Electronic journals: publishing via Internet's World Wide Web
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045395 |
| Date | 01 April 1995 |
| Published date | 01 April 1995 |
| Pages | 389-396 |
| Author | Pieter A. van Brakel |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Article
Electronic
journals:
publishing
via
Internet's World Wide Web
PieterA. van Brakel
Department
of
Information
Studies,
Rand
Afrikaans
University,
PO Box
524,
Auckland Park
2006,
Johannesburg,
South Africa
E-mail:
pavb@info.rau.ac.za
Abstract: The feasibility of publishing an electronic journal which will be
accepted by the scientific community has always been hampered by factors such
as a lack of standardisation of data transmission
codes,
limitations regarding the
incorporation of graphics and photographs, as well
as
the absence of special
columns, book
reviews,
letters to the
editor,
product reviews and advertisements.
Standardised communication protocols such as TCP/IP have brought
this
dream
one
step closer to
reality.
The final step could be an electronic journal published
through the World
Wide Web
(WWW), currently one of the frequently used
Internet navigators. Three WWW specifications provide the ideal arena for
electronic journal publishing: URL (uniform resource locator), HTTP (hypertext
transfer
protocol),
and HTML (hypertext markup language). These specifications
provide a standardised structure for
storing,
accessing and sending data,
including multimedia (even sound and video) files. The possibilities of such a
structure for electronic journal publishing
are
remarkable: full-text retrieval
could not only be by keyword but also by following hypertext links
across
articles
— even to nodes in other computer
systems.
In this article the possibilities of
publishing via the
Web
will
be
addressed and some hints for setting
up
and
maintaining a multimedia scholarly journal will be
provided.
1.
Scholarly communication in
transit
It is generally accepted that the whole
process and structure of scholarly
communication is in transit. This
change is fundamental, as it is brought
about by electronic networks and com-
puter facilities which are increasingly
becoming part and parcel of the mod-
ern-day scientist's (or scholar's) life.
Scholarly communication
(i.e.
discov-
ery, theory, interpretation, experimen-
tation, accumulation of facts and
synthesis) is the scholar's mechanism
to effectuate acceptance by the peer
community, and it is through peer ac-
ceptance that knowledge advances
(Osburn
1989,
p.278).
Electronic mail,
electronic conferencing and bulletin
boards provide exciting and more ef-
fective methods of informal communi-
cation than previous paper-based
methods. The formal publication, an
essential part of the structure of schol-
arly communication, is also affected
by new electronic means. The scien-
tific journal is no exception. Since its
'invention' in the middle of the seven-
teenth century it has been accepted as
the most important means of reporting
on experimentation and its results, and
it has also encouraged research and
thereby enhanced the formal scholarly
communication process. Osburn
(1989,
p.280) goes as far as to say that
'...it [the journal] is the most charac-
teristic expression of the spirit of sci-
ence and scholarship, and its history
reflects the evolution of science and
scholarly research.'
Even if Osburn's opinion is only
partially accepted then one can argue
that any changes brought about by
electronic publishing means, such as
the advent of the
e-journal,
will have
an impact on science and scholarly re-
search. This leads to the next argu-
ment: namely, that today the scientific
journal in its traditional paper-based
role is no longer relevant. Since its in-
ception the rapid and wide communi-
cation of research results has been the
most important reason for its exist-
ence.
However, because of a number
of barriers which will be discussed in
the next section, the present-day pa-
per-based journal has become less ef-
fective as a device for rapid reporting
on experimentation and research re-
sults.
It is currently only successful in
relation to its archival function and re-
lated functions of priority claiming
and quality control (Bennion 1994,
p.25).
Viewpoints (as expressed in the lit-
erature) about the shortcomings of the
e-joumal
are invariably based upon
the first prototypes of e-journals.
In
the
recent past, communication protocol
was typically geared towards
the
trans-
mission of text only. No specific pro-
vision was made for other formats. Ac-
cess to the content of individual
articles was accomplished by an e-
mail request to the provider and re-
ceiving an article
in
ASCII format. To-
day's listserv journals operate in the
same way, as an article is sent to the
requester's
e-mail
address. Other In-
ternet access routes which exist to in-
dividual
e-journal
articles are, for ex-
ample, via anonymous FTP, via
gopher, interactively such as the On-
line Journal of
Current
Clinical Tri-
als,
or accessing
a
WWW site (Van der
Walt & Van Brakel 1995). Already
more than 30 peer-reviewed
e-journals
The Electronic Library, Vol. 13, No. 4, August 1995 389
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