In article <Cs7ooo.EMz at usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
gilbertd at sunflower.bio.indiana.edu (Don Gilbert) writes:
>I also agree that we are going to see more scholarly publications by
>biologists in the form of network hypertext documents. These will be read
>and *used* by other biologists, in part because they can provide continually
>updated information (links to databases). These e-papers will have to at
>some point be acknowledged by funding bodies. My guess is that funders
>will be ahead of paper publishers in recognizing the importance of
>electronic publishing.
On the contrary, I think that funding agencies will be very
reluctant to recognize electronic publications until and unless they
develop the same sorts of editorial and peer review standards as the
paper journals. Consider what funding agencies typically do right
now: They not only look at how many papers you published, but at the
journals in which your work appeared. The perceived quality of the
journal is used to gauge the quality of the work. They have to do
this because it's too easy to publish lots of junk in substandard
journals. How much easier would it be to make a lot of junk available
on the net? I really can't see a funding agency taking electronic
publications too seriously until this problem is resolved.
Marc R. Roussel
mroussel at alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
