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The ramifications of shifting from paper to electronic serial publication are discussed in light of the recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposal for a comprehensive electronic archive of peer-reviewed and preprint publications. The paper evaluates six concerns that have been expressed about the conversion to a purely electronic journal system and discusses the economic impact and growing tension among authors, publishers, and librarians over scholarly publications. (Contains 19 references.) (Author/SLD)

This paper provides a snapshot of developments in the electronic journal industry. The first section identifies issues affecting librarians and publishers, including: (1) issues of common concern to both publishers and librarians, e.g., lack of comparable data, lack of context, incomplete usage data, marketing, content provided, interface affecting usage, economic model, and user privacy; (2) library issues, e.g., budget justification and impact on selection; and (3) a publisher issue, internal applications. Quantitative measures are discussed in the second section, including what data elements should be collected and data reliability. The third section suggests a meeting at which publishers who have already implemented statistical functionality can share what they have learned, including producing useful data and interpreting the data. Appendices include summaries of interviews with librarians and publishers, the ICOLC (International Coalition of Library Consortia) "Guidelines for Statistical Measures of Usage of Web-Based Indexed, Abstracted, and Full Text Resources," and descriptions of related industry initiatives. (Contains 13 references.) (MES)

The relationship between technology and English as a foreign language (EFL) learning and teaching is one of the significant research areas, and the "Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology" ("TOJET") publishes research papers on educational technologies addressing various topics related to education. This article aims to review 17 studies appearing in TOJET on the interrelation between technology and English as a foreign language (EFL) learning and teaching. It focuses on the research that investigates the relationship between technology and EFL learning and teaching in terms of the topics, participants, research design, and conclusions of the articles. Finally, implications for pedagogy and research are discussed. Studies related to technology use in EFL learning and teaching are listed in an appendix. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.) [This paper was published in the proceedings of the annual International Educational Technology Conference (IETC) (Istanbul, Turkey, April 26-28, 2010). p20-24.]

This paper presents the history, current status, and future development of eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries Direct)--a large-scale project run by the Soros Foundations Network and the Open Society Institute. The project aims to provide libraries in developing countries with access to a menu of electronic information resources. In 1999, the project launched its first successful service--access to EBSCO's databases in social sciences, humanities, business, economics, and medicine. By the beginning of 2001, more than 2,000 libraries in 39 countries were in the process of forming national consortia to ensure funding for the regular and continued access to these databases. The next phase of the project will include the addition of science and technology full-text journals and the development of local content. The paper also describes the evaluation and selection criteria that were used to choose the services. Appendices include a list of evaluation criteria for choosing a social sciences full text provider and a copy of the survey used to assess the information needs of the consortium. (Author/MES)

Law is grounded in the past, in the decisions and reasoning of generations of lawyers, judges, juries, and professors. Ready access to this history is vital to solid legal research, and yet, until 2000, much of it was buried in vast collections of aging paper journals. HeinOnline is a new online archive of law journals. Development of HeinOnline began in late 1997 through the cooperation of Cornell Information Technologies, William S. Hein & Co., Inc. of Buffalo, New York, and the Cornell Law Library. Built upon the familiar Dienst and new Open Archive Initiative protocols, HeinOnline extends the reliable and well-established management practices of open access archives like NCSTRL and CoRR to a subscription-based collection. The decisions made in creating HeinOnline, Dienst architectural extensions, and issues that have arisen during operation of HeinOnline are described in this paper. The paper discusses Dienst, a framework for implementing digital library systems; the HeinOnline design; creating a working library; production experience; and future plans. (Author/AEF)

The high publication rate of scholarly material makes searching and browsing an inconvenient way to keep oneself up-to-date. Instead of being the active part in information access, researchers want to be notified whenever a new paper in one's research area is published. While more and more publishing houses or portal sites offer notification services, this approach has several disadvantages. This paper introduces the Hermes altering service, a service that integrates a variety of different information providers making their heterogeneity transparent for the users. Hermes offers sophisticated filtering capabilities preventing the user from drowning in a flood of irrelevant information. From the user's point of view, it integrates the provides into a single source. Its simple provider interface makes it easy for publishers to join the service and thus reaching the potential readers directly. This paper presents the architecture of the Hermes service and discusses the issues of heterogeneity of information sources. Furthermore, it discusses the benefits and disadvantages of message-oriented middleware for implementing such a service for digital libraries. (Contains 18 references.) (Author/AEF)

