract of his work to a moderator who periodically distributes a
collection of abstracts, together with information on obtaining the
full text of articles, to an electronic mailing list of interested
scholars.  In all cases of which I am aware, anyone can join the
mailing list without charge and there is little or no editorial control
by the moderator (i.e. the certification function is not provided).
The full text may be kept centrally by the moderator or supplied by the
author either through anonymous ftp (see glossary) or, more commonly,
by electronic mail.

There are several variants of this process and there will surely be
evolutionary changes in the future.  Already some groups in physics are
making preprints available via gopher (see glossary).  This provides a
much better mechanism since it provides a number of features not
available through the e-mail process.  The most important of these
include:

       *  a simpler, easy-to-use user interface
       *  on-line browsing of abstracts or full text,
       *  keyword searching of abstracts or full text,
       *  immediate downloading of desired articles.

If only to meet the need of preprint distribution, the vanity press
model of electronic publishing will be with us for the foreseeable
future, and its use is likely to expand greatly.  There is sufficient
interest that the ease of use and functionality of this model will
likely continue to improve.

The absence of the marketing function in this model is not as big a
problem as it might initially seem.  Also its significance as a
drawback is diminishing and will continue to do so.  The abstract
distribution mailing lists and other preprint distribution channels,
provide an author with an increasingly effective way to provide
electronic visibility for his work.  It seems likely that some authors
who are indifferent to (or actively resent) the certification function
of journals, and are willing to forego the the archiving function, will
opt to publish some of their work only via the vanity press model.

It is worth noting, by the way, that the practice described above of
``double publishing,'' -- first electronically, using the vanity press
model and then traditionally through an established journal -- may
generate some controversy in the near future.  Publishers would like
the electronic availability of preprints to cease as soon as an article
appears.  Some publishers, in their copyright transfer agreement,
explicitly deny the author the right to make his work available on an
electronic data base [1].  I know of no instances of this restriction
being enforced, however, and current practice seems to be for
electronic versions of articles to be available indefinitely.

End of part 1 of 4
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