On Tue, 4 Apr 2000 DonaldK737_at_AOL.COM wrote:
> In a message dated 4/4/00 2:58:07 AM, till_at_OCI.UTORONTO.CA writes:
>
> << It's also noteworthy that the number of 'rapid responses' to the posted
> NetPrints seems to have been very low. Not what I would have predicted.
> >>
>
> also the experience of the American Psychological Association e-journal.
> our colleagues seem to view this as an unrewarding task.
> cordially
> don klein
Not quite sure which APA e-journal Don means. I don't know of any the
APA publishes, but perhaps he means Psycoloquy, which APA currently
sponsors, rather than publishes (although they are currently
considering formally publishing it).
In that case my reply to Don would be this:
(1) Eprint Archives such as:
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/
are not to be confised with electronic journals, such as Psycoloquy
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/psycoloquy/
Electronic Archives archive, whereas electronic journals peer-review and publish.
Journals will also archive (their own contents), but Archives archive (multiple) journal
contents.
(2) Netprints seems to be a bit of a cross between a journal and an archive; we will have to
wait to see how it develops. But Archives' success or failure in attracting papers should not be
confused with journals' success or failure in attracting papers. (And among papers, target
articles should be distinguished from commentaries and responses: Jill's comment seems to have
been about responses, by which I think she meant commentaries!)
(3) The current status of contributions to Psycololoquy is this:
(i) Target article submissions are rising (but still not high enough)
(ii) Commentary and responses submissions are rising too, and were always
high (but not as high as BBS yet).
(iii) After 10 years, Psycoloquy is finally being indexed, as of this year, by
APA's PsycINFO and ISI's Current Contents and Science Citation Index.
(iv) Virtually all the important established journals are now electronic journals
too (so the distinction between them and "electronic journals" is now incoherent.
Perhaps "electronic journals" should be called "online-only journals," to single them
out among the hybrid journals that have lately become the norm.
(v) As far as I know, all online-only journals still have to be more activist in
attracting papers than the established and hybrid journals. However, as I said,
submissions are improving, and I am certain that, as all journals will be come
online only, it is only a matter of time before there is no difference left at all.
(4) Archives, like online-only journals, are likewise not yet close to asymptoting on
their potential contents. The Physics Archive is bigger, has 128,000 papers and is growing
linearly, but even it needs to switch to a faster growth rate if it's to capture the
entire Phsyics literature soon. My hope is that the Open Archives Initiative will help
hasten us to the optimal and inevitable in all fields
http://www.openarchives.org/
and I hope the free, generic Santa-Fe-compliant archiving software we will soon be
releasing will help too.
http://www.eprints.org/index.html
In closing, it's important to make the distinctions above if one wishes to see the
status quo, and quo vadis, clearly. Mixing journals with archives and articles with
commentaries blurs a picture that is only now coming into focus.
Stevan Harnad
Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT