HUSAT Research Institute and

Department of Human Sciences

Loughborough University

Loughborough

Leicestershire LE11 3TU

e-mail: husat-info@lboro.ac.uk

URL: http://info.lboro.ac.uk/research/husat/index.html

Scholarly practices differ considerably in the way they store, use and disseminate information. It may be hypothesised that they may also differ in their need for electronic journals and these journals may have different effects on scholarly practice. This brief study used secondary sources of information to compare the impact of electronic journals on different disciplines. An analysis of the literature is presented which describes the characteristics of disciplines in the natural sciences, the social sciences and humanities and in applied disciplines. The analysis examines the use of information in these disciplines and demonstrates the different roles that traditional journals play in different disciplines.

From the literature and with the assistance of domain experts who attended a workshop, a set of propositions were formulated about the implications of scholarly practice for electronic journals. These propositions were tested with reference to 14 disciplines by the examination of secondary sources of information about each discipline, through the literature, through inputs from eLib projects working in these disciplines and through interviews with academics.

As a result of the analysis it is proposed that there are some universal characteristics of scholarly activity which lead to general specifications for electronic journals and there are other characteristics which lead to differing requirements. There is a general requirement to have access to search facilities to locate relevant articles but the requirements to read full text on-line and to have advanced forms of multi-media within articles are more limited. The majority of disciplines would value an electronic full text service as a means of assured access to a printable document. Many disciplines would value an opportunity to link electronic journals with other electronic data sources and communication facilities. There is some evidence that it is the natural sciences which would find the most advanced forms of electronic journals of benefit and they are already the most advanced in the adoption of these services. However, there are sub-disciplines across the spectrum of the disciplines which have characteristics suggesting they would value the potential of multi-media, electronic journals. The report offers a preliminary causal model to characterise disciplines in terms of their likely use of electronic journals and the speed of uptake and presents recommendations for research and practice which will further the appropriate uptake of electronic journals in different disciplines.

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the eLib programme of HEFCE JISC which enabled this study to be undertaken. The progress we were able to make is directly attributable to the expert, informed inputs we received from fellow members of the eLib research community and other colleagues in the scholarly fields investigated. We are particularly indebted to:-

We also received invaluable guidance from Cliff McKnight and Jack Meadows of the Department of Information Science and Library Studies at Loughborough University.

1. Matching Electronic Journals and Scholarly Practice 1

2. Methods 1

3. The Literature and Preliminary Classifications 2

4. Methodology for the Research Sample 13

5. Results 14

6. Discussion and Conclusions 24

7. Recommendations 28

Electronic journals are now appearing across a whole spectrum of scholarly activities. Inevitably there is greater progress in some areas than in others. There are a very wide range of forms that electronic journals can take and environments in which they are developed, for example:

It may be the case that all scholars need a similar kind of service from electronic services and we are witnessing the exploration of many ways of meeting this need before a level of maturity is achieved where we can select the particular forms that best meet the need. However, it seems much more likely that scholarly practices have a wide range of characteristics which will mean that different forms of electronic service will be relevant in different places. The purpose of this study is to explore the possibility that different scholarly practices will find different features of electronic journals of relevance and that the evolution of electronic journals in different scholarly areas will have a range of effects on the way practice emerges in the future depending on the characteristics of the discipline.

In formal terms we can state the null hypothesis as:-

electronic journals will develop in similar forms across all scholarly activities and will have similar affects upon all kinds of scholarly practice.

The alternate hypothesis is in two parts,

In an ideal world a systematic attack on these hypotheses would be undertaken by selecting a representative sample of scholarly practice and closely examining the differences in the way each practice engaged in its work in order to determine whether there were differences in requirements for electronic journals. This could then be followed by an examination of current and prospective usage to investigate the match with requirements and whether different effects upon the conduct of scholarly practice were emerging.

This project has modest timescales and resources and, as a result, should be regarded as a pilot study to test whether a fuller and more systematic investigation would be valuable. This study makes use of the fact that the eLib programme is developing electronic journals across an array of scholarly practices and it is possible therefore to examine within a short timescale the needs of these disciplines and impact to date. The aim therefore is to use secondary sources of information to ascertain whether there is a good basis for accepting the alternate hypotheses and, if so, to provide preliminary classifications and cause and effect models which could be subject to more systematic examination through the collection of primary data.

The research programme adopted can be summarised as:-

The initial stage of the research was to examine literature relating to scholarly practice and to talk with domain experts to understand the different characteristics of practice which may influence the role and impact of electronic journals. The literature provided accounts of practice in a very wide range of scholarly disciplines and, to a lesser extent, explored the kinds of communication common within different kinds of discipline. In addition, a workshop was held which was attended by domain experts, publishers and members of the eLib community developing electronic journals who represented scholarly practice ranging from chemistry and social science to archaeology and law. As a result of these enquiries provisional classifications were developed to define and relate two issues:-

There has been considerable debate about the nature of scholarly practice much of it triggered by the sharp distinction made by C P Snow (1959) between the cultures of the sciences and the humanities. Most scholars accept this major difference but conclude there are many other distinctions of great significance. It is beyond the scope of this report to explore all the factors that contribute to the differences between disciplines. Our approach has been to (a) identify the major differences that appear to influence forms of communication between scholars (b) focus upon communication practices and (c) explore the implications for electronic journals.

There are many classifications of disciplines. Figure 1 below, from Moses (1990) offers four which are based on different, but closely related, dimensions - paradigm development, learning style, knowledge and the organisation of research.

