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EJournal Volume 02 Number 04
From LISTSERV@uacsc2.albany.edu Tue Jan 5 15:59:46 1993
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 15:58:27 -0500
From: Revised List Processor (1.7e) <LISTSERV@uacsc2.albany.edu>
Subject: File: "EJRNL V2N4"
To: David Pirmann <pirmann@cs.rutgers.edu>
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December, 1992 _EJournal_ Volume 2 Number 4 ISSN# 1054-1055
There are 642 lines in this issue.
An Electronic Journal concerned with the
implications of electronic networks and texts.
2787 Subscribers in 38 Countries
University at Albany, State University of New York
EJOURNAL@ALBANY.bitnet
CONTENTS:
Editorial Notes [ Begins at line 58 ]
Electronic Journals and Libraries [ Begins at line 102 ]
About _EJournal_'s Readers [ Begins at line 316 ]
An Ownership/Copyright Exchange - Allen and Dilworth [ Begins at line 409 ]
by John B. Dilworth and Jonathan Allen
Department of Philosophy Dept. of Information and Computer Science
Western Michigan University University of California, Irvine
Announcement about Simulation and Gaming [ Begins at line 521 ]
Information - [ Begins at line 530 ]
About Subscriptions and Back Issues
About Supplements to Previous Texts
About Letters to the Editor
About Reviews
About _EJournal_
People - [ Begins at line 604 ]
Board of Advisors
Consulting Editors
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* This electronic publication and its contents are (c) copyright 1992 by *
* _EJournal_. Permission is hereby granted to give away the journal and its *
* contents, but no one may "own" it. Any and all financial interest is hereby*
* assigned to the acknowledged authors of individual texts. This notification*
* must accompany all distribution of _EJournal_. *
*******************************************************************************
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Editorial Notes [line 58]
This issue carries a followup exchange on the subject of ownership
and copyright of electronic texts, a thread that started a year ago.
It also delivers two questionnaires. One is about electronic
journals and libraries, and one is about you.
Please respond to both of them.
They are not audience surveys to help us make promises to
advertisers. They have to do with our sliver of what the networks
are-- or can be --all about.
If all 2787 of you decide not to respond to the first one, about
libraries and how they ought to treat the fledgling phenomenon of
electronic journals, librarians might find it easy to ignore us.
No matter what reputation _EJournal_ and other experiments build
for ourselves inside cyberspace, we'll all remain merely virtual if
librarians decide we're too much trouble to share with
non-subscribers.
That first questionnaire consists of 22 items designed by an
Information Science investigator; they can be responded to easily with
an "extraction" maneuver and e-mailed to Meta Reid at an RPI address,
or they can be printed out and penciled in and sent via fax or snail
mail.
The second one, ten items, asks about your relationship with
_EJournal_. Your responses will help us understand how diverse a
group you are and what you want from us.
You can e-mail to peter.gorny@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de or
to us, or fax or snail mail to us. We can't quite promise you
anonymity, but we will remove all message-header information (from
everything sent here) before we start looking at what respondents say.
We anticipate coming up with some interesting totals and
percentages to share with you, but you shouldn't anticipate
sophisticated cross-referential analysis.
We want to refer to the two questionnaires as "1992 Surveys," so
please don't file this issue under "to be taken care of later" --
respond now. (We can use January responses, though.) Our thanks.
The next issue, which we hope to have on its way in just a few
days, delivers an essay about the interactive "Oracle" writing space,
with observations about the nature of "authorship" in an electronic
context. [line 96]
May you savor a super solstice season, and a noteworthy 1993.
Best wishes from _EJournal_: Ted Jennings, Ron Bangel, Dan Smith
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(There is a sample answer sheet at the end of this 22-question survey.)
