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Hypermedia Online Publishing: the Transformation of the Scholarly Journal

10.3.1 Evolution or revolution?

The scholarly journal in its current form performs a number of critical functions for the scholarly community. These functions are deeply embedded into the nature of contemporary scholarship and will need to continue to be performed into the future. The evidence of the surveys and literature is that these functions are still important. To the extent that e-journals do not fulfil these functions they will be regarded as inferior.

At present, e-journals (as such) are having little impact on the processes of scholarship. Parallel published journals will have slightly greater impact (because of greater reach) than their print equivalents. Over time, provided they can do at least all that p-journals do now, the new e-journals will increase their impact because of the additional features they offer. Moves to make e-journals more closely embedded in the processes of scholarship will support this trend.

The conclusion is that we will see gradual evolution in the functions of the scholarly journal as it becomes transformed (and faster evolution in its form), not revolution.

Last modified: Monday, 11-Dec-2017 14:41:31 AEDT