As Becher states (1989) "the ways in which particular groups of academics organise their professional lives are intimately related to the intellectual tasks on which they are engaged" (p.1). For the purpose of this report we will present our findings using Biglan's (1973) Hard:Soft, Pure:Applied classification which is presented in Figure 2. The classification is illustrated with examples of disciplines which may be assigned to a particular cell within the 2 x 2 matrix. It will be immediately apparent that this is a somewhat arbitrary process which may lead to debates as to where a given discipline should lie and as we shall see later, the allocation of some disciplines, and certainly some sub-disciplines, can be problematic.

The general properties of the disciplines in each category as described by Biglan, Becher and others are as follows:-

In order to explore the relation between scholarly activity and the role of electronic journals we first need to explore how different areas of scholarship use pre-electronic forms of information and communication. We can make a broad distinction between the formal means of information storage and communication in the discipline and the many less formal ways in which scholars relate to one another. In the formal category we are including those mechanisms by which a discipline uses peer review and other quality assessment processes to judge whether material should be entered into the records and archives of the discipline. We include therefore peer reviewed journals, books and monographs. In the informal category we include all the mechanisms by which communication takes place that do not necessarily require exhaustive quality checks before they take place, for example, conferences, discussion groups, newsletters etc. In this section we will use the classification of disciplines to explore first the role of informal forms of communication and secondly the significance and form of the formal approach.

In order to derive possible implications for electronic journals a one-day workshop was held. The purpose was to consider what was happening to the development and use of electronic journals in a range of disciplines and from this to derive a preliminary classification of dominant characteristics and their implications. The workshop was held in April 1997 with representatives from academia, libraries, publishing and electronic journal development who had direct knowledge of developments in a range of disciplines including pure/hard (for example, chemistry), pure/soft (for example, sociology and archaeology), applied/hard (for example, engineering) and applied/soft (for example, law and information studies). From the records of the workshop (and the literature reported above) it was possible to identify a range of pre-disposing factors in the disciplines which might have implications for electronic journals. These factors and their implications are presented under six headings in Figure 4:

This framework provided the basis for a structured and more detailed examination of 14 disciplines and sub-disciplines.

In some instances we have access to substantial bodies of information, for example, in two cases we have the surveys conducted in the SuperJournal project (Communications and Cultural Studies, Molecular Genetics and Proteins). For a number of other disciplines we have the informed input of other eLib projects, for example, Archaeology. In other cases the sources of direct evidence is limited to a few interviews supplemented by data from the relevant literature.

For each of the disciplines we have sought answers to the following questions:-

1. What are the characteristic of the discipline that affect the role of traditional journals and what are the implications for the future role of electronic journals? These questions were guided by the framework presented in Figure 4.

2. What is the current use of electronic services in the discipline and what electronic journals are currently available?

3. Has there been any change in the way scholarly activity is undertaken as a result of electronic service availability (including electronic journals)? What expectations are there for electronic journals and changes in the scholarly activity in the future?

The different sources of data available to us means there is some unevenness in the data obtained for each discipline, for example, colleagues working on eLib projects were able to give a better account of the current state of electronic journals in their discipline and the benefits and problems associated with them than fellow academics in other disciplines who were not associated with electronic journal developments. In none of the cases can we claim to have surveyed a sufficiently representative sample of the whole field and our results are therefore suggestive rather than conclusive. However, in each area there is considerable agreement about the issues and current state of development. Each discipline is summarised in a separate appendix to this report and a comparative analysis of the results obtained is given below.

We have explored the characteristics of each of these disciplines and attempted to relate critical predisposing factors to the actual and potential role of electronic journals.

We have identified seven major factors which relate to electronic journals. Some of them produce more diversity amongst the disciplines than others. Each of these factors is explored below. A related set of issues concerns the degree to which each discipline is already using electronic services and this is explored in section 5.2. The results are drawn together in section 5.3 in the form of the kind of electronic journal service delivery profile appropriate to each discipline.

In addition to considering the nature of each discipline we also explored the degree to which they were already making use of electronic services in general and electronic journals in particular. Within the general experience of electronic services we have included the use of a personal computer as an individual work tool for text processing, calculating etc., the use of services to locate and retrieve information held elsewhere and as a communication service to other academics to send and receive messages both to individuals and groups.

There is a wide range of penetration of electronic services across the disciplines. At one extreme the personal computer is the principal work tool of the academic and the ability to use the many software packages, communication services and knowledge bases available to the discipline is essential to academic success. As Grefscheim et al (1991) report, it is essential to ‘survival’ in some areas of biotechnology. At the other extreme there are academics who do not have personal equipment and can achieve prominence in the discipline without reference to electronic services. They may find these services available in their library but will be able to operate by more traditional means if necessary.

In Figure 6 below we report our assessment of the current level of penetration of electronic services in general and electronic journals in particular in each of the disciplines examined. We have used a five point maturity scale widely used to assess the adoption of technologies and processes within organisations:-

The data demonstrates that there is widespread adoption of electronic services across this sample of disciplines. The personal computer is fast becoming the essential work tool of the academic and in many disciplines it is common practice to be in touch with fellow academics around the world by e-mail, in discussion groups and electronic conferences etc. It is also common in many disciplines to make use of shared datastores and to put early results and other information on personal web sites on the internet. It is natural sciences that are most advanced in their use of these services (but also including library science and its sub-discipline digital libraries). In some sub-disciplines, for example, biotechnology, these are now the dominant means of undertaking research. In contrast there are many disciplines that are just beginning to adopt these services, for example, most of the humanities and social sciences, and perhaps surprisingly, some of the engineering disciplines. Amongst the social sciences, psychology has made considerable strides in its adoption of electronic services.