-----------------8<----------------CUT-HERE----------------8<------------------
1. Libraries can ignore the existence of electronic journals (e-jrnls)
for at least another 5 years.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. Making e-jrnls available in libraries is necessary for their
success.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. Libraries should be leaders in encouraging e-jrnl use.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. People for whom computer links to e-jrnls are not available will be
left out of the information age.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5. Creating a static copy of an e-jrnl defeats the reasons for
publishing in electronic format.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
[line 134]
6. E-jrnls may be useful for small specialized groups, but not for
large diverse groups.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7. E-jrnls are apt to proliferate so rapidly and without standards that
no library will be able to keep up with the information contained
in them.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8. E-jrnls are currently accepted in the academic world as equals to
print.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
9. Libraries should accommodate e-jrnls as equals to print journals.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
10. E-jrnls will not be acceptable until abstracting services, e.g.
_Science Citation Index_, reference their contents.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
11. E-jrnls may be useful in reducing costs of publishing, storing and
making available technical information.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
12. Are you currently reading EJournal (a) at home (b) in an office
(c) in a school (d) in a library? [line 172]
13. If you are reading this at a place other than a library, would you
like a library to make it available?
(a) Yes
(b) No
14. E-jrnls in a library should be made available in a library's _______.
(a) information area
(b) journal stack area
(c) multi-media area
(d) (a), (b), and (c)
(e) other:______________
15. In the computer terminal area where e-jrnls are made available
there should be ________________.
(a) a reference manual for help
(b) help screens on the terminal
(c) a sign-up sheet for a mini-course on using e-jrnls
(d) a librarian stationed there to give individual instruction
(e) some form of announcement that the computer
terminal has e-jrnls available
(f) all of the above
(g) other______________________
16. Would you advise that libraries "advertise" e-jrnls?
(a) Yes
(b) No
b. If you answered Yes, should advertisement be in the form of:
(a) Newsletters
(b) Notices on bulletin boards
(c) "highlighting" the area to make it stand out
(d) all of the above [line 210]
(e) in other ways, for example...______________________
17. How should a library identify e-jrnls accessible at some library
other than its own?
(a) in a list near the terminal
(b) in a list on a help screen of the terminal
(c) in other ways, for example_______________
18. If your library could make e-jrnls available, would you be willing
to pay any part of the subscription fees, computer account fee, or
the cost of printing or downloading it to a disk?
(a) Yes, some nominal fee of $2.00 or under
(b) Yes, a fee of under $10.00, but more than two
(c) Yes, associated fees of any reasonable amount
(d) No, no fees of any kind
19. Do you often read e-jrnls?
(a) Yes, but it varies from month to month
(b) Yes, at least once a month
(c) Yes, at least once a week
(d) Yes, at least once a day
(e) This is the first time I have read an e-jrnl
20. Do you refer to e-jrnl articles when you write?
(a) Yes
(b) No
21. How did you find out about this
e-jrnl?______________________________________________
22. Do you read any electronic journals besides this one?
(a) Yes, I read _______________________________
(b) No [line 248]
General Information:
Country in which you read this journal: _______________
Your age is _________
Position of respondent: (a) professor, (b) student,
(c) librarian, (d) other_______________
a. If in school:
Name of school: _________________________
Field of study/teaching: __________________________
Name of Reader (optional): ______________________________
Comments are welcome:
-----------------8<----------------CUT-HERE----------------8<------------------
Responses
(Please send your response in any one of the following ways)
By mail: By fax: By e mail:
Meta Reid 518: 276-3017 amendc@RPI.edu
65 23rd St.
Troy, N.Y. 12180
U.S.A.
Sample Answer Sheet
(For Questions 1-11; please answer with appropriate numeral)
1)__ 2)__ 3)__ 4)__ 5)__ 6)__ 7)__ 8)__ 9)__ 10)__ 11)__ [line 286]
12) a, b, c, d
13) Yes / No
14) a, b, c, d, e
15) a, b, c, d, e, f, g____________________
16) Yes / No a, b, c, d, e
17) a, b, c
18) a, b, c, d
19) a, b, c, d, e
20) Yes / No
21) How did you find out about this e-jrnl?____________________
22) Yes, I read ______________________________________________
No
General Information
Country: __________________
Age: ____
Position: a, b, c, d
a) If in school:
Name of school: ________________
Field of study: ________________
Name (optional): __________________
Comments: _________________________________________________________
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__ E J o u r n a l __ Questionnaire
You can extract and e-mail this ten-item questionnaire, or send us
responses listed by number, or print the page(s) for faxing or
mailing.
