John, Interesting use of the term 'journal'. There are many uses of
this term, but when some years ago I investigated its use in the
context of scholarly papers, participants were clear that it should
involve the application of peer review. On that basis VJAS is a
current awareness service - a legitimate and useful service - but not
a journal because it does not itself apply peer review.
At 15:16 14/05/2008, John Smith wrote:
>David,
>
>Virtual journals do not contain articles but point to articles made
>public elsewhere. Effectively they are current (sometimes annotated)
>bibliographies for a specific subject. An example is the Virtual
>Journal of Applications of Superconductivity
>
>http://www.vjsuper.org/
>
>which lists articles on superconductivity applications published in
>a range of physics journals.
>
>They have editorial boards (or equivalent groups) that choose items
>for subject relevance but do not necessarily judge formal quality
>leaving that to the original journal/publishers. VJAS only chooses
>from a limited range of primary publications but there is not reason
>why a virtual journal should be so limited. The point I was making
>was that the items listed are chosen by human subject experts rather
>than keyword seeking software.
Or more simply, apply an aggregator to the RSS feeds from the
selected source journals, keyword 'superconductivity'. You could
probably fine tune that to get a good approximation of VJAS.
>Where they act as subject filtering front-ends to large repositories
>like ArXiv they are usually called 'overlay journals'.
Overlay journals were around in the mid-1990s, but they have not
proliferated since then because either they do not solve, or are not
able to solve, current issues concerning publication and
dissemination. Overlay journals emerged to build on subject
repositories before we had IRs, OA journals, hybrid OA journals and
green journals. There is not an obvious gap there, unless overlay
journals can motivate OA to content that is not otherwise OA, but
their time may come.
In the meantime I believe we are more likely to need current
awareness filters for OA repository content, where we can see
emerging critical masses of content in areas of interest, than we are
to need overlay journals.
Steve Hitchcock
IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7698 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865
>
>Regards,
>
>John.
>
>
>----------
>From: Repositories discussion list
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Kane
>Sent: 13 May 2008 22:34
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Semantic Web (was RE: Google, OAI and the IRs)
>
>Hi John,
>I can see social networking techniques replacing (or supplementing)
>coffee break meetings and even the old invisible college idea.
>
>
>Yes, I would see social media is supplementing coffee breaks
>meetings, conferences and the like. I not only want to be able to
>read your emails but I want to be able to speak with you face-to-face as well.
>
>However, unless you have specially designed social networking
>services focussed on the needs of researchers (and subject specific)
>the possibilities seem limited.
>
>
>You raise an interesting point, namely that there is a possibility
>that services that arise on the web may not be sufficiently well
>adapted to the specific needs of academic communities to be of use
>to them. I don't know how 'designed' those academic services might
>have to be to be useful, but if there is enough awareness then
>perhaps their development can be shaped in a better way as they evolve?
>
>Although now quite an old idea I still see a role for virtual journals.
>
>If you mean open access journals, then I would hope that their role
>increases! Without journals, open access repositories and
>preservation, what would scholarly social networks have to share and
>talk about?
>
>We still need to have humans who actually 'understand' rather than
>compare keywords in the loop. Only with understanding can you see
>analogies and recognise the possible usefulness of discoveries in other fields.
>
>As Scott Wilson says in his reply, 'This is where the SN approach shines'.
>
>I agree entirely about watching what people do with these social
>networking (and other information related) tools. I think what we
>can predict with certainty is that they will do things the designers
>never intended :-) .
>
>Quite, and not knowing how it will shake down makes it interesting
>to follow.
>
>Best regards,
>
>
>David Kane
>Systems Librarian
>Waterford Institute of Technology
><http://library.wit.ie/>http://library.wit.ie/
>T: ++353.51302838
>M: ++353.876693212
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