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Hypermedia Online Publishing: the Transformation of the Scholarly Journal

6.1 Introduction

This thesis has already discussed some of the pressures on print scholarly journals (see 5.4: Pressures for transformation on page 83). Chapter 4: Technology Developments reviewed the range of technologies for working with information (particularly print-intensive information) that have become available during the last two decades and Chapter 5: Potentials and Pressures for Transformation considered the potentials inherent in these technologies.

Neither of these chapters dealt specifically with particular solutions. This chapter tells a story that both runs in parallel with the developments outlined in chapters 4 and 5 and makes more specific some of the possibilities already presented (see 5.2: Transformation of publishing functions on page 76). It deals with the initiatives that evolved in response to the pressures already discussed, and shows how these initiatives built upon (and in some cases anticipated) the technologies discussed in Chapter 4 as they developed and became more mature.

The particular responses discussed are electronic text journals, electronic paper journals, the addition of hypertext features, multimedia enhancements to journal articles, the consequences of network distribution, increased interaction capabilities, the opportunity to reengineer scholarly communication, workflow support for the creation of scholarly journals and new economic models for journals. Where appropriate, illustrative examples are provided for each response. While these responses are discussed in rough chronological order, it should not be assumed that they developed in lock-step fashion. In most cases there is considerable overlap, and some journals provide a combination. It should also be kept in mind that many of these responses are still developing over time as the environment they operate changes around them and as they interact. The chapter concludes by examining three leading-edge e-journals as examples of what is already possible.

Last modified: Monday, 11-Dec-2017 14:38:49 AEDT