-------------------8<----------------CUT-HERE----------------8<-----------------
1. If you are affiliated with a not-for-profit organization, what kind
is it?
(for instance: library, museum, government, education [line 324]
[arts and letters, math and science, social/behavioral
sciences;
engineering, law, medicine, business])?
Other not-for-profit?
2. If you are affiliated with a for-profit organization, what sort is
it?
(for instance: computing, engineering, finance, law,
manufacturing, medicine, publishing)?
Other for-profit?
3. How is _EJournal_ delivered to you for reading (e-mail [you are a
subscriber], Usenet connection, library terminal, paper
copy, other)?
4. What sort of 'ware do you use to read _EJournal_?
a. Is your connection a central computer facility
(via UN*X, VAX, IBM, other)?
b. Is it via a commercial program (CompuServe, Prodigy, MCI Mail,
other)?
c. What kind of platform do you sit in front of (dumb terminal,
PC/DOS, PC/Windows, Apple/Macintosh, Commodore/Amiga, other)?
5. Do you print _EJournal_ to save? to share?
6. Do you forward _EJournal_ to one or two people, or to a list of people?
7. Do you file _EJournal_ electronically for future reference?
8. Have you retrieved _EJournal_ issues (or Contents) from the FILESERV?
[line 362]
a) How often?
9. What do you hope you will find when you admit _EJournal_ to your
screen? Please close your eyes and recall (and record for us)
what sort of text you hoped you would find when this issue arrived.
[Here are some hints about subjects you could add to the hopes you
expressed above: education and pedagogy, matrix/network/cyberspace
musings, thoughts about "text" and "display," discussions of virtual
reality, arts, hypertext, interactive fiction, MUDs; *examples* of
uniquely electronic fiction and poetry and other arts; costs/benefits
of networking; ownership and copyright; controversy and polemic about
gender and power and disability and access to and uses of technology.]
10. Do you have any comments about what would prompt you to recommend that
others subscribe, and what act or omission would push you to unsubscribe?
(Please don't unsub because you hate surveys!)
-----------------8<----------------CUT-HERE----------------8<------------------
An extracted survey with your responses beneath each question, or a message
containing numbered responses, can be e-mailed directly to:
peter.gorny@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de
You could reply to _EJournal_ at our usual address:
ejournal@albany.bitnet
but we will forward your text to PG, who has kindly offered to compile your
electronic responses.
If you decide to use paper, you can fax your page or two, or use snail
mail, to our pseudo-virtual office:
FAX: (518) 442-4599 (ATTN: Ted Jennings) [line 400]
Snail: Ted Jennings
Department of English
University at Albany
Albany NY 12222 USA
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An Ownership/Copyright Exchange - Allen and Dilworth
by John B. Dilworth and Jonathan Allen
Department of Philosophy Dept. of Information and Computer Science
Western Michigan University University of California, Irvine
Supplement to the Volume 1 Number 3-2 (September, 1992) essay by John B.
Dilworth, "Credit, Compensation and Copyright: Owning Knowledge and Electronic
Networks."
Here, with their permission, is correspondence between John B. Dilworth and
Jonathan Allen on the subject of John B. Dilworth's "Credit, Compensation and
Copyright: Owning Knowledge and Electronic Networks" essay in our September,
1992 issue (V1N3-2).
Readers may want to turn their dialogue into a polylog; we'd be happy to keep
this thread spinning. You can send for the complete text of John B. Dilworth's
essay with the following message addressed to the Listserver at Albany:
Address: LISTSERV@ALBANY.bitnet
Message: GET EJRNL V1N3-2
-- from Jonathan Allen:
Dear Professor Dilworth,
I found your recent Ejournal essay interesting and useful. It
opened my eyes to the importance of indirect compensation--the
gains in prestige and future career progress--for rewarding the
creation of intellectual property in the electronic era. Indirect [line 438]
compensation will be enough motivation to produce intellectual
property in more cases than are commonly assumed, I agree, but in
how many more cases? If most compensation is indirect, how will
the mix of intellectual artifacts produced be affected?
