6.0005 E-Journal Conference (1/48)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Sun, 10 May 1992 23:48:36 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 6, No. 0005. Sunday, 10 May 1992.

Date: Wed, 6 May 92 14:22:16 CDT
From: Larry W. Hurtado <hurtado@ccu.UManitoba.CA>
Subject: e-journal conf


A CONSORTIUM FOR NETWORK PUBLICATION
OF REFEREED RESEARCH JOURNALS

First Advance Notice~May 1992

The University of Manitoba has received funding commitments to organize and ho
conference to promote the establishment of a consortium of universities and lear
computer network publication of refereed journals. The consortium would be a non
cooperative intended to make use of the Internet as an important medium for the
research in any discipline. Since the summer of 1991, an ad hoc group at the Uni
been developing the idea of the conference and the proposed consortium, and has
funding proposals since the Autumn of 1991. The conference is now tentatively sl
of 1993 and will be held at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. We hop
and cooperation of major research universities and learned societies across Nort
Over the next year or so, we will be communicating the vision behind the confere
the academic community. This is the first advance notice, and we plan to provide
specific information on the conference details as plans for it develop.
As an analogy of sorts for the proposed consortium, in the traditional publish
journals, Scholars Press (Atlanta, Georgia) is a unique example of such a cooper
several major U.S. learned societies (e.g., American Academy of Religion, Societ
American Philological Society), with a number of universities in the U.S. and Ca
particular publication projects such as major monograph series. It is an example
community taking collective responsibility to see that worthy scholarship gets p
commercial considerations determining the question. The Internet is the major ne
dissemination of research, and it is vital that the scholarly community, through
universities and learned societies, become acquainted with the enormous potentia
scholarship. Commercial companies are already devoting attention to developing c
publication projects. It is imperative that the scholarly community not leave th
developed solely by commercial interests.
The basic aims are (1) to make academic merit the sole consideration in the pu
type research, (2) to advance the idea that the academic community should have a
what gets published and how it is disseminated, (3) to provide a major outlet of
is not subject to the severe economic constraints of traditional paper-journal p
some commercially attractive fields, very limited journal outlets for less comme
(4) to make collective and considered use of the scholarly advantages of network
savings in production costs, speedup in publication and dissemination process),
and low-cost means for universities and learned societies to play a greater role
research information and not only as producers and consumers of research informa
Our initial objective at this point is to inform as many in the scholarly comm
conference and the consortium proposal, and to solicit interest in these plans.
information, and to be kept informed on the progress in our planning. We also si
offer your ideas on things to be included in the conference, key people to infor
the conference, and any other matters relevant to the conference and consortium
For more information, and to express your interests in the conference and cons
convenor of the University of Manitoba ad hoc Committee on Electronic Journals,
Hurtado, Institute for the Humanities, 108 Isbister Bldg., University of Manitob
R3T 2N2. Phone: (204) 474-9114. FAX (204) 275-5781. E-mail: hurtado@ccu.umanitob