The Added Value Features of Online Scholarly Journals    

Online scholarly journals have become an important tool for the generation of knowledge and the distribution and access to research. The purpose of this article is to analyze the features of online scholarly journals and to determine whether they incorporate new Internet-enabled features and functions which help to meet the needs of the members of the scholarly community more effectively. Drawing on Taylor's concept of added value [1], the features of online scholarly journals were classified into the following types: features which enhance ease of use and facilitate access to data, features that provide selected information and thus reduce noise, features which improve quality, features which address specific user needs, and features which contribute to time or cost savings. The analysis revealed that, although some online journals operate in the same way as print journals, there are others which incorporate innovative features which are transforming the journal to make it a more effective tool for scholarly activity.

Luzón, María José. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online

Crossing the Divide    

This essay summarizes the editor's views of publication in the field of human-computer interaction. Digital technologies have begun changing the way journal articles and conference papers are produced, reviewed, published, accessed, and used. This period of profound change presents challenges and opportunities for both new and existing channels of scientific and technical communication.

Grudin, Jonathan. ACM TOCHI (2004). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online

The Deep Niche  

The deep niche--the rolling 'interest tribe' comprised of that day's enthusiastic, new audience--is something that publishers must acknowledge, and accommodate in our business plans, if we are to sustain ourselves. The Web is not merely a threat to publishers--it can also be the means to connect to the people we most want to reach: the interested reader.

Jensen, Michael. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2007). Articles>Publishing>Research>Online

Effect of E-Printing on Citation Rates in Astronomy and Physics

In this report we examine the change in citation behavior since the introduction of the arXiv e-print repository. It has been observed that papers that initially appear as arXiv e-prints get cited more than papers that do not. Using the citation statistics from the NASA-Smithsonian Astrophysics Data System, we confirm the findings from other studies, we examine the average citation rate to e-printed papers in the Astrophysical Journal, and we show that for a number of major astronomy and physics journals the most important papers are submitted to the arXiv e-print repository first.

Henneken, Edwin A., Michael J. Kurtz, Guenther Eichhorn, Alberto Accomazzi, Carolyn Grant, Donna Thompson and Stephen S. Murray. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2006). Articles>Publishing>Research>Online

The Guild Model  

The Guild Publishing Model is a workable and presently working model, taken seriously in computer science, economics, business, and demography among other fields; however, it has not entered the discussion of scholarly electronic communication. Instead, for example, discussion of scholarly communication in high energy physics focuses on arXiv.org, the repository model. We believe that this is a mistake; the GPM is an important and significant model that is worth noting, examining, and extending to other fields. The GPM can provide rapid sharing of information and increased comprehensive research access for those in academic departments or research institutes with small libraries, and it is an economically feasible model for institutions with basic computing support. The GPM is flexible, set up locally, according to interest, need, and available resources.

Kling, Rob, Lisa Spector and Geoff McKim. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2002). Articles>Publishing>Research>Online

The Half-Life of Internet References Cited in Communication Journals    

This exploratory study examines the use of online citations, focusing on five leading journals in journalism and communication. It analyzes 1126 URL reference addresses in citations of articles published between 2000 and 2003. The results show that only 61 percent of the online citations remain accessible in 2004 and 39 percent do not. The content analysis also shows that .org and .gov are the most stable domains. Error messages for 'dead' URL addresses are explored. The instability of online citations raises concerns for researchers, editors and associations.

Dimitrova, Daniela V. and Michael Bugeja. New Media and Society (2007). Articles>Publishing>Research>Online

Quality Control in Scholarly Publishing on the Web  

As scholars and researchers, we are often called upon to separate the high-quality materials from the bad. What are the methods by which quality control is established and what are the indicators that allow a user to recognize the good materials?

Arms, William Y. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2002). Articles>Publishing>Research>Online

Scientific Articles in Internet Homepages: Assumptions Upon Lay Audiences    

This article studies a set of scientific/technical articles published in Internet homepages. Focusing upon current trends on genre theory and the functional approach deployed by Halliday and Martin [1], linguistic features and schematic structure are analyzed in relation to more standard genres. The structural analysis suggests that these kind of texts imaginatively realize and assume the standpoint and main tenets of a lay audience that just consumes specific genres, most being analogous to the persuasive, manipulative, amusement-oriented genres of TV news stories, tabloids, and commercials. It is pondered that much of the "technological utopianism" (term used by Kling [2] surrounding the ever increasingly standardized Internet discourse turns the Internet into a productive vehicle to sustain technoscience as modern myth by spreading and forging that utopian imagery into the audience's consciousness, and that scientists are taking fruitful advantage of the utopian, futurist, and often sensationalist accounts of the Internet as a formidable frame to advertise themselves and the deeds achieved in their laboratories.

Gonzalez-Pueyo, Isabel and Alicia Redrado. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online

University Publishing In A Digital Age

This paper argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.

Ithaka (2009). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online

Electronic Publication and the Narrowing of Science and Scholarship    

Online journals promise to serve more information to more dispersed audiences and are more efficiently searched and recalled. But because they are used differently than print—scientists and scholars tend to search electronically and follow hyperlinks rather than browse or peruse—electronically available journals may portend an ironic change for science. Using a database of 34 million articles, their citations (1945 to 2005), and online availability (1998 to 2005), I show that as more journal issues came online, the articles referenced tended to be more recent, fewer journals and articles were cited, and more of those citations were to fewer journals and articles. The forced browsing of print archives may have stretched scientists and scholars to anchor findings deeply into past and present scholarship. Searching online is more efficient and following hyperlinks quickly puts researchers in touch with prevailing opinion, but this may accelerate consensus and narrow the range of findings and ideas built upon.

Evans, James A. Science (2008). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online