The current system for scholarly information dissemination may be amenable to significant improvement. In particular, going from the current system of journal publication to one of self-distributed documents offers significant cost and timeliness advantages. A major concern with such alternatives is how to provide the value currently afforded by the peer review system. This paper proposes a mechanism that could plausibly supply such value. In the peer review system, papers are judged meritorious if good reviewers give them good reviews. In its place, the report proposes a collaborative filtering algorithm that automatically rates reviewers, and incorporates the quality of the reviewer into the metric of merit for the paper. Such a system seems to provide all the benefits of the current peer review system, while at the same time being much more flexible. The researchers have implemented a number of parameterized variations of this algorithm, and tested them on data available from a quite different application. Initial experiments suggest that the algorithm is in fact ranking reviewers reasonably. (Contains 19 references.) (Author/AEF)

The development of stand-alone, Web-based electronic journals began shortly after the Internet became widely accessible among researchers. These journals represented one of the first attempts to utilize the Internet as a forum for the regular distribution of peer-reviewed scholarly research. The purpose of this paper is to examine issues related to the preservation of online scholarly electronic journals. The paper begins by clarifying key concepts concerning digital preservation, then moves into a general overview of the challenges faced by information providers in preserving and making accessible digital resources. This is followed by an outline of the unique characteristics of Web-based electronic journals, including an analysis of issues related to editorial authority, accessibility, and the merit and promotion process. Current attempts to preserve electronic journals are discussed, followed by an analysis of future trends in the field of digital preservation and its relationship to the archiving and maintenance of online journals in the near and distant future. The paper concludes with recommendations intended to lay the groundwork for collaborative efforts to systematically preserve electronic journals on the Internet. (Contains 25 references.) (Author/AEF)

This paper discusses scholarly communication and the emergence of electronic journals. Scholarly electronic journals are expanding their influence. Currently, about 70 peer-reviewed scholarly journals in education are freely available through the World Wide Web. Wider access to scholarship, new possibilities inherent in the electronic medium, and a shortened publishing lag are some of the issues relating to this expansion. The collision of the financial aspects of traditional print publishing with the ground rules of academic scholarship is also contributing to the progress of electronic dissemination of scholarship. Concerns about the quality of scholarly electronic communication are misplaced since the peer review can be even more rigorous with online journals than with traditional print publications. In addition to economic issues, there are a number of medium-specific technical features of electronic publication that offer a huge potential to revolutionize scholarly communication. (Contains 18 references.) (Author/AEF)

Interactive multimedia electronic journals, or IMEJ journals, are a publication medium particularly suited for research in computer-enhanced learning. This paper describes the challenges and potential rewards in publishing such a journal; presents ideas for design and layout; and discusses issues of collaboration, copyrighting, and archiving that are unique to IMEJ publications. Comments, based on the authors' experiences in founding a new IMEJ at Wake Forest University, are directed to those interested in developing their own interactive multimedia electronic journal, publishing their research in such a journal, or considering the evolution of scholarly publication in the light of new technology. (AEF)

This paper describes how the authors are exploiting the potential of interactive World Wide Web media to support a central part of academic life--the publishing, critiquing, and discussion of documents. The paper begins with an overview of documents in academic life and a discussion of paper-based or "papyrocentric" print and scholarly work. The following design principles, underlying the environment for reading and critiquing Web documents that the D3E (Digital Document Discourse Environment) Publisher's Toolkit generates, are summarized: (1) avoid over-elaborate discussion structuring schemes; (2) integrate document media with discourse; (3) redesign work practices to emphasize discourse; and (4) support the new practices with tools. The process of publishing and critiquing Web documents using D3E is described, and its application to an educational multimedia electronic journal and to tutors and students in a distance learning scenario is illustrated. Areas for future work are considered. Three figures present D3E screens, including a publication form, output from a source HTML file, and a shared discussion space. Contains 23 references. (MES)