In general the adoption of electronic journals is behind the adoption of other electronic services although there appears to be a close correlation, i.e. the adoption of electronic services in general is a good predictor that electronic journals will be under consideration. We made an attempt to assess the amount and type of electronic journal activity in each of the disciplines and encountered several methodological difficulties. What is an 'electronic journal'? What journals are relevant to what discipline? How do you make an assessment when journals keep coming and going? The difficulties were well expressed in the recent conference 'Electronic Publishing '97 held at Kent University, Canterbury. Rosenfeld (1997) reports that speakers’ estimates of the number of electronic journals in existence varied from 750 to 12,000. The difference is in part accounted for by definition (when does a newsletter become a journal?) and in part by the short lived nature of many journals.

Despite these difficulties our evidence suggests there is a wide variation in the amount of activity across the disciplines. An examination of the electronic journal titles reported in library listings (see the appendices for details) showed that in some of the physical sciences, for example, physics and molecular genetics and proteins, there are over 60 titles whereas in law, history, and physical education and sports science the titles that are directly relevant are less than ten. We have made some attempt to establish the different types of electronic journal. The most common are the electronic versions of paper based journals supplied by publishers where the paper based version continues to exist. These journals contain peer-reviewed papers. At the other extreme there are many electronic magazines and newsletters which are not peer-reviewed, do not appear regularly and often disappear. There appear to be relatively few electronic-only, peer-reviewed journals and there are also relatively few that contain substantial amounts of ‘unprintable’ multi-media. Problems of definition make it difficult to examine the patterns of publication in different disciplines. It would appear, not surprisingly, that the wider the level of activity the more likely there are to be all the types listed above and it is the active communities who are exploring electronic-only journals which contain multi-media

We asked our respondents whether they had detected changes in scholarly practice due to the existence of electronic journals and what they expected in the future. Considering the numbers of publications that are appearing they reported relatively little impact in most of the disciplines. We can explore what is happening and what might happen in the future by dividing the sample into the slow adopters and the fast adopters:-

* Sub-discipline only

* Sub-discipline only

In Section 5 we have drawn some conclusions about the kind of electronic journals which would be of value in different disciplines. Whilst we believe the specific conclusions are of interest it is important to repeat (a) that they are the result of secondary and at times relatively superficial analysis of complex disciplines, (b) that not all disciplines have been examined, (c) that the evidence suggests that major disciplines have sub-disciplines with quite different characteristics from the parent and (d) that some of the assessments we have made of particular disciplines are based on partial and unvalidated data. We therefore consider that the specific conclusions should be regarded as propositions that need a more thorough test and that other disciplines be added to provide a systematic examination across the spectrum of scholarly activity. Where we do feel the study has a contribution to make is in the analysis process and the classifications we have introduced. The initial set of questions linking scholarly practice and implications for electronic journals proved valuable when used to examine the 14 disciplines and the classification of forms of service delivery provided a revealing basis for comparison. On the basis of this systematic approach we feel able to comment on the hypotheses we advanced at the beginning of this report.

The main hypothesis we sought to test was that different scholarly practices will need different forms of electronic journals. We draw the following conclusions about this hypothesis:-

This study is only a first step in understanding a very complex subject. Scholarly activity is a very subtle and varied human, social and organisational endeavour and the potential of electronic services to support it is enormous. We recommend that further steps are taken to understand the implications of this technology for different disciplines and to this end we make two contributions. First the propositions above about how each discipline might take up the technology can be individually tested. Second we propose the following framework as a provisional causal model to predict the direction and rate of take up in different disciplines. In this framework we have reduced the scholarly activity to three pre-disposing factors each with two categories. These three factors appear to be the major contributors but there are others which we have ignored in this representation. As a result there are eight theoretically possible cells as depicted in Figure 9.

Cell 1 The Activists: The phenomena studied has recognised multi-media potential, the community uses a common cluster of journals and is already mature in the use of electronic services. This describes some of the sub-disciplines in the natural sciences such as molecular proteins and genetics and structural chemistry. It is the cell in which the fastest adoption of new forms of multi-media journals is to be expected.

Cell 2 The Experimentalists: The phenomena here also have multi-media potential and the community is familiar with the technology. However, the community is scattered so there is no easily defined target to which services can be delivered. The problem is to find a good business basis for delivering customised content to scholars. This might define some sub-disciplines in the humanities or application disciplines. The discipline offering the closest match in our sample is archaeology.

Cell 3 Mature Traditionalists: The phenomena in this case are dealt with readily by current text dominated journals but the community is mature in its use of the technology and relatively tightly defined. This is therefore a community ready to make use of the electronic services but with little interest in multi-media although there may be potential for its use. The service they are likely to seek is traditional journal papers delivered electronically. This could be an area of very rapid take up because it has an active community and relatively few technical problems to solve in delivering the required service. The best example in the sample is the library and information studies community working on digital libraries.

Cell 4 The IT Competent Lone Scholars: These scholars are happy to work with text and are mature in their use of electronic services. They do not however belong to large communities with common interests. They are likely to respond well to electronic versions of traditional journals, especially if the delivery system is well integrated into the electronic services they already use. However, the problem of delivering a relevant service to such a variable population may delay take-up. Although not in our sample, astronomy may fit this description.

Cell 5 High Potential Laggards: In these disciplines scholars can imagine valuable contributions that multi-media could make and they operate within well defined communities with common interests. However, they have little familiarity with electronic services and would have difficulty making rapid progress with advanced forms of electronic journals. PE and Sports Science may fit this category.

Cell 6 High Potential Isolates: These scholars are perhaps the most difficult to help. They operate in an area with high potential for the use of multi-media but in a dispersed community so that each scholar’s interest is different. They have no IT background to help them make progress and because their needs are idiosyncratic it is difficult to make a business case for specialists to develop services. Some parts of Communication and Cultural Studies, for example, the performing arts, have this potential.

Cell 7 The Untapped Communities: In this case there is a well bounded community with common interests but it sees no potential value in advanced forms of multi-media. It would be a candidate for the delivery of electronic forms of traditional journals and a cluster could be defined which would be relevant to a lot of scholars. However, the community has little familiarity with the technology and would need a lot of help to acquire facilities and develop skills. Law fits many of these characteristics.

