Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
sustainability, institutional resistance, increased work for editors, reviewers and
authors and backwards compatibility. Institutional resistance to e-journals in-
creases in direct proportion to the level of electronicity used by these journals.
These conflicts are difficult to resolve and will require a cultural change and
power shift.
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1. Introduction ........................................ 132
2.HistoryofAcademicPublishing............................. 134
3.AcademicScholarship .................................. 135
3.1.Objectives ...................................... 135
3.2.Criteria........................................ 136
3.3.UniqueCharacteristics ............................... 136
3.4.CurrentChallenges ................................. 138
4.ElectronicAcademicJournals .............................. 142
4.1.ClassificationofElectronicJournals........................ 142
4.2.TheThreeTypesofElectronicJournals ...................... 144
4.3.ChallengesSolvedbyE-Journals ......................... 147
4.4.NewChallenges................................... 148
5. The Economics of E-Journals .............................. 148
5.1.CostStructure .................................... 149
5.2.FeeStructure .................................... 153
5.3.CopyrightsPayments ................................ 156
6.TheEffectsofE-JournalsonStakeholders ....................... 156
6.1.EditorsofE-Journals ................................ 157
6.2.AuthorsofE-Articles................................ 159
6.3.AcademiaasaCommunity............................. 163
6.4.Libraries....................................... 164
6.5.Reviewers,GatekeepersandOtherStakeholders ................. 167
7.Conclusions........................................ 170
8.Summary ......................................... 172
References......................................... 172
1.
Introduction
Published academic work is used both for knowledge building and dissemination,
and for the distribution of rewards, prestige and funds. The traditional form of acad-
emic publishing, based on printed journals, faces major, often reinforcing, obstacles
including:
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For example, electronic journals enable the use of Internet search engines (i.e., Google Scholar) instead
of traditional indexing services, thereby shifting power from the few indexing services to academicians.