This paper reports on a consortial attempt to overcome the high costs of scholarly journals and to study the roots of the cost problem. A multi-discipline study of the impact of electronic publishing on the pricing of scholarly periodicals is discussed. A brief overview of the pricing issue comparing print and electronic publishing is followed by a summary of the access approach to cost containment technique. This is then followed by a preliminary report on an attempt at this technique by a consortium and on the associated econometric study. This 3-year study is collecting data on approximately 6,000 journal titles gathered from the combined subscription lists of the 13 Associated Colleges of the South (ACS) libraries. The study includes analysis directed at testing the viability of consortial access versus ownership as well as the potential long-term solution that would derive from emergence of a new core of electronic titles. A complete financial analysis of the impact of consortial, electronic access to a core collection of general purpose periodicals as well as an econometric analysis of the impact of electronic availability on pricing policy will issue from the study conducted under an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant. Contains 42 references. (AEF)

This paper examines the dynamics of change in scholarly publishing and the impact of technological innovation upon the academic community for which the system of scholarly communication serves as an infrastructure. For the purposes of this discussion, what is of immediate interest is the way the productivity issue frames the possible dimensions of the dynamics of technological innovation, thereby setting a research agenda for the future. From the perspective of academic publishing, the academic community consists of two markets in which "gift" exchanges are governed by contract, that of authors and that of the consumers, the largest of which are academic research libraries. Higher education is both the producer and consumer of scholarly publications. Three new factors define the conditions within which a system of scholarly communication may evolve: (1) the emergence of a global economy in which intellectual property is an important source of wealth; (2) the end of the cold war as a stimulus for national information policy which took the form of federal funding for research; and (3) the cultural diversity of society, and the replacement of a melting pot idea by a transnational culture, which may create new social contexts for education. The remainder of this paper examines issues related to digital documents and academic productivity, and digital documents and the academic community. (AEF)

Bryn Mawr Reviews (BMR) produces two electronic review journals, "Bryn Mawr Classical Review," (BMCR) which also comes out in paper and "Bryn Mawr Medieval Review" (BMMR). BMR has two sets of users: subscribers and gopher hitters. Analysis of the monthly gopher reports has concentrated on the hitters rather than the hits; analysis of total users shows that use has leveled off at a peak of about 3800 users a month. Subscriptions to the electronic journals continue to grow at a rate of 5% per quarter, though there are considerable seasonal fluctuations. In terms of progress and cost recovery, progress is satisfactory but cost recovery is still uncertain. BMCR is growing at the rate of 30% a year. About half the costs of BMCR goes for producing the paper version. A possible reduction in costs besides elimination of the paper version and automatic mark-up is a "fast-track" system whereby the review never leaves the Internet. The great advantage for the reviewer is that this cuts publication time by a month; the disadvantage is that the reviewer is asked to do some simple mark-up on the text before sending it. Seven charts show statistics. (AEF)

This paper addresses several questions about digital libraries. What kinds of communities will digital library technology produce? The Web seems much more popular then electronic journals--does this mean that surfing will replace literature reading, and that "nerds" building HTML hierarchies will supplant publishers? Will this mean that the universities will lose control of the quality of what their students read? Will the ability to do more research in one's dorm room mean that students will not talk to one another at all, that they will talk to people somewhere else in the world, or that they will talk to their roommates more than ever, perhaps about how to use the computer system? Digital information threatens our ideas of locality: will the association of students with a particular university, let alone university library, survive the Web? Might online references and online multimedia lectures produce the 'virtual university of the United States' and if so would that be desirable? Universities serve a variety of social functions which the Web can augment or diminish, depending on people's actions. The Web also may threaten ideas of quality in scholarship. This paper addresses potential consequences of the change to digital information, and suggests that universities can cope by being more proactive in their use of the Web for reward and communication. (Author)

Scientific journal publishers have very little commercial experience with electronic full text distribution and it is difficult to segregate the effect of pricing on user acceptance and behavior. This paper examines some of the known experiences and ongoing and proposed experiments to get a sense of the interaction of pricing and user acceptance and of the other factors, which seem to affect user behavior. It also looks at institutional buying concerns and pricing considerations. The paper concludes that a price that is perceived as fair is a necessary but not sufficient factor in gaining users of electronic journals. If a Web site or other electronic offering does not offer more (job leads, competitive information, early reporting of research results, discussion forums, simple convenience of bringing key journals to the desktop), it will not be heavily used. In designing electronic services, publishers have to deal with issues of speed, quality control, comprehensiveness--and then price. The evaluation of acceptance by the user will be on the total package. (AEF)

