Journals in the digital age: penser de nouveaux modèles de publication en sciences humaines (original) (raw)
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The scientific article in the age of digitization
2006
1-1.txt for the inaugural edition. 4 Henshaw 2001. 5 An important source for the history of early e-journals is a survey by Hitchcock et al. (1996), who at the end of 1995 identified over 100 'online' journals in the domain of science, technology and medicine (STM), of which 35 were 'electronic only'. Another early overview is given by Roes (1994), who identified 39 refereed scientific electronic journals, adding the note that 'compared to the over 130.000 printed journals the phenomenon of the electronic journal seems to be insignificant.' 'in the midst of a radical transformation spurred by advances in computer technology ... the next century may well witness the extinction of the original scientific 'paper' appearing on paper. ... And the long-term effect of electronic preparation and publication of manuscripts may be as profound as when the scientific article evolved from scholarly letter writing and books in the seventeenth century'. 11 The idea of an electronic revolution in scientific communication is related to ideas about the 'liberation from print' and the explosive effects of electronic text. Lanham argues that electronic text will 'disempower the force 9 For a comprehensive review of predictions and speculations regrading the future of academic libraries see Sapp and Gilmour 2002, 2003. 10 Lu et al. 2002. 11 Harmon and Gross 2003, session 5, in marked contrast with the author's more cautious and critical outlook in Gross et al. 2002, p. 231-234: '... whether in the form of ink on paper or pixels on a computer screen, the scientific article will remain the medium of choice for establishing new knowledge claims ...'. ' ... each discipline has very deep rooted reasons for the way it is constructed and the way scholarly activity is undertaken. Fundamental change will only come when the scholars are satisfied it will be in the interests of the discipline. The form of change will be determined from within the discipline rather than from outside sources ...' 22 So while there are many claims for a 'revolutionary' role of the electronic journal, empirical studies seem to indicate a more limited role predicated on conservative mechanisms and traditional cultures of practice within scientific communities. 'However, the communication systems of science (and other social systems) are much older than the computer age, and have, through centuries, developed important characteristics such as source criticism, principles of rhetoric, standards for publishing, and so on. All this represents production, dissemination, and use of information, which is the declared object of research in information science. The understanding of this social system is a precondition for establishing computer-based systems to make the system more efficient.
The primary intention of this document is to analyse the open access repository ‘liquid books’ along the concept of digital technologies in academic publishing. The first part approaches the way digital publishing has developed through history and how the concept of open-access is crucial for initiatives such as ‘liquid books’. The second part will address on how open access envisions a wider future in academic and scientific fields. In the third chapter, I will focus on the so-called Knowledge Economy and its multiple possibilities in universities. In the last section, I will draw upon concepts such as scientific acknowledgements and authorship to contest the way digital publishing can be considered legitimate.
Rethinking electronic journals: exploring the flexibility and duality of technology
2004
This study analyses the appropriation process of electronic journals by academics at three Brazilian post graduation research programs (Master and Doctoral). The objective is to understand the internal structure of technological practices in the context of potential users, exploring two main characteristics of the appropriation process: the duality and the flexibility of technology. The technological structuring model, proposed by Orlikowsky was expanded to verify the relationship between electronic journals and scientific communities. Results reveal electronic journals as both product of and medium for human action. As a product, technology only comes into existence through creative human action. It has no meaning until given meaning through manipulation; as a medium, technology promotes certain types of work and constrains others (duality). When interacting with electronic journals, academics showed to be influenced by the institutional properties of their setting. They based their action on existing stocks of knowledge and resources and norms to perform their work. As such, electronic journals are products of the organisational context, and will reflect the knowledge, materials, interest, and conditions present at a given locus. Electronic journals are flexible in the sense that they allow more than one interpretation. i.e., their concept vary according to the individual conditions of interaction.
Rethinking the Academic Journal in the Digital Age
At the 2012 meeting of the delegate assembly of the MLA in Seattle, delegates were invited to participate in an electronic straw vote to help guide discussion of the future of journal publishing in a digital age. "Do we have good reasons to continue hardcopy publication of journals?" asked the straw-vote question bluntly. Its apparent crudity provoked a great deal of head-scratching, as many in the audience felt that the issues it raised were too complex to be reduced to a simple yes/no answer. Yet in its terseness the question raised the specter of a future without print, in which journal content has completely migrated to electronic delivery systems. The upsides of this vision are known to all who have gone on line to look for journal content: the immediate availability of full-text articles and reviews; the possibility of running thematic searches across a multiplicity of venues; the convenience of electronic tools in cross-referencing, building lists of works cited, and the like. But the downsides were also immediately apparent: the difficulty of sifting through the enormous quantity of content generated by the proliferation of electronic venues; the feared weakening of quality standards produced by the multiplication and decentralizing of online publishing; the marginalization of that portion of the public that does not have good access to online resources; and, most importantly for the purposes of this essay, the waning identity of the journal as a venue that articulates a coherent academic and disciplinary agenda through the choices made by its editors and advisory board-first and foremost the targeted grouping of essays, reviews, and other content in a bound issue. To the degree that articles are increasingly perceived as self-standing units, or even as links that can be grouped and accessed in a variety of ways, their connection to the journal in which they appear becomes increasingly tenuous. If this trend continues, the academic journal may end up suffering the fate of the album compilation in the music business. While the delegate-assembly discussion soon made clear that the idea of a post-print age for journals was more of a thought experiment than a near-future scenario, the question of the changing identity of the academic journal in the growing
2020
This study set out to address the question of digital scholarly publishing in the broad context of socio-institutional and<br> historical construction. The purpose of the study is therefore to show that the 'Gutenberg revolution' has not yet been<br> attained for digital scholarly publishing because of the environmental subjectivities of society, political economy and<br> discourse that deconstruct its trajectory of innovative disruption. The main methods deployed were the social shaping of<br> technology and the embeddedness paradigms. They enable the study to move beyond narrow, technological readings to<br> scrutinize broader sociological implications for cyberspace publishing. Consequently, it found out that since the 1980s,<br> digitization has only changed the process of scientific communication but has hardly made a significant dent on the<br> substance of academic communication. It is very prone to risks from the 'square ...