Cell 8 Low Potential Isolates: This group will probably be the last to be reached by an electronic journal service. It deals in text and will see relatively little added value in an electronic journal unless the scholar could access all that is relevant from the work place. However it is a scattered community of lone scholars with widely different requirements and little familiarity with the technology. Provision of electronic access to all the existing but non-electronic resources that are currently used would be an enormous task. Some humanities disciplines such as history seem to fit this description.

Working with only three variables obviously does not do justice to the richness of scholarly activity but it does serve to show the different targets that academic communities present to those who are developing electronic journal services. It is interesting to note that it is easier to define sub-disciplines in relation to these characteristics because there is too much internal variation in the main disciplines.

It would be instructive to test this framework in relation to disciplines we have not examined. We are convinced following this survey that all scholarly disciplines can benefit from electronic journal services but that one common service approach will not be successful. One important task would be to develop strategies for the development of services to satisfy the needs and characteristics of the disciplines in each of the cells.

In October 1997 we held a second workshop with academics and publishers to discuss the implications of this report and consider what policy recommendations might be appropriate. The workshop accepted that there were many differences in requirements for electronic journals between the disciplines and many differences in their states of readiness to exploit the potential of electronic services. The most general recommendation was that future electronic journal developments should be user-centred in order to understand the requirements of users in different communities, to offer services which meet these requirements and to proceed at a speed commensurate with the state of readiness of the disciplines. There was a feeling that the electronic journal movement to date had been driven by what is technically possible rather than by informed user demand. This is a common finding in many other areas of technology application. The recommendations below are offered within the framework of a user-centred approach which, because of the differences between the communities, could see the emergence of different kinds of service.

In the workshop we elaborated this theme under three headings, (a) research priorities, (b) the delivery of services to high potential communities and (c) the delivery of services to low potential communities.

We conceived of this investigation as a pilot study to test whether a large scale, systematic examination of the full range of disciplines would be of value. Although this study has identified many important differences and such a study would be of considerable value there are other research studies which should receive higher priority (see below). In view of this we conclude that a more limited study to test the perceived service requirements of different communities would be the best way to check the validity of the findings of this survey. It would be possible, for example, to construct profiles of the scope of service and states of readiness of different disciplines and test these with members of each community. This would serve to verify the differences established in this study and to identify whether significant differences existed between disciplines not covered in the survey. It would also clarify where there were sub-disciplines with profiles that differed from the parent disciplines.

If the development of electronic journals (which continues apace) is to be receptive to the characteristics and requirements of user communities we feel that top research priority should be given to user-centred, longitudinal, action research studies within a variety of different academic communities (perhaps matching the cells listed in Figure 9). Thus the development activities described below should each have an action research element to ensure that the wider community learns the lessons of success and failure. We recommend therefore that future research priorities for JISC and for funding bodies such as EPSRC and the ESRC should be:-

Much of this action research should focus upon readers of electronic journals but there are two additional foci which have emerged which deserve priority:-

The communities in cells 1, 2, 3 and 4 are in a good position to adopt electronic journals if they are offered in a form which meets their requirements. The recommendations below identify the major service provision requirements to meet the needs of users in these four cells. The provision of these services would also provide the best possible vehicle for action research to test whether these are the critical requirements in each case. If the development of the services described is to be effective it has also to be user-centred in the sense that critical institutions in the communities lead, own or are closely associated with each development so that the need to meet user requirements is always paramount.

The cells 5, 6, 7 and 8 in Figure 9 represent communities which are currently immature in their use of electronic services. We have described them as low potential because they are communities which would not readily be able to adopt multi-media electronic journals in the short term. However, the analysis suggests that in the long term, there is potential value to these communities. The aim here is to create a migration path for the delivery services so that the users in these communities can move steadily towards the realisation of this potential. The path will vary with the circumstances of the community.

The nature of the academic world is very diverse and it is no surprise that we have found many differences in the requirements for electronic journals. There are communities that are already well advanced but many others that are making the first tentative steps. It is our belief that progress across the entire academic community will depend upon recognising the differences between disciplines and developing services that match user requirements. We hope that the classifications and recommendations offered in sections 5, 6 and 7 are a contribution to this user-centred approach.

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In the following appendices summaries are provided of the data gathered for the 14 disciplines examined. Each summary includes the sources of evidence, the main pre-disposing characteristics of the discipline that were identified, the current state of development of electronic journals and visions for the future. A summary of the assessments we made as a result of this data is also included.

Use was also made of the Royal Society of Chemistry Web pages:

http://chemistry.rsc.org/rsc/

Two specific articles from the following URL were used:

http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/talks/mgs

(Rzepa, H.S., Whitaker, B.J. and Winter, M.J.(1994): Chemical Applications of the World-Wide-Web System and Rzepa, H.S. The World-Wide Web Information System: Chemical Chaos or Global Scientific Enabler? )

i) Substances are usually represented visually

ii) The data have continuing relevance

(Factors relevant to chemistry in bold)

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Twenty nine electronic journals were found using these sources under chemistry but it is likely that even more electronic journals are read by chemists, e.g. that may be listed under general science. Chemistry is split broadly into organic, inorganic, physical and analytical (which may be seen on its own or may be incorporated into physical or inorganic). Then there are subsections within each of these. As far as journals are concerned, there is little difference in use between the sections although organic, being tied closely to the pharmaceutical industry does have more commercial drive.

Chemical Abstracts is increasingly electronic. Within five years it was predicted that there will not be a hard copy of Chemical Abstracts. It abstracts every paper in the world. At the moment it is very expensive to access on-line but a system of CD- ROM production may be the way they will go.