It is widely expected that a great deal of scholarly communication will move to an electronic format. This paper speculates about the impact this movement will have on the form of scholarly communication. In order to understand how journals might evolve, the paper begins with a look at the demand and supply for scholarly commutation today, as well as the first-copy costs of academic journals. Two other costs are then mentioned: archiving and yearly costs-per-article read. A discussion on re-engineering journal production and the impact of re-engineering on costs savings follows. Further savings of electronic distribution on shelf-space, monitoring, information searches, and supporting materials are then outlined. The paper concludes that when all academic publication is electronic: (1) publications will have much more general forms; (2) new filtering and refereeing mechanisms will be used; and (3) archiving and standardization will remain a problem. A model for electronic publishing is also presented. (Contains 12 references.) (AEF)

This paper comments on three presentations (Janet Fisher, Malcolm Getz, and Bill Regier) at the Scholarly Communication and Technology Conference; it focuses on publisher costs, and also discusses the electronic publishing efforts undertaken at the University of Chicago Press. Janet Fisher, from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Press, gave costs related to both the electronic journals that they are publishing and to two of MIT's print journals. First-copy costs (the cost for editing, typesetting, and producing materials that can subsequently be duplicated and distributed to several hundred or several thousand subscribers) for electronic journals at MIT Press range from approximately $15 to $56 per page; the total first-copy costs for the print journals are $22 and $24 per page. At this point, for the MIT Press, it is cheaper to produce journals in paper than to do them electronically, if the circulation is small. Malcolm Getz presented a breakdown of costs from the American Economic Association (AEA). A comparison of cost percentages for the University of Chicago Press and for the AEA reveals that overall, editorial, typesetting, and distribution costs are quite similar. Bill Regier reported that for Project Muse, the electronic publishing venture of Johns Hopkins University Press, the total costs for both print and electronic editions were about 130% of the print-only costs. The electronic publishing model under discussion is structured so that electronic costs are add-on costs to the traditional printing functions. A second model is described in which data are converted to SGML (Standardized Generalized Markup Language) form in the earliest stages of editing; then the SGML database is used to derive both the typeset output for hardcopy printing and the electronic materials for electronic dissemination. Six tables illustrate cost percentages and publishing models. (AEF)

This paper addresses some of the major shifts in thinking about the nature of publishing and in basic beliefs regarding the peer review process in scholarly communication. Changes in the notion of ownership in the an age of technology are considered. Differences between the referee system with print publications and electronic text are outlined and the shift from the conception of peer review from a summary process to an emergent process is illustrated, noting the public availability of online articles that are in the process of being reviewed and are subject to revision. The "plasticity" of electronic text opens the way for interactivity as a means for quality control, an approach which views text as an organic, dynamic phenomenon capable of adapting and changing within the context from which it was conceived. The paper concludes with a description of a model of an electronic journal that encompasses both an open studio and a showcase gallery environment for textual artifacts, a model which offers the flexibility needed to implement open, interactive peer review, promising speed and diversity of opinion. (AEF)

This paper looks at the issue of how scholarly publishing in electronic forums affects the academic tenure process. Currently, scholarly publication as it relates to the merit and promotion process is generally defined as publication in refereed journals or as publication of scholarly books. This definition, implying a fixed language-based text and an identifiable author or multiple authors, is beginning to be questioned in theory and in practice. Implications for faculty members going through the tenure process, and thus for academic libraries and for librarians, who work to be integral players in the university community, will depend to what extent contemporary theoretical positions are put into practice, whether as radical change or as assimilated into current practices of the advancement and promotion process. Aspects to consider include: (1) the producers, publishers, and consumers of literature on the world wide web; (2) the perceptions of the stability and quality of electronic publications by those who hold academic power; (3) whether or not electronic publications are refereed; (4) different attitudes toward technology within and between academic disciplines; (5) if publications are available in both paper and electronic forms, and if the contents differ between forms; and (6) the ease of access, including access to appropriate computer technology and the ability to retrieve works via indexes and other finding aids. (Contains 41 references.) (Author/SWC)

