Academic Electronic Journals: Past, Present, and Future - Advances in Computers - page 139

3.4.1 Space Limitations
The core challenge of paper-based journals is the limited space available. Space is
a scarce resource that needs to be managed carefully [12] . Print journals are limited
in space, due to the escalating cost of printing, copying, and distributing. Therefore,
they include only the minimum information essential to understanding the work.
Most articles do not include original data, long questionnaires, computer programs,
or complex algorithms. 11 Graphics and photos are kept to a minimum, and color is
almost never used. Authors protest when word limits are imposed that prevent rich
contextual descriptions of, for example, case studies in information systems [58] .
Ability of scholars to publish . Because space limits fix the number of articles qual-
ity journals can publish, authors compete for a fixed number of slots. A resulting
challenge is the ability of scholars to publish. Lotka's law [33] states that “the number
of authors making N contributions is about 1 /N a of those making one contribution,
where “ a ” is often nearly 2. Thus, for example, if in a given field 2000 authors pub-
lish one article, then the number of authors who make N = 10 contributions is
2000 / 10 2 = 20 authors. Thus, very few scholars publish most of the work and most
scholars publish very few articles [29] .
Innovation versus control . Academic publishing generally does not promote inno-
vation and creativity [12,16,37] . The current system trades off control over quality
against dissemination of knowledge and communication. To maintain high quality
and stay within space limitations, gatekeepers tend to accept studies on topics that
are within established paradigms [25] . New and unorthodox work is often rejected
by gatekeepers [50,5] . Campanario [5] found that over 10% of the most highly cited
papers of all times encountered difficulties in being published. 12 Given the limited
available space, editors prefer to commit a type I error (reject a promising article)
rather than commit a type II error (accept a poor article). Nord [37] suggested an
increase in journal space as a solution, but increased journal space increases cost.
3.4.2 Journal Focus and Learning Curves
In addition to space limitations, authors are deterred by:
1. Most established journals have a focus, a theme and rules of acceptance. The
ideology of the editorial board affects the review process. Editors choose re-
viewers whose ideology is similar to their own [16,25] . Therefore, new and
innovative work that does not fit within the established paradigms of existing
journals is hard to publish [47] .
11 Which of these items are published depend, to some extent, on the field and the journal.
12 The list contains articles from various disciplines and can be found in Citation Classics at:
http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/classics.html [last accessed 06/21/2005].