There are many electronic journals in chemistry but most if not all of the highly regarded peer reviewed journals have paper equivalents. There is still a desire, despite the technical ability within the discipline, to 'flick through' paper journals. Relevant articles can be spotted 'by accident' through this activity.

Reviewing is increasingly done electronically and there is more opportunity now to submit electronically. This has only happened relatively recently and some journals still require camera ready copy. It was not long ago when all the drawing in chemistry was done by hand. Electronic submission and reviewing has speeded up the time from submission to publication. One personal example was given of submission to publication in less than a month and that was in a significant refereed journal.

The chemistry community is one which does seem to be ready to take on the challenges of electronic multi-media publishing. Although it is at the moment being championed by a relatively small number of enthusiasts, the fact that the community generally is very well prepared to make full use of the available technology means that the chances of success in chemistry are higher than in some disciplines which also use visual data.

There are likely to be more electronic publications in chemistry, both influential refereed journals and other less formal publications.

The example was given of a chemistry department which has recently closed down its departmental library. The department now subscribes to electronic versions instead. The paper journals are still available in the main university library but are not duplicated in the department.

The hope within some parts of the community is that multi-media will indeed influence the nature of scholarly practice in chemistry, by speeding up research and dissemination of results and by allowing a more creative research environment through the provision of 'active' information.

Chemistry is a discipline pushing at the frontiers of electronic publishing. The nature of the data, the characteristics of the scholars, the nature of the research process and the interest from industry all seem to create an environment, particularly within biochemistry and structural chemistry, which is encouraging (and in some instances actually driving) the production of electronic multi-media publications. Even those scholars not at the "enthusiastic" end of the spectrum seem to be welcoming the speed of publication, the ease of access and the enhanced visual presentation that is becoming a reality in chemistry journals.

Data is available from the Focus Groups and Baseline Questionnaires from the eLib SuperJournal Project.

The scholarly domains which are associated with the eLib SuperJournal MGP (molecular genetics and proteins) cluster include biology, biochemistry and medicine, with specific disciplines within these fields being identified by individuals participating in the research.

No individual interviews were conducted and the coverage of the issue of scholarly practice is therefore restricted to the topics covered in the baseline questionnaires and focus groups and material available in the literature which has been reviewed, the most relevant of which is Grefscheim et al, 1991, which deals with biotechnology.

i) Progress in the field is rapid and incremental.

ii) The community is very computer literate

iii) Visualisations of the subject matter are important to the research

(Factors relevant to this discipline in bold)

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Sixty-five titles were found in this area and there are certain to be more which could be of relevance to this scholarly community. Despite the specialist nature of the discipline it has extensive links with other research areas in both pure and applied science, which would extend the range of journal titles of potential interest by a considerable amount. A wide range of electronic services are available to this discipline and they are being used.

This discipline area is clearly dependent on multi-media for the pursuit of its research objectives, is highly computer literate and foresees immense advantages to be gained from further developments in electronic journals, including the further addition of multi-media content. It is perhaps worth noting that there is little enthusiasm for the gratuitous inclusion of multi-media content and that given the existence of centralised sources of data, these users express a strong desire to be able to pick and choose which material they access and store. As regular users of network facilities they are already sensitive to issues associated with loading on the network and the time taken to down-load files. They will not want unnecessary duplication of existing materials and will focus on the benefits of access to high quality information delivered at the earliest possible opportunity.

Literature-

Ellis, D. 1993

Ehikhamenor, F.A. 1990

Neumann, L. (http://anshar.grainger.uiuc.edu/dlisoc/beckman-sum.html)

(Factors relevant to physics in bold)

a. Cluster of journals common to community, current journals only

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Sixty-two examples of electronic journals were found under the heading of physics from these sources. There are some electronic versions of paper journals and electronic only refereed journals are beginning to be produced, e.g. Mathematical Physics. Currently, there seems to be some reluctance to move away from the paper format for full papers although very extensive use is made of pre-print services in some areas of physics, e.g. the Los Alamos electronic pre-print service. Authors, titles and abstracts of pre-prints are available free and full papers can be paid for. These papers are not refereed but on their way to a refereed journal and the assumption is that quality is high in general given the stringent guidelines of the archive services themselves.

Less formal electronic publications seem to be used for presenting multi-media information, e.g. simulations, for example authors own WWW pages.

Change is likely to be slow. The pre-print services already available contain alerting services and are searchable (although not always satisfactorily). Any electronic publications in the future will need to provide substantial benefits to what is already in place before existing habits will be changed. There will be a need not only to provide the most up to date literature but also some material which is much older (from 1950s).

Although there could be multi-media elements to publication of physics papers, these tend to be provided through less formal media than the refereed journals. Many electronic versions are available but few electronic only journals. There does not seem to be the impetus to push hard from within the discipline for unprintable multi-media publications.

Teaching may be influenced by electronic publication but at least in the short term only through the less formal routes (e.g. authors own WWW pages, discussion groups etc.)

2. Reader of Historical Geography, Department of Geography, Loughborough University.

(i) The subject area is large and diverse.

(ii) The sub-disciplines have different requirements with respect to publication

(Factors relevant to Geography in bold)

b. Search on-line, electronic text delivery for printing

*c. Back-list significant

d. Reach beyond journals (databases, source material etc.)

e. Communication services

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals in Geography: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Eleven current electronic journals were identified in both the human and physical areas which included journals in the following sub-disciplines: Geographic Information systems, Oceanic Physics, Generative Anthropology, Coastal Science, also some highly specific journals. In addition interviewees reported the journal, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, general in scope, but a highly significant version of the printed journal. The Times Education Supplement was also reported as a source of research papers by one interviewee.

