Sheizaf@earthlink.net

http://gsb.haifa.ac.il/~sheizaf

Online journals are the wave of the future. And they are already here.

Ignore this new medium and novel mode at your own peril. Online journals in the scientific world, much like their close cousins – online newspapers, are an attempt to harness the powers of computer – mediated communciation networks to scientific communication and discourse. The World Wide Web in particular, and the internet and general, have opened new vistas and opportunities to extend the reach of messages via novel and exciting channels and modes of communication. Online journals are already becoming the mode of choice for academic publication.

There are a variety of dimensions for the attraction inherent to online journals. Let me try to sketch these out, relying on examples taken from the journal that I co-founded and co-edit, the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC). JCMC is a scholarly, refereed journal. It has been in publication for almost five years. JCMC has published many dozens of scientific articles, and serves as the locus for scientific discourse in a variety of ways. It is hosted on two continents, by two universities: In the US, at the niversity of Southern California (USC), and in Jerusalem, at the Hebrew University. The journal is accessible at the following addresses:

US: http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc

Israel: http://jcmc.huji.ac.il

I expect the trend flowing toward online presenation and publication to gather even more steam in the near future. In the long run, online journals will no doubt become the major form of scientific publication. It may take time. In the short run, though, online publication is already an affordable, attractive, and very potent option in the bid for spreading of messages and the attention of audiences. In the hort run (now!) those who get on this wagon early win early dividends for being forerunners of an inevitable revolution.

While online journals may not soon displace printed journals, they are already a very powerful manner of augmenting traditional forms of exchange. The pre-internet toolbox of communication tools in academe included mostly newsletters, quarterly journals, annual volumes, books and face-to-face seminars and conferences. The online, internet-based journal opens rich and variegated new vistas: these include the ability to search the content, create “Communities of practice” discussion fora where opinions are actually exchanged and explored (rather than simply declared and amplified), create mutual, joint work objects (like common bibliographies), etc.

Distance, time, and cost are the first issues. Clearly, online journals allow easy bridging of distances. The internet leaps over continents. Online journals are fast. There is no mail delivery lag, and the cycle of publication is therefore a lot shorter. Online journals are a much less expensive option from the point of view of printing and dissemination. They have no paper or ink costs, minimal connectivity costs, and no mail and delivery costs.

However, online journals are reasons that are far deeper than distance, time or production cost: The implementation of online journals allows creativity, experimentation and innovation along several intriguing lines beyond the obvious concerns of cost, time and distance. These opportunities include :

1. Multimedia / Multisense
2. Hypertextuality
3. Elasticity of Synchronicity
4. Interactivity
5. Packet Switching
6. Simulation
7. Logs and statistical records

Hypertextuality: Online journals allow us to deviate from the linear constraints of yesteryear. Bibliographies are no longer “dead letters”, they actually point to something useful, that is immediately accessible. You can leap back and forth between literature references and content. Articles can, and do, involve each other as well as external content. The whole world is linked in an interwoven net, or “web” of mutual pointers. Scientific writing, like other communication, becomes more intertwined. Examples for this abound in the journal. See for instance, the Editors' Introduction to Network and Netplay, at http://jcmc.huji.ac.il/vol2/issue4/editorsintro.html in volume 2 issue 4 of our journal.

The Elasticity of Synchronicity refers to the fact that the internet is a medium without a local time zone, and with little allegiance to time constraints. As a result “the sun never sets” on electronic journals. Delivery is immediate, libraries that hold the journal are never “closed” for the night, and th audience interaction can (and does) occur at all hours of day and night, and all days of the week. The notions of date of publication, etc. can be revisited. Note that the header of our journal, on the topic of the “first page” contain an inscription such as “Tuesday, 05-Jan-99 13:46:54 GMT+0300”….

This characteristic makes for fascinating options.