Indirect compensation, it seems to me, rests on two assumption: 1)
that the value of intellectual property is primarily related to
the value and the creativity of the ideas, rather than the effort
put into the collection, assembly, and expression of information;
and 2) that the career paths and personal motivations of authors
are closely tied to the potential for future publication. These
assumptions are valid for many academics, for instance, but not
always. I would guess that textbooks would be undervalued
relative to their commercial value.
In the larger publishing world, I would guess that the lack of
direct compensation would relatively discourage the production of
published materials that emphasize mundane effort over creative
ideas--manuals, directories, and reference works of all kinds. The
author that spends many months or years compiling a list of bed-
and-breakfast inns, or a detailed repair manual for a Honda Civic,
is probably a lot more interested in being compensated directly
than in adding an item to their vita. The increased uncertainty
(of an economic kind) could become a powerful disincentive to
produce. I don't want us to fall into the trap of thinking that
academic research work is the norm for our electronic future.
Thanks again for an interesting essay. Sincerely,
Jonathan Allen
Dept. of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine.
-- reply from John Dilworth:
Dear Professor Allen,
Thanks for your interesting comments on my _EJournal_ essay. [line 476]
I agree that indirect compensation may be a less significant factor
in overall reward in the case of more routine literary tasks.
However, I don't regard this as clearly a problem which will have
to be addressed as electronic media become more prominent. Nor is
indirect compensation significant only in academic contexts.
If we go back to basics for a moment, and ask why people are
motivated to write anything at all, financial compensation (whether
direct or indirect) is only one factor. It has to be adequate
enough so that talented people think their efforts will not go
unrewarded, but not much more than that. Publishers generally are
swamped by literary submissions of all kinds, submitted for all
kinds of reasons, so some falloff in volume might even be welcomed
by them.
If excellent submissions became hard to obtain, publishers would
have to pay more direct compensation to non-academic authors, or
offer promises of larger advances on future works (another form of
indirect compensation). Electronic media could finance such
payments for general electronic publishing by charging subscribers
a fee of some kind. This is not clearly undesirable, because a
willingness to pay at least a minimal subscription fee does give
evidence of genuine demand for a literary product. Perhaps we need
not be too concerned about potentially discouraging authors whose
efforts no-one would have wanted to read anyway.
On the relevance of indirect compensation to non-academic as well
as academic authorship, adding an item demonstrating authorship
skills to one's job Resume is just as potentially rewarding as a
publication in an academic Vita. With the increasingly volatile
job market in every area, solid evidence of past achievement is
exactly what is needed for speedy promotion or beneficial re-
hiring. Though I emphasised creative originality in my essay,
superior expression or presentation would also be generally
rewarded through indirect compensation in such contexts.
With best wishes,
[line 514]
John B. Dilworth
Dept. of Philosophy, Western Michigan Univ., MI 49008
Dilworth@gw.wmich.edu
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Announcement about Simulation and Gaming --
"Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal of Theory, Design and Research"
(Sage Publications) is devoted to academic and applied issues in the fields of
simulation, computerized simulation, gaming, modeling, play, role-play and
active, experiential learning and related methodologies in education, training
and research. Manuscripts are welcome at any time. David Crookall, the
editor, can be reached at crookall@ua1vm.bitnet or crookall@ua.edu .
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------------------------ I N F O R M A T I O N ------------------------------
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About Subscribing and Sending for Back Issues:
In order to: Send to: This message:
Subscribe to _EJournal_: LISTSERV@ALBANY.bitnet SUB EJRNL Your Name
Get Contents/Abstracts
of previous issues: LISTSERV@ALBANY.bitnet GET EJRNL CONTENTS
Get Volume 1 Number 1: LISTSERV@ALBANY.bitnet GET EJRNL V1N1
Send mail to our "office": EJOURNAL@ALBANY.bitnet Your message...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About "Supplements":
_EJournal_ is experimenting with ways of revising, responding to, reworking, or
even retracting the texts we publish. Authors who want to address a subject
already broached --by others or by themselves-- may send texts for us to
consider publishing as a Supplement issue. Proposed supplements will not go
through as thorough an editorial review process as the essays they annotate.
