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added reward. Universities do not recognize each version as a new publication re-
gardless of the extent of variation. 46 The time required to maintain the living article
comes in place of writing additional new manuscripts.
E-journals allow increasing interactivity and communications among scholars.
However, the activities surrounding that idea are time consuming and also not re-
warded by the academic system. For example, one e-journal attempted to increase
interactivity by attaching a discussion stream to each article and by soliciting com-
ments to be posted. The e-journals received very few comments. Authors considered
such comments as being equivalent to a Letter to the Editor.
In summary, the current academic system does not reward scholars for the extra
activities required to make use of the e-journal's advances in publishing. From the
authors' perspective, paper replacement e-journals where the publisher invests time
and money in marketing, branding, indexing and abstracting the journal are superior
to other types of e-journals. These journals provide added space and reduced cycle
time and can gain the prestige necessary for the scholar's future and advancement.
The current reward system does not give authors enough incentives to include new
formats, living scholarship and interactivity in their work.
6 . 3 A c a d e m i a a s a C o m m u n i t y
A discipline, its scholars, and members, operate as a community. Members of a
discipline share professional associations, publication outlets, professional meetings
and social events. Journals are one way that a discipline builds itself as a community
and builds its credibility as a discipline to the outside world. It is important for the
growth of a discipline, that articles are read, referenced, and cited by external schol-
ars [6] . E-journals can support the development of small or relatively new disciplines
in the following ways.
1. Small, un-endowed professional societies can not afford the production of pa-
per journals [7] . Yet journals are the prime engine of communications for the
development and growth of relatively new disciplines. E-journals enable such
professional societies to produce their own publications without relying on
commercial publishers (e.g., Communications of AIS and Journal of AIS ).
2. E-journals enable a discipline to expand its scope by affording new outlets
for unorthodox material. For example, Foundations of Information Systems (an
e-journal dedicated to the philosophical foundations of information systems)
started in the late 1999 as an entrepreneurial venture. The goal of the editorial
board was to introduce a venue for work that was not part of the core paradigm
46 Much the same as universities do not recognize a new edition of a book as equal to the original
although the topic may be changed completely between editions.
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