E-journals: The advantages and pitfalls

E-journals: The advantages and pitfalls

By Rosa Widyawan

JAKARTA (JP): Thanks to the advent of the Internet, Indonesian scholars can keep abreast of scientific developments by accessing the World Wide Web (WWW) where they can conveniently refer to relevant scholarly electronic journals (e-journals) with just a click of a mouse.

More importantly, they can contact their overseas counterparts to discuss on-going research and to take part in discussion forums with peers. They can also access important information such as sponsorships, seminars, conferences via the Internet.

Scholarly e-journals are publications of scientific writings selected by editors in cooperation with peer reviewers and distributed electronically to users.

Actually, there are four manifestations in the evolution of e- journals over the past three decades: firstly, the use of computers in the preparation of printed publications, which started during the early sixties.

Secondly, the distribution of texts electronically that are exact equivalents of their paper versions. Thirdly, this form of text distribution additionally possesses a few value added features, such as searching and alerting. And finally, the introduction of new types of publication to explore multimedia possibilities.

They can all be divided into two generations. The first generation includes those that are stored in the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) file with simple structures. Their publishers are usually individuals from a group of scientists, not commercial publishers. This generation disseminates the information solely through e-mail.

The second generation is characterized by distribution based on HTML or by using WWW. Journal articles may cover a wide range of multimedia and feature links to other sources on the Internet. Their files are relatively large and are not distributed by e- mail.

In Indonesia, e-journals are published by universities, professional organizations, and research institutions. Not all are purely in an e-journal format but are electronic versions of traditional (printed) journals.

Journal Fisika Indonesia published on the Net by the Indonesian Physicist Association is the electronic version of the paper-based publication. This operates in the same way as overseas counterparts like the Institute of Physics in Great Britain.

Some publishers are developing their own servers in order to offer public access to their electronic journals and magazines. Others are working in partnership with libraries, academic institutions, non-profit organizations and other commercial sector companies to offer their journals on the network.

The publishers, Blackwell Sciences, publishes 225 journals, mostly from scholarly societies and is the world's largest publisher of society journals, aggressively altering its procedures so that printed and electronic versions of their published material are concurrently available.

This method has also been adopted by Indonesian e-journal publishers, but in terms of partnership it does not operate in conjunction with institutions, rather is focused for personal use particularly for peer reviewers.

E-journals in Indonesia are predominantly freely accessible, though publishers charge for printed editions. Compared to news or popular magazines, e-journals are relatively cheap.

Blackwell Science, for example, charges 90 percent of the cost of print for online-only subscription. It charges approximately 130 percent of the publication price for combined online and print subscriptions.

There is an interesting phenomenon in marketing electronic journals. The Institute of Physics, for example, gives free access to any library that subscribes to its printed journals.

They charge non-subscribers per view or offer a one year subscription for electronic versions of their journals. Other publishers also carry out this form of charging.

It is handy to search for academic journals on the web. Several directory services have recently been introduced to the Internet that try to keep up with developments in their field.

It is now possible to consult American Research Libraries' Electronic Journal Directory and NewJour-L list, a server devoted to alerting subscribers to new electronic journals. So now, one can access e-journals from anywhere over the globe.

Unfortunately, it is hard to distinguish between newsletters, academic articles, reviews or magazine-type publications, journals from both servers.

The Directory of Major Publishers of Electronic Journals is a useful vehicle for finding e-journals as some publishers offer access to their electronic journal and magazines.

One can also look at Electronic Journal Market Overview, which provides an overview of general issues on e-journals, a review of publishers' activities and overviews of e-journals.

Another method to find scholarly e-journals is by visiting university URLs. One example is the University of Houston's library, which maintains the page Scholarly Journal Distributed via the Web. In the field of economics there are the very informative resource pages of the publication, The Economist, on the Internet.

Acquiring academic journals is a major concern for many of Indonesia's libraries. Nearly all local libraries are now reviewing their subscriptions and canceling journals. Unfortunately, libraries here cannot afford to subscribe to world renowned publications.

This is of course frustrating for library users.

So far there is the expectation that e-journals will be able to replace the traditional printed versions, by virtue of cheaper subscription rates.

E-journals may be cheaper and reach subscribers more quickly than printed editions. Besides, the articles are usually not limited to size and can be hyperlinked to other sources of reference.

Because they can be accessed globally, they promise a more open review process. From the library's point of view, e-journals demand no library space and shelving costs; they cannot be vandalized or stolen. They are available 24 hours a day for as long as the server is on.

But there are also the downsides -- especially the fact that accessibility depends upon hardware, software and telecommunication infrastructure. Consequently, in Indonesia at least, they have a limited readership.

Indonesia has experienced a slow rate of growth of its e- journals. There are currently 70 scholarly journals, the number having remained the same over the past two years. Over the same period there have only been two new journals launched, by the Fishery Department of Diponegoro University in Semarang, Central Java, and by the National Library. Unfortunately, they are not updated regularly -- maybe because there are not enough readers and authors accessing their content.

The presence of e-journals has yet to show a bearing on scientific writing in this country. Not many authors refer to them because too few people have access to them. Scholars, it appears, still prefer the printed version of journals.

The writer is a librarian at the Center for Scientific Documentation (PDII) at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in Jakarta.