Folia Turistica, 2019
Purpose. The presentation of challenges with which scientific journals and-more broadly-scientific communication, will have to face in the substantive, technological and financial sphere in the conditions of constant evolution of the digital world, dynamic development of new information systems in science (e-library, library 2.0) and new phenomena conditioning the behaviour of Internet users. Method. The views presented in the article are the result of a review of literature regarding scientific journals and empirical research, which was conducted from April to August 2018 among 132 authors representing the world of science and economic practices. Findings. The open access (OA) movement has caused significant changes in the behaviour of people of science in publishing and depositing research results. The prospect of taking over all the functions of scientific journals by scientific repositories still seems to be distant due to the lack of alternative methods for assessing the quality of scientific publications. There are doubts about the division into scientific, institutional repositories and the repositories belonging to scientific journals, which results from unclear business models of individual solutions. The phenomenon of self-publishing is stimulated by the dynamic development of research carried out by business units, skilfully analysing the resources of large data sets and successfully popularising research results in social repositories. This is new quality in the area of information exchange, which requires rapid adaptation on scientific grounds. An insufficiently implemented postulate to popularise scientific knowledge and its transfer to business practice remains an equally important challenge. Research and conclusions limitations. The results of the survey based on the respond-ents' subjective assessment should be treated with caution and do not allow to draw general conclusions. The research revealed significant discrepancies in respondents' opinions regarding the future of scientific journals and their prospects for functioning in new information systems. The highest doubts concern the quality assessment system of scientific publications and the business model of scientific repositories: the significant number of stakeholders of the scientific communication system, dispersed in various scientific, political and economic systems, further limits the possibility of formulating unambiguous decisions in this respect. Originality. The presented article formulates challenges for scientific journals whose functions are being increasingly taken over by scientific and social repositories. In contrast to the previously published works, this suggests solutions in the field of artificial intelligence, which will enable complete change in the way of publishing and validation of knowledge as well as quality control of scientific research. Type of work: Review article.
Elecronic Journals: The Grand Information Future?
This article examines the political economy of scholarly publication. After briefly outlining the contours of the current crises in the scholarly communication system, the article goes on to discuss how individual electronic scholarly publication projects have challenged the traditional publishing houses by offering alternative models of scholarly publication that more closely fit with the needs of the academy. The article then looks at some of the ways in which the traditional interests have responded to the threat posed by the independent publishers. As is demonstrated in the article, their response has been aggressive. The article closes with a warning about a possible shift, made possible by advanced information technologies, in the way the scholarly communication system is funded. After examining the potential for the development of a user pay-per service, the article concludes with a warning about the academic and intellectual fallout of a move away from a collectively funded scholarly communication project.
New journal models and publishing perspectives in the evolving digital environment
Ifla Journal, 2010
Open access combined with Web 2.0 networking tools is fast changing the traditional journals' functions and framework and the publishers' role. As content is more and more available online in digital repositories and on the web an integrated, interconnected, multidisciplinary information environment is evolving and Oldenburg's model disintegrates: the journal is no more the main referring unit of the scholarly output, as it used to be mainly for STM disciplines, but scholars attention is deeply concentrated on article level. New journal models are thus evolving. In the first part of this paper we will discuss these new experimental journal models, i.e.
Tool or Weapon? Some (Unintended) Consequences of Journal Digitization
The ascendancy of the online journal format has catalyzed a revolution in publishing that is not unlike that of Gutenberg’s printing press (Bohlin, 2004). What has become apparent in hindsight, however, is that there may well be some unintended consequences of this shift in delivery format. We have taken for granted the online format, without questioning its impact on our scholarship. The changes we have experienced are not necessarily good or bad—they simply “are.” Yet we must interrogate these changes, and how they influence the nature of our scholarship and knowledge creation, lest we mindlessly accept the bad without mindfully seeking the good.