As I begin my term as Editor of the Alberta Journal of Educational Research, I would like first to acknowledge the kind assistance and support of Dr. Julia Ellis, my predecessor. She has left a clear path and has guided me along my first steps. My work would be much more difficult, if not impossible, without the indispensable services of Edie Peters, the Editorial Assistant. Hillary Clinton, the First Lady of the United States, often says, "it takes a village to raise a child." By the same token I believe that it takes a "global village" to raise an internationally renowned scholarly journal. ajer has been elevated to this enviable status primarily through the tireless efforts and continual contributions of its consulting editors and invited reviewers, who represent fine scholarship both in Canada and the rest of the world, thus helping to attract a wide variety of submissions.
The future role of paper-based scholarly journals is a topic that
seems to be discussed more and more. A plethora of electronic
journals of all sorts have been appearing on the Internet. Although
many of these are electronic versions of their paper-based forebears,
others are entirely new offerings. A recent article by Vrasidas
(2000) in the Teachers College Record examines some of
the benefits of electronic journals. The major advantages are:
rapid interactivity between authors and respondents; accommodation
of media that cannot be presented easily in paper format, QuickTime
movies, for example; unlimited length of works; and the ability
to present information in several languages. At the same time
it is pointed out that creating and producing an electronic journal
is often much more expensive than producing paper-based versions.
Although the advantages of electronic journals might seem enticing
to the point of inducing the demise of paper-based journals in
spite of the extra cost, it would be wise to consider some possible
long-term factors before crossing the Rubicon.
As an undergraduate student in the mid 1970s, I wrote an extensive
computer-assisted instruction program using BASIC on a Digital
PDP-11 minicomputer. I stored the program and its backup on 8
in. diameter floppy disks. Scarcely 25 years later I can no longer
locate a computer locally that will accept them or read them so
that the program functions. Also, because the disks are a magnetic
medium and affected by cosmic rays and spurious magnetic fields,
I cannot be certain that the data continue to exist uncorrupted
on the disks. In other words, my program lacked permanence; in
this instance no great loss.
My father, who is a retired professor of classics, possesses a
few books dating from before the advent of the printing press.
Although my ability to read Latin and Greek is rudimentary, it
remains possible to read the books without any mechanical or electronic
equipment. My father also informs me that existing ancient papyrus
scrolls that predate the codex form of current paper-based books
and periodicals continue to be readable.
When the computers functioning as Web servers become obsolete
and funding continues to be an issue in educational institutions,
will many of the electronic journals continue to be available,
including back issues? If back issues remain available, will the
editorial and production staff ensure that obsolete media formats
are updated so that newer technologies will be able to interpret
them as intended? The problem of updating media is not a phenomenon
unique to computing. The content of extant large-format wax cylinder
records (5 in. diameter, dating from the 1890s) is available only
if one possesses the proper player or has sufficient funds to
have someone who has such a player transcribe the cylinder to
another medium. It seems that with media requiring special apparatus
to decode the data, it will remain a costly proposition to decode
those data. This begs the question, does the availability of earlier
scholarship really matter, or should we be postmodern to the extreme
of not caring about what occurred even a few years before?
The availability of electronic journals is also an important issue.
While most countries, rich and poor, possess libraries and permit
most citizens to read the material, access to electronic journals
is dependent on a computer and a connection to the Internet, both
costly. Although it may be that in time these costs will become
as negligible as print media, most people in the world do not
possess computers, and in some countries and even in some institutions
access to the Internet is restricted. By shifting from paper to
electronic, are we unwittingly contributing to the creation of
an "educational elite" where only individuals meeting
a particular socioeconomic and political status may access scholarship?
It may appear that I am advocating Ludditism. On the contrary,
I consider computers to be excellent tools or servants. Nevertheless,
computers make poor masters. I encourage the use of electronic
mail to speed communication between ajer and authors and
reviewers. Moreover, I encourage authors to make submissions and
revisions electronically, rather than on paper, both to help reduce
the time taken for the review process and to reduce the amount
of paper used. ajer's presence on the Internet will also
increase once sufficient server space and security clearance are
obtained. The ajer Web site will contain the table of contents
of each new issue, plus the abstracts of each article. It is hoped
that this information will provide sufficient information and
enticement to encourage additional subscriptions. For no matter
whether a journal is paper-based or electronic, its continued
survival depends on funding, and much of that must come from subscriptions.
Reference
Vrasidas, C. (2000, July 13). Promises of electronic forms of data representation and scholarly publication.
Teachers College Record. ID Number: 10546, Retrieved July 14, 2000 from the World Wide Web:
http://www.tcrecord.org
George H. Buck
Copyright © AJER, the Faculty of Education, and the University
of Alberta, 2001.
Last revised: May 2, 2001.
Designed by G.H. Buck