Publication is at the heart of scholarship. Traditionally, print media has been the vehicle for communicating research results and scholarly thought. Recently, electronic journals have been increasing. This paper explores, from a scholarship perspective, the rationale for publishing electronic journals. It also examines why scholars publish; the life-cycle of scholarly thought; lack of timely feedback; costs; and limits of print journals. The following advantages of electronic journals are identified: increased speed; collaboration; and the availability of different models. The problems with electronic journals identified are credibility; accessibility; permanence; and an ever-changing technical environment. The paper uses "Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century" as an example of a scholarly, peer-reviewed, electronic journal; the contents of an issue are appended. (Contains 16 references.) (JLB)

This paper reports on the use of digital storytelling and blog activities to make CALL classes more dynamic and personalized for both instructors and learners alike. An empirical research study was carried out to determine if a blended-learning environment incorporating m-learning could help improve the English listening, presentation, and blogging skills of native Japanese undergraduate students at a private university in Tokyo, Japan. The blended-learning activities included three components: "iUniv" lectures, digital storytelling, and student blog activities. The goal of the study was to examine the effectiveness of the blended learning activities in improving the English language proficiency of native Japanese students, including their presentation skills through the use of blogs and PowerPoint. An assessment of pre-training and posttraining computerized assessment system for English communication (CASEC) scores revealed that the students had adequately comprehended the iUniv lecture contents and their overall listening skills improved. A questionnaire administered to students after their exposure to the activities indicated they were satisfied with and motivated by their exposure to the blended learning environment incorporating m-learning. [For the complete volume, see ED574893.]

Technological development has changed the concepts of a publication, reproduction and distribution. The legislation, together with the Legal Deposit Law does not incorporate these changes, and is very restrictive in the sense of protecting the rights of authors of all electronic publications. National libraries and national archival institutions, being aware of their important role in preserving the written and spoken cultural heritage, try to find different legal ways to its realization. This paper presents some legal aspects of archiving the web pages, concerning the harvesting, providing public access to them, and long-term preservation. (Contains 16 references.) (Author)

This paper discusses the services offered by OhioLINK, a consortia providing a variety of services to a statewide user population of college and university libraries, focusing on the impact of these services on traditional interlibrary loan. The first section describes patron-initiated book requesting. The second section addresses the Electronic Journal Center, an archive of ejournals (electronic journals) that have been licensed by OhioLINK. The third section discusses the effects of OhioLINK ejournals on lending. (MES)

This study investigated the beliefs of mathematics educators regarding issues of scholarship and tenure associated with material published in electronic journals on the Internet. Based on 58 responses received through an e-mail survey, the study showed that respondents felt: comparable print and e-journals should garner the same prestige and respect; serving as an editor of an e-journal should be as respectable as carrying out the same responsibilities for a print journal; articles in e-journal format based on a blind peer-review process should be accepted for merit, promotion, and tenure review; and that review committees should consider e-journal articles equal to print journal articles in regard to questions of merit, promotion, and tenure. There is also agreement that e-journal publications that do not appear in print format should be judged on their own merit. There is support for research published in e-journals as meeting the criteria of scholarship. (MKA)

This paper discusses changes in information services at university libraries in Israel, focusing on the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Highlights include: combining the 20 departmental libraries at the Technion into one library system; efforts to build the status of the central library as the libraries' leader; the integrated library system and the role of the central library in automation and technical services functions; development of the electronic library; access to the electronic library; centralizing the electronic journals collection; administrative aspects of the electronic library; future plans for centralization; and plans for an Israeli University Libraries' Consortium. (MES)

This paper describes the use of electronic journals (e-journals) and technology portfolios as an instructional strategy in preservice teacher education technology courses. Introduction to Media and Computers in Teaching is an introductory level, two-credit, preservice teacher education course offered at the University of Virginia. In this course, the instructors use e-journals as a way to examine the students' learning throughout the semester and to model a strategy they can later utilize in their own classrooms. After each class, students create an entry in their e-journals using a word processing program. Whereas e-journals demonstrate learning in its developmental phases, portfolios represent the culmination of a student's work over a period of time; in this course, students collect examples of their work over the course of the semester for inclusion in their technology portfolios. The use of technology portfolios and e-journals places an explicit focus on the relationship between technology applications and instructional methods. This reflexive approach to training encourages students to consider technology as both a user/learner and a user/teacher. (AEF)