[line 553]
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About Letters:
_EJournal_ is willing publish letters to the editor. But we make no
predictions about how many, which ones, or what format. The "Letters" column
of a periodical is a habit of the paper environment, and _EJournal_ readers
can send outraged objections to our essays directly to the authors. Also, we
can publish substantial counter-statements as articles in their own right, or as
"Supplements." Even so, when we get brief, thoughtful statements that appear
to be of interest to many subscribers they will appear as "Letters." Please
send them to EJOURNAL@ALBANY.bitnet .
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Reviews:
_EJournal_ is willing to publish reviews of almost anything that seems to fit
under our broad umbrella: the implications of electronic networks and texts.
We do not, however, solicit and thus cannot provide review copies of fiction,
prophecy, critiques, other texts, programs, hardware, lists or bulletin boards.
But if you would like to bring any publicly available information to our
readers' attention, send your review (any length) to us, or ask if writing one
sounds to us like a good idea.
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About _EJournal_:
_EJournal_ is an all-electronic, Matrix distributed, peer-reviewed, academic
periodical. We are particularly interested in theory and practice surrounding
the creation, transmission, storage, interpretation, alteration and replication
of electronic text. We are also interested in the broader social,
psychological, literary, economic and pedagogical implications of computer-
mediated networks. The journal's essays are delivered free to Bitnet/Internet/
Usenet addressees. Recipients may make paper copies; _EJournal_ will provide
authenticated paper copy from our read-only archive for use by academic deans
or others. Individual essays, reviews, stories-- texts --sent to us will be
disseminated to subscribers as soon as they have been through the editorial
process, which will also be "paperless." We expect to offer access through
libraries to our electronic Contents and Abstracts, and to be indexed and
abstracted in appropriate places. [line 592]
Writers who think their texts might be appreciated by _EJournal_'s audience are
invited to forward files to EJOURNAL@ALBANY.bitnet . If you are wondering
about starting to write a piece for to us, feel free to ask if it sounds
appropriate. There are no "styling" guidelines; we try to be a little more
direct and lively than many paper publications, and considerably less hasty and
ephemeral than most postings to unreviewed electronic spaces. We read ASCII;
we look forward to experimenting with other transmission and display formats
and protocols.
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Board of Advisors:
Stevan Harnad Princeton University
Dick Lanham University of California at L.A.
Ann Okerson Association of Research Libraries
Joe Raben City University of New York
Bob Scholes Brown University
Harry Whitaker University of Quebec at Montreal
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Consulting Editors - December, 1992
ahrens@hartford John Ahrens Hartford
ap01@liverpool.ac.uk Stephen Clark Liverpool
userlcbk@umichum Bill Condon Michigan
crone@cua Tom Crone Catholic University
dabrent@acs.ucalgary.ca Doug Brent University of Calgary
djb85@albany Don Byrd University at Albany
donaldson@loyvax Randall Donaldson Loyola College
ds001451@ndsuvm1 Ray Wheeler North Dakota
erdt@pucal Terry Erdt Purdue Calumet
fac_askahn@vax1.acs.jmu.edu Arnie Kahn James Madison University
folger@yktvmv Davis Foulger IBM - Watson Center
george@gacvax1 G.N. Georgacarakos Gustavus Adolphus
gms@psuvm Gerry Santoro Pennsylvania State University
nrcgsh@ritvax Norm Coombs Rochester Institute of Technology
pmsgsl@ritvax Patrick M.Scanlon Rochester Institute of Technology
r0731@csuohio Nelson Pole Cleveland State University
richardj@surf.sics.bu.oz Joanna Richardson Bond University, Australia
ryle@urvax Martin Ryle University of Richmond
twbatson@gallua Trent Batson Gallaudet
wcooper@vm.ucs.ualberta.ca Wes Cooper Alberta
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University at Albany Computing Services Center:
Isabel Nirenberg, Bob Pfeiffer; Ben Chi, Director
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Editor: Ted Jennings, English, University at Albany
Managing Editor: Ron Bangel, University at Albany
Assistant Managing Editor: Dan Smith, University at Albany
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University at Albany State University of New York Albany, NY 12222 USA
