摘要:

The problems of information overload from the growth of scholarly literature, and the need to use information technology to manage them, were identified by major writers and scientists over 50 years ago. Yet, the main form of scholarly communication, the journal, is still circulated in paper form as it has been for over 300 years. The economic arguments for using computer and communication technologytoovercome these problems through a new form of scientific communication, the electronic or digital journal, were vigorously presented in the 1970s. Experimental trials of digital journals with the technologies of the 1970s and 1980s have not been successful. In the 1990s, the continuing value of current journal systems is again being questioned in terms of soaring library costs, the burden of the current refereeing system, and the diminishing returns of journal publication brought about by information overload. This article presents a fundamental examination of the prerequisites for the introduction of digital journals, at one level in terms of the role of journals in the social and economic processes of human knowledge production, and at another in terms of the state of the art in the relevant technologies. Models of the processes underlying the growth of knowledge in the literature on the philosophy, history, and psychology of science are first used to analyze the structure and role of the social infrastructure of journals, including the editorial and refereeing systems and the role of commercial publishers and libraries. The motivation for digital journals and past experience is surveyed, then the learning curves, and current costs and performances of the enabling hardware, software, communications, and interface technologies. Examples of the current impact of computer and communications technology on scholarly discourse are given to enable probable changes to be predicted in the structure of journals when they are transferred to digital form. Finally, the social and technological analyses are used to outline some architectures for a first generation of digital journals emulating the current medium, and for the evolution of later generations diverging in characteristics to take advantage of the new medium.

ISSN:1054-1721    

DOI:10.1080/10919399309540199

出版商:Taylor & Francis Group    

年代:1993

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

As digital journals come into use there arise new possibilities for the computer support of the group processes that are involved in developing, editing, reviewing, revising, annotating, and generally using a publication. There are now a number of products and research tools designed to support group‐writing teams that can be extended to support a wider range of interacting roles and activities. Most, however, require use of nonmainstream word‐processing systems, and usually assume that full information is continuously available through a network to mediate and avoid conflicts. In the context of digital journals, it is more realistic to suppose that they will be distributed through both on‐line and off‐line media, and that a requirement for continuous network access would severely limit their use. This article reports research on group‐writing tools that deviate as little as possible from conventional word processors and assume only intermittent network connection for document exchange and conflict resolution. The system developed can be used by some people as a conventional word processor, by others as a versioning and text and sound annotation system, and by others as a full hypertext system, all while working with the same corpus of documents. It offers full typographic and page‐layout facilities and imports typographic text from, and exports to, the mainstream commercial word processors so that users are not locked into a nonstandard technology. It is presented here as an example of the increased functionality that may be made available through a digital journal, supporting many of the current roles and activities involved in journal creation and use while deviating minimally from current journal and word‐processing practice.

ISSN:1054-1721    

DOI:10.1080/10919399309540200

出版商:Taylor & Francis Group    

年代:1993

数据来源: Taylor

摘要:

This article considers the development of the group decision support system (GDSS) field both from organizational and technological perspectives. The growing importance of teamwork, lateral coordination, and activities integration inside modern business organizations is emphasized. Technological and knowledge specialization, quick transformation of business environments, reduction of response time, and so on, are some of the reasons that can explain the renewed relevance of teamwork. Also, the development of information technology (IT) is analyzed in relation to the role it is assuming in supporting group activities. Research in the GDSS field is then introduced. A proposal concerning the identification of three different phases in GDSS studies is developed, ranging from decision rooms to distributed systems. Each phase shows distinctive research topics and application fields, together with different organizational goals. Results of these developments are the growth of potential application areas of GDSS tools. These theoretical considerations, together with empirical experiences coming from the study of a real manufacturing environment (an IBM plant where group cooperation plays a fundamental role for production efficiency), constitute the basis for a research GDSS prototype (GROUPS). Prototype features are designed to support executives in facing production‐planning problems through an improvement in communications and in knowledge representation.

ISSN:1054-1721    

DOI:10.1080/10919399309540201

出版商:Taylor & Francis Group    

年代:1993

数据来源: Taylor

ISSN:1054-1721    

DOI:10.1080/10919399309540198

出版商:Taylor & Francis Group    

年代:1993

数据来源: Taylor