Academics in Geography have readily adopted the use of computers and IT services. The use of e-mail for alerting services and mail lists is fairly widespread and there are many Internet users. The general view of interviewees was that electronic journals would inevitably become more popular in academic research and teaching in Geography. They felt however that the growth rate would not be as rapid as in some of the traditional 'hard/pure' sciences. The evidence for this initial slow rate of growth is found in the relatively small numbers of electronic journals currently available in this discipline. It was felt that electronic-only journals would become more popular amongst the smaller sub-disciplines, where the potential readership is too small to set up traditional printed journals. In addition, the advantages of relatively quick and easy set up by groups of academics may facilitate the route of electronic-only journals. There was a strong view however that multi-media would not be the initial push behind electronic journals, although it may add to functionality later on.

2. Lecturer in the Department of PE and Sports Science, Loughborough University.

(i) The study of human movement in context is important in certain sub-domains.

(ii) On-line databases are an important resource in this subject area.

• Electronic journals could be linked to established on-line databases to provide a useful tool.

(iii) There is relatively little electronic journal activity in this subject area

(iv) Up-to-dateness of material is important

(Factors relevant to PE/Sports Science in bold)

b. Search on-line, electronic text delivery for printing

d. Significant unprintable MM, new forms of journal article

a. Cluster of journals common to community, current journals only

b. Specialist cluster, perhaps defined at user level

c. Back-list significant

d. Reach beyond journals (databases, source material etc.)

e. Communication services

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals in PE/Sports Science: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Only four electronic journals were identified in this search, in the areas of sports marketing, coaching science, swimming, and a general Sports Science journal. One of the interviewees reported an electronic version of a printed journal in his area of interest (Disability & Society), but was encountering difficulties gaining access to the necessary reader software. This interviewee also reported communication where he had tried, unsuccessfully, to encourage a publisher to provide an electronic version of a particular printed journal. The discipline is at an early stage of uptake to electronic journals, very few academics in the discipline are using them.

Whilst standard e-mail and database services are used on a regular basis, academics in this subject area are generally not very Internet literate. There is only a small amount of Internet presence on research groups in the department where the interviews took place, nearly all of this is provided by one 'enthusiast'. It was felt that the increasing popularity of electronic journals would depend on increased resources, both staff and student access, and increased awareness and motivation in the discipline. Certain pre-disposing factors would suggest that there is a growing future for electronic journals in the discipline, particularly where multi-media could provide benefits in addition to the convenience and ease of access benefits.

(Factors relevant to history in bold)

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Ten electronic journal titles in history were found from these sources. There are many electronic newsletters and discussion groups supported by e-mail but much fewer electronic refereed journals. There are other 'reviews' only journals like 'Reviews in History' but there are also many electronic versions of standard academic/peer reviewed history journals. It is not clear that there are any electronic-only titles which have the same level of authority as established print titles. It was estimated that only 15% of the current e-journal titles are 'significant' and these would all be electronic versions. There are a great many electronic-only titles appearing in North America.

While there is a significant and growing role for electronic journals there appears to be limited demand for multi-media content - the emphasis is still strongly geared towards text, tables and simple graphics. The requirements for electronic journals are more connected with providing improved access to existing journal titles for academics. The issue of subscription cost is seen as important and anything which reduces this will be welcomed.

The most likely point of origin for electronic only journals is seen as the ‘new' university departments. These departments need to raise their profile quickly in order to attract funding. They are often in interdisciplinary 'humanities' subject areas which have few traditional journals which serve them specifically. It is thus easy to justify the resources spent on creating and supporting a new title. They are also less hidebound by tradition and have staff who are more computer literate. In contrast the established departments in traditional universities are seen as being relatively slow to adopt IT and e-journals.

Within the discipline, the continued growth and eventual dominance of e-journals was seen as inevitable. This may be accompanied, or even caused by major changes in the financial basis for academic publishing. The role of the publisher and their commercial involvement in academic journal publishing was questioned. The role of multi-media content was less clear. While exciting opportunities were readily identified, especially for teaching, there appeared to be no strong demand.

(Factors relevant to archaeology in bold)

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/); eLib project information.

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Journal of Archaeological Science, Against the Grain, Internet Archaeology, British Archaeology, Current Archaeology (magazine/news service).

There are a number of e-mail delivered newsletters (listserve) but few 'significant' titles - there are very few peer reviewed electronic journals. However, there are few archaeologists in the UK (approx. 1000). A number of societies are putting 'extracts' up on the Web.

Many authors are not looking for academic 'respectability' just opportunities to talk about work in progress due to the discipline's very long 'activity cycle'.

Internet Archaeology may be the only major electronic-only title. Assemblage is primarily a Web journal but they have 'printed' their first issue and have circulated it as an 'advert' - presumably because they are finding it difficult to get papers. It seems that the demand for e-journal publications may still be limited. If there are no papers then there are no journals. Internet Archaeology has struggled to generate sufficient articles. They had hoped to publish 20 papers a year but have managed only 12 and turned down a number of small articles.

The future for electronic journals was seen very positively by those in the field although the vision was limited by the low numbers of readers/authors involved and the consequent absence of commercial interest. Multi-media is seen as a significant development and this is likely to be an important feature of electronic journals. Growth is likely to be limited by skills and resources. Low key operations provided by academics and enthusiastic 'independents' are likely to predominate as now.

2. Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals in social sciences: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service: (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals via LU Web pages: (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals: (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Thirty eight electronic journals were found in the areas of social sciences/sociology. Where electronic journals are appearing, their numbers are not perceived to be very great - especially electronic-only ones. Few titles were volunteered by the interviewees.

Internet access and usage is growing quite quickly in academic departments but there is still a core of older traditionalists who lack IT expertise/inclination.

