Much as I am flattered by Stevan's and Gerry's generous and unprompted
comments about Perspectives in Electronic Publishing, it should be pointed
out that PeP has not been updated - neither content nor links - since I
began writing the final sections of my thesis towards the end of last year.
As part of the thesis, the model was subjected to rigorous review by a
select group of expert evaluators, who revealed a series of issues that
need to be addressed to improve the model. So while it would be fun to
update it, bringing new and old (e.g. journal papers that have become
freely available retrospectively) papers within the scope of its linking
service, the model needs restructuring before it can be considered a
serious tool for researchers in this field.
In particular, although I have enjoyed excellent advisory and technical
support http://aims.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pep.nsf/special/credits?opendocument
a new PeP will need more contributors. With a longer term view, I hope that
I, or someone else, might have the opportunity to tackle this project at
some stage.
Steve
At 01:27 14/09/02 +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:
I have to confess that I only ran across Steve Hitchcock's
low-profile but high-IQ review
"Perspectives in Electronic Publishing"
http://aims.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pep.nsf
yesterday, although a retrospective search has since revealed that
Peter Suber had announced it in FOS and AmSci at least as long ago as
October 2001!
Steve and I don't always share the same view, but I greatly admire his
fertile and indefatigable intellect, and he is probably more broadly read
and abreast of developments than any of us in this rapidly evolving area.
He has also earned his doctorate recently and will no doubt continue making
bigger and bigger contributions to this field that he has helped create.
For highly compressed, witty and insightful critiques of the fast-growing
literature, I can't think of a richer source than Steve Hitchcock's
reviews in PeP (and he and his colleagues have set it up so you can add
your own reviews too!).
Stevan Harnad