Interactivity speaks to the fact that online journals enable much more than two-way communication. Authors can talk to each other (not just at each other). Audience members may address authors, editors, and members of the audience. Audience can and may contribute, by taking part in joint projects. See, for instance, our use of audience polling, at http://www.ascusc.org/cgi-local/poll_it.cgi where we periodically posts questions to the audience, allowing the audience to affect content, structure and editorial decisions. Also, see our discussion board, at http://www.ascusc.org/wwwboard/wwwboard.html which, like “letters to the editor” in a regular journal allows audience members to comment and react. But unlike traditional letters to the editor we are not constrained by space, readers are not necessarily constrained by the tyranny of the editor, and members of the audience my form groups. There is lot more potential symmetry.

Packet Switching is about the fact that, technically, the internet is organized in a manner that differs drastically from traditional networks. There is no “center”, “owner” or control. As a result, censorship and central planning are less viable. Consequently, too, there is more symmetry, democracy and freedom of speech built into the system. This may be an opportunity for abuse, but it is also the reason “a thousand flowers may blossom”. As the internet and the web are given facts and here to stay, it is left up to us to make intelligent use of the options made available to all.

Simulation refers to the opportunity to build computerized simulations where complex notions can be tried out. Experimentation in a laboratory is almost always a valuable opportunity to examine predispositions, deepen perceptions, and enliven perspectives. I, personally, use simulations in a variety of contexts, especially when I attempto surface the implication of deep-seated (but often not cognizant) attitudes. See, for instance, the java-based simulations pointed to from my online syllabus about electronic markets, and the social contexts of biding, auctions and competition at http://gsb.haifa.ac.il/~sheizaf/ecommerce

Lastly, online journals (as well as all other online content) generate online logs. The trials and actions of the audience are recorded automatically by the computers (“servers” that generate the content. The information recorded in these logs is enormously valuable to editors, and of a magnitude, quality and essence unprecedented in tradiitonal, print-based journals. For a glimpse of what I mean, try going to the above mentioned syllabus, at http://gsb.haifa.ac.il/~sheizaf/ecommerce . Scroll to the very bottom of the syllabus, and click on the little blue and red graph , or simply go to the following URL: http://usa.nedstat.net/cgi-bin/viewstat?name=SheizafEcommerce (this is a statistical analysis of the use of the syllabus by two classes, a total of 80 students. Another address you can go to see this would be http://jcmc.huji.ac.il/analog/analogform.html for a statistical analysis of one year of logs of one of the JCMC servers in Jerusalem. The privacy implications, but also the potential use of logs are, of course, vast. See, for instance, a paper I wrote on this topic, at http://mis.huji.ac.il/papers/mmm.paper.htm

Online journals are not all honey… There are, of course, issues of copyright, ownership, privacy, the response of established publishers, the training of users, accessibility and universal access, and more questions. As a young medium, online journals face pitfalls, challenges and unsolved glitches. I will gladly expound on those in a separate document… But an appropriate summary must conclude that online journals’ time has come. It is time to roll up the sleeves….

In addition to JCMC sections mentioned above, following are some references for further reading on the topic:

Our recent book: Network and Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Internet Edited by
Fay Sudweeks, Margaret McLaughlin and Sheizaf Rafaeli , ISBN 0-262-262-69206-6, 320pp, (paper) The MIT Press , 1998

My talk on the topic, at : http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sheizaf/cmc.hied.html

Sudweeks, F. and Rafaeli, S. (1996). How do you get a hundred strangers to agree: Computer mediated communication and collaboration, in Harrison, T. M., and Stephen, T. D. (eds), Computer Networking and Scholarship in the 21st University, SUNY Press, pp. 115-136. Also available on the net, as: http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/~fay/papers/strangers.html

John E. Newhagen & Sheizaf Rafaeli, "Why Communication Researchers Should Study the Internet: A Dialogue" [http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol1/issue4/rafaeli.html], Also in Journal of Communication 34:1, Winter 1996.

Sheizaf Rafaeli and Gilad Ravid, OnLine, Web Based Learning Environment for an Information Systems course: Access logs, Linearity and Performance, ISECON ’97, available online as http://mis.huji.ac.il/papers/mmm.paper.htm

Lists of electronic journals at:

http://www2.baldwinw.edu/~rfowler/electronicjournals.html

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/epublishing.html

An article entitled “Goodbye Gutenberg” in Wired, 1994: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/ejournals.html