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Publishing roles |
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Individuals as publishers |
Individuals publish their own documents, distributing them directly to users without intermediaries. |
| libraries as publishers | Libraries assume the traditional publishing role either for authors from their institutions or for a subject area. |
| Universities or subsidiary units as publishers | Universities assume a publishing role beyond that currently played by university presses, perhaps publishing all documents created by their faculty. Individual units such as departments or work groups may assume this function. |
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Non-profit national publishing system |
Some national institution already playing some other role or an institution created specially assumes the responsibility for publishing scholarly works. |
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Distribution and retrieval innovations |
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| Elimination of the journal issue as a distribution format | The journal issue ceases to exist with the article as the new publishing unit that is distributed. |
| Electronic distribution | Articles or issues are distributed to purchasers, typically via e-mail. Initiation of distribution by the purchaser is not required. |
| Electronic notification | Potential readers are notified of availability of new articles, either through a Table of Contents delivery or by some kind of profiling system (SDI for instance). |
| Individual retrieval as needed . | Articles are stored remotely and users actively retrieve desired articles |
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Innovations in document structure |
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| Electronic page images | Conventional page formatting is retained by the creation of page images. Text may not stored as characters. |
| Electronic text | Character-based storage of text. Formatting information may or may not be included. This format generally loosens restrictions on document size. |
| Hypertext links to related resources | Embedded links point to related documents, data, data archives, or communications channels. |
| Internal hypertext links | Links within a document pointing to other portions of the same document. |
| Nonlinear document structure | Alternate structures could be developed to replace the conventional linear format (e.g. introduction, methods, results, analysis). |
| Multimedia - video, sound, high-quality images, three-dimensional images | Documents incorporate media into text documents. |
| Embedded software | Programs may be part of a publication allowing the reader to manipulate data or run simulations. |
| Inclusion of raw data | Without stringent restrictions on article size, it may become possible to include raw data. |
| Embedded user comments | Reviewer or reader comments can be incorporated into the article content. |
| Author updating | Authors are able to incorporate more recent findings to articles as necessary. |
| Innovations in the validation of research | |
| Pre-publication innovations | Several authors have suggested that replacement of peer review by other validation methods. |
| No peer review | Each reader evaluates information by individual standards. |
| Reviewer grading | Grades or scores generated by reviewers can be incorporated into the publication or control accept/reject decisions. |
| Consensus review | Some kind of broader scholarly community could be tapped beyond the traditional reviewer selection process now in place. Thus consensus of a community of peers could replace review by editors or their designates. |
| Post-publication innovations | |
| Reader review | Readers provide comments, grading, or usage information is used to validate research |
| Inclusion of usage data | Usage data is stored with a publication and made available to readers. |
| Author revisions | Authors are allowed to revise work following publication. |
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Sale and pricing innovations |
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| Article pricing/sale on demand | Articles become the unit that is bought and sold rather than annual subscriptions |
| Charges varying by type of use | Print charges, view charges, search charges, and download charges can be imposed on users of documents. |
| Electronic payment | Various types of electronic payment and/or microcharging could be implemented. |
| Sale of surrogate information | Various types of surrogates could be created and sold. For instance, a format designed for browsing could be priced separately from a format containing the entire article. |
| Licensing | Individuals or institutions purchase licenses rather than documents or subscriptions. |
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Storage innovations |
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| Publisher storage | Whoever assumes the publisher role (traditional publishers, individuals, institutions, libraries, or a national non-profit) also assumes responsibility for storage of articles. |
| Designated archive | Official repositories are established, perhaps organized by discipline or some other criteria, and these provide long-term storage of electronic publications. |
| Library storage (individual initiative) | Libraries assume the responsibility for long-term storage of electronic publications. |
| Distributed cooperative archiving | A distributed cooperative archiving system is created. Archiving arrangements are un-official as compared to the designated archive. |