There is likely to be a growth in the usage and demand for electronic journals in the social sciences but this would seem to be mainly for electronic version journals rather than electronic-only. This increased usage is likely to be related to a continual increase in Internet orientation and an appreciation of the convenience of on-line access.

For those involved in teaching there will be significant advantages in being able to direct students to electronic journals rather than have them all try to access the single bound copy in the library.

Multi-media is relevant to a few specific areas within the social sciences (media studies, discourse analysis, data modelling etc.) but the importance of multi-media should not be over-estimated. It is unlikely to be a key factor in the success or failure of electronic journals. The generation of multi-media content was perceived to be time consuming and expensive (especially copyright fees for images and film excerpts). The decision to include multi-media content in articles was also seen as critical for 'editorial' reasons - poor quality multi-media would undermine the perceived quality of the article and journal. If the multi-media was not central to the paper then it would only distract the reader.

The data from three Focus Groups and 27 respondents to baseline questionnaires from three Universities in the SuperJournal project (over 50 respondents in total) were examined plus literature from studies of humanities and social sciences relevant to these disciplines.

This is a sub-discipline concerned with understanding human communications and cultural issues in society. It draws upon major disciplines in the humanities, e.g. history, and the social sciences, e.g. sociology.

(Factors relevant to this discipline are in bold)

Many of the electronic journals in this field are offerings from publishers rather than from scholars in the discipline. Electronic versions of ten journals are provided by publishers to the universities participating in the SuperJournal project. They are electronic versions of the printed works with little additional multi-media at present. There is little evidence of scholars making major use of electronic search techniques. They prefer to use their colleagues to identify specialist sources and if they can obtain an electronic version they quickly revert to printing. They depend upon original sources and are very suspicious of any pre-processing by others.

Communication and Cultural Studies is a loosely defined area of study and 55 electronic journals were identified ranging from those concerned with communications e.g. KINEMA - The Journal of Film and Audiovisual Media, to those concerned with Cultural Studies e.g. Cultural Interaction and Post Meodern The majority are electronic versions of published journals but 13 are electronic only

There is very little expectation amongst scholars that electronic publication will have a major impact in this area. Their hope is for easier access although they are concerned about additional costs that might fall on them as individuals. In some specific areas, there are hopes for multi-media but more to give access to source data than to study other author's conclusions. The major hope is to have more assured access from the scholar's place of work but there are very low expectations because people are, by and large, lone scholars and they may want to go back into past issues quite a long way. They cannot think this will be a viable service for anybody to offer.

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals in Psychology: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Twenty-seven electronic journals were identified. The sub-disciplines covered were: cognitive psychology, environmental psychology, experimental psychology, social psychology, human behaviour, organisational behaviour, mathematical psychology and a number of highly specific journals and general journals. The interviewee mentioned one further electronic journal core to his interests and noted the use of the IDEAL system (The Academic Press Online Journal Library), which made available several electronic versions of journals in the behavioural sciences, and was an important resource for electronic journals.

It was felt that there would be a steady uptake of electronic journals in Psychology; there are many available already. Currently, in the more significant printed journals the time to publication is relatively long (around 1.5 years), it was felt that electronic journal publishing may help to reduce this time, and that would be one of the advantages. Multi-media may provide some useful functionality in certain sub-disciplines, although not in all. Computing services have been steadily adopted, many academics regularly use communication services, e.g. mailing lists, however use of the Internet is gradual, with the feeling amongst some academics that it is used only by fanatics. There will be little serious usage by others in the discipline who are slow to take on new methods of working.

The data presented here come mainly from construction management.

(Factors relevant to civil engineering in bold)

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals. : 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Thirteen electronic journals were found which are likely to be used by civil engineers from the above sources.

The interviewees were not able to identify any electronic journals of relevance to themselves. Their key journal was Construction Management Economics and they were aware that the abstracts for this journal were available electronically. They were not however aware that the journal itself was available in electronic form. (At the end of the interview, they were informed and said that they would definitely investigate the possibility of subscribing although they thought they would have to make a choice between the paper and electronic version - they would not be allowed to subscribe to both.)

The WWW was used as a source of information both for research purposes and for teaching.

The main benefits of e-journals were seen as being:

• potential for incorporating multi-media representations of case studies (sites) and of theoretical models.

It was felt that theoretically, if sufficient funding were provided, there may be enough motivation within the domain to improve the visual stimulus and provide electronic case material. It was thought however that this may not find its way into the formal journal arena but appear in conference presentations and less formal publications. For example. the Institute of Building already publishes an electronic newsletter and a paper journal which is not refereed. It was felt that the main motivating factor at the moment would be instant desk-top access but there was an awareness that the benefits just might not be great enough to sacrifice the subscription to the paper version of a journal.

Journals were said to be very important in civil engineering research (but not in teaching) and the main target group is probably postgraduate students as in this discipline most of the research is conducted by them. The main problems seemed to be awareness of what was happening electronically and in IT preparedness generally.

There were seen to be potential benefits in the production of visual (including moving and 3-D ) images for presentation of building site case studies but this was perceived as being somewhat futuristic. The main concerns were that the IT skills were not readily available.

Ease of access was likely to swing any choice between paper and electronic versions of a journal in favour of electronic.

Literature -

(Electronic & electrical engineering breaks down into sub-domains. Photonic engineering (or optical engineering) is one of these. Most of the data presented here refer to photonic engineering rather than electronic and electrical engineering more generally. The discipline is concerned mainly with lasers, imaging and sensing and makes use of the latest technology in these areas. It relies heavily on computing.)

(It is possible that certain sub-disciplines could have a requirement for unprintable MM under specific circumstances, e.g. those at the 'high-value' end of the commercial market).

