How does electronic access to scientific information change?

1
How does electronic access to scientific
information change?

• Moderator Michael Mabe
• Scribe Dennis Shasha

2
What has electronic access done

• Can obtain new article very quickly. No need to
  go to library. (Virtual library). Also shorter
  lag 2 or 3 months.
• Search services mean that one can get an idea
  quickly but perhaps not so deep.
• Sometimes more shallow.

3
What is Use of Publication?

• Certification that author has done good work.
  Authors dont submit to databases.
• If there is a link to better version, then there
  could be an inconsistency with published version.
• On the other hand, people would like to get
  latest version in some fields (math/CS).

4
Dynamic Media

• Could we have animations as part of our journals?
  How about databases?
• Issue archiving. Links die (fixed if Elsevier
  commits to maintaining data and viewer Elsevier
  uses SGML for neutrality).
• Libraries maybe not Data set management is a
  librarians nightmare.

5
Dynamic Media 2

• U.S. Library of Congress has big project for
  archiving. Elsevier should and is keeping up with
  archiving.
• How necessary is multimedia for research? For
  some journals (movement disorders), multimedia is
  necessary. For others it isnt.
• Digital more and more Recent theses are
  digital-only. This changes for future.

6
Dynamic Media 3

• Possibility that electronic supplementary
  datasets can be used for further science.
• Issue people would really like the journal to
  certify the supplementary information as well as
  the article itself.
• Multimedia would be used primarily for teaching.

7
Dynamic Media 4

• Importance of multimedia depends on the field
  (geology less so, medicine and chemistry more).
• Authors still get primary incentive for certified
  articles.

8
Impact to date

• Globalization of authors. Many new researchers
  are coming on line. Sometimes there are quality
  issues, but this will work itself out.
• Students if not on the web, then doesnt exist.
• Students wont publish if the journal is not
  online.