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Nine electronic journals were found from these sources likely to be used by photonics engineers. The Optics Society of America have recently launched an electronic only journal (Optics Express) which was known about by the interviewee. It was thought that as it was from a recognised society well regarded for its quality journals and because this one (as with the paper journals) is to be peer reviewed, it was expected that it would be an influential publication.

Many of the paper journals are already held on-line but that service has to be paid for. The author and title are available free but not the full papers. The perception was that readership of the electronic journals would not be very high and this in itself created a block to authors submitting to them. If individual departments did not have to pay and access was good, then things could be different.

Change is likely to be slow. There are potential benefits to the photonic engineering from multi-media publications but there are considerable barriers, mainly in the form of academic tradition and the culture within the discipline. Quality of research is the priority and the community would need to be convinced that this would not be threatened. Other issues are implications for authors (in terms of time and effort although skill is not an issue) and cost for individual research groups.

Photonics engineering does not seem to be typical of engineering disciplines. It crosses domain boundaries and to a certain extent takes some of its tradition from physics. Journals are important to the scholars working in this field, both as authors and readers. There is some fragmentation in terms of the commercial pulls and pushes on the subject and there is a difference regarding the form of dissemination in the "high-value" (e.g. telecommunications) as opposed to "low-value" (e.g. bio-medical) end of photonics. It could be extrapolated from this that possibly, journals in for example telecommunications optics engineering are more likely to successfully embrace electronic multi-media.

(Factors relevant to law in bold)

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals in Law: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

Nineteen electronic publications were found from these sources. More are appearing, especially in the United States and Australia. However, most of these are electronic versions of printed journals and there are even more non-refereed, non-original journals.

The distribution of these journals is not even throughout the discipline and perhaps not surprisingly the strongest interest lies in the Law/IT area, as with JILT. A lot of this is due to the computer literacy found in people interested in this area. However, there is now increased usage of the Internet and electronic journals are likely to spread throughout the subject area .

JILT has been successful with gradually increasing numbers of submitted articles and readers. However, the development (and success) of other titles may be more modest. The profession is inherently conservative and the (inevitable) growth of electronic journals at the expense of printed titles may be slower compared to 'younger' disciplines (i.e. the sciences).

At present only a small number of the new electronic journals are 'good' in terms of editorial policy, quality of articles and electronic design. But these are as good as the printed journals.

JILT has been preparing a business plan for ‘life after eLib’ and has received a degree of interest from commercial publishers. They are trying to develop a ‘new’ type of journal format (Electronic Bazaar) which includes original academic articles, comments, book reviews, current issues, news items etc. This is in an attempt to appeal to academic lawyers and practitioners and this is not possible in print because of the cost of page space. Currently only the larger law firms are likely to subscribe to the more academic journals.

The legal profession has made significant moves towards building on-line databases, e.g. Legal Information Network (LINK) which offers a range of added value services. However these are largely commercial services and it is not possible to make direct links into them from electronic journals.

There appear to be opportunities for further expansion in the provision of electronic journals within academic law but this may be constrained by the rate at which the profession (rather than academic lawyers) embrace the Internet. At present the few electronic titles that have been launched have been created through the efforts of enthusiasts working in academic departments (i.e. labour subsidised). The involvement of commercial publishers seems negligible. JILT has attempted to break the mould of the academic law journal by incorporating a wider range of items - many of which are more likely to be found in a professional journal or newsletter. This strategy may well make the journal more attractive to a wider audience - particularly among the professional lawyers (presumably the majority).

The opportunities for incorporating multi-media content seem to be modest at present. Law has developed a number of on-line legal databases which are valued and well used. An obvious added value service for electronic journals would be to build links direct to these services. However, these services are largely commercial and access/charging arrangements would need to be developed.

The inclusion of images, animation, video and computer simulations as a means of representing court room evidence is a possibility but this would require the development of significant technical skills by authors. The generation of this material is not part of the authors' normal activities and it seems unlikely that the effort would be considered worthwhile.

Another opportunity for multi-media developments concerns professional skills training. Court room technique is a (surprisingly) small component of a lawyer's training and interactive video within a computer based learning package would be one way of teaching the necessary skills. However, the market for journals addressing this very specific area is likely to be small.

(Factors relevant to digital libraries in bold)

The following sources were used to search for the current availability of electronic journals: 1. BUBL — The BUBL Information Service (http://bubl.ac.uk/); 2. Loughborough University: Electronic journals (http://info.lboro.ac.uk/library/ejournals.html); 3. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library Ejournals (http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/).

There were 28 journals identified from these sources in the field of information science. There are very few refereed electronic-only journals (the substantial list owes more to the fact that the respondents are specifically interested in electronic journals per se) so it is difficult to claim that they are spread evenly throughout the discipline. In fact there would appear to be a cluster within the electronic publishing sub-area. One estimate was of 15-20 electronic version journals in the discipline with a similar number of established newsletter type journals.

In addition to the formal constituted journals there have been a very large number of e-mail based journals which have existed since before the Web. Many of these are discussion or news oriented.

It is likely that electronic journals will increase in number in this area because (i) of the interest of those engaged - they are by definition oriented towards Internet usage and dissemination - and (ii) a host of 'time is right' reasons. Electronic journals will also help bring a disparate field together but this is more a function of the Internet rather than electronic journals per se.

The growth in academic, refereed journals may well remain modest because of the lack of an academic tradition in IS. There also appears to be little reason to expect a growth in multi-media content. Multi-media is not relevant to Information Science teaching or research. Hypertexts are the possible exception but there has been little enthusiasm so far for developing these, probably as a result of the very heavy cost of production.

One respondent was keen to raise the issue of information over-load. They claim to rarely check the Web pages of electronic journals because of the time cost of doing this. In contrast they were more likely to look at material actively pushed into their e-mail box. This may indicate that if electronic journals continue to grow in numbers then intelligent alerting services will be critical.

The Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
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