An editorial in the May 22 issue of Eos announced a series of communications that will inform members about the changes occurring in the next few months as AGU makes the transition to fully electronic publishing. This piece discusses how a long-term feature of AGU journals--electronic supplements--will expand its usefulness.
One of the principal advantages of the electronic publication of journals is the ease with which digital electronic supplements (e-supplements) to published articles can be made available to the community. AGU has long recognized that supplementary material to a published article can provide useful data and information that are of long-lasting interest to the scientific community. In the past, these materials have been made available as hard copies and microfiche, and in VHS videocassette format. In addition, since 1994, AGU journals have provided online e-supplements to articles. With the onset of full electronic publishing of all AGU journals, the ease of submitting supplements and accessing them is being improved. Thu,s we anticipate an increase in the interest in and number of supplements and their use by the readers of our journals.
Electronic supplements are considered an equal and integral component of published articles. They provide data and information that cannot be published in the article because of space considerations or their format, yet they are central to the scientific conclusions. For example, supplements can provide a supporting data table to a figure. Furthermore, the data potentially have a much longer lifetime and broader usage because they are available in digital format. Examples are processing of the digital data of a map included in a publication into a color mode or changing the scale or projection. The potential uses of these digital data sets appear to be endless and their lifetime should be long. The data sets are archived by AGU and are readily accessed either by an anonymous FTP or via a Web browser.
During the past decade, AGU has developed considerable expertise in handling e-supplements and setting up related protocols and policies. We encourage you, either as an author or a reader, to explore the information on how to use and submit e-supplements and the policy on referencing and archiving data for AGU publications.
Electronic supplements may consist of data tables, additional figures, videos, color versions of black and white figures, or software applications. They may provide supplementary information supporting the scientific presentation or the digital version of material presented in the printed article. Being an integral part of the article, the supplements are reviewed prior to acceptance by the Editor of the journal. They must meet certain scientific criteria and electronic format requirements for archiving by AGU. Generally, the supplements must be relatively small in size, i.e., up to 10 MB for tabular data sets, 25 MB for graphics, and 50 MB for video presentations. Authors are urged to visit the Web sites given above for further information prior to preparing a supplement for their manuscripts.
Users of e-supplements are alerted to their presence by a footnote in the printed article. When all AGU articles are online in HTML format, there will be hyperlinks from the article to the supplement. In addition, e-supplements can be found by browsing or searching AGU's online database.
William Hinze
For the AGU Publications Committee
Previous communications have described some of the changes that will occur in the next few months as AGU makes the transition to fully electronic publishing. Although members have had access to electronic versions of AGU's printed journals for some time, that service was not ready for institutional access. This piece discusses what institutional subscribers can expect in 2002 and how AGU plans to price for online access by institutions.
Starting January 1, 2002 AGU journals will be delivered in electronic form as the primary mode of publication. The basic philosophy behind this approach is to (1) improve the accessibility and utility of the body of knowledge as represented by AGU journals, (2) improve the ability of institutional subscribers to directly support the electronic needs of their clients in terms of fast, simple, widespread and multiple access, and (3) simplify the archiving and administration of AGU journals.
In order to meet the individual needs of teaching institutions, academic institutions, private and governmental research institutions, and corporations with different numbers of researchers and students, AGU will provide a differential pricing scheme defined by five categories ranging from small teaching institutions to large academic and research institutions. Thus, each institution's license will be priced on the basis of the number of clients to be served by the subscribing institution. Each category deals with institutions at one geographic location. Parent organizations that wish to serve individuals at disperse geographical locations under a single license will be charged the sum of the corresponding categories.
It is also foreseen to provide some journal bundles or the entire AGU journal package at specific rates lower than the corresponding sum of individual journal prices. Thus, institutions with broad scientific interests may choose lower-priced bundles. Institutions in developing countries wishing to start new subscriptions will still be entitled to the discounts that AGU already gives for print subscriptions.
In addition to the electronic journals, there is an option to also subscribe to print versions.
Rates will be set for print-only, for electronic only, and for electronic and print. Print-only prices will be the same for all types of institutions. Electronic-only prices will depend on the category of the subscribing institution. Academic institutions without graduate programs can expect to pay less for electronic access than the current print rates. Research-oriented institutions, many of which now take multiple subscriptions, will see prices for electronic access ranging from the current institutional subscription rate to more than twice this amount for unrestricted access by a large number of clients. Institutions subscribing to the electronic version may add one print copy for a price substantially less than the corresponding print-only rate.
Institutional access to the AGU electronic journals will be by IP numbers or IP ranges. Small corporations can have access by ID and password if they prefer. The library's current rights to provide interlibrary loan will continue as long as they do not transmit the electronic file but use printouts and either mail or fax the items. So long as an institution retains a current subscription, it will continue to have access to the years for which it had paid electronic subscriptions. If an institution drops its subscription, it will be provided the corresponding material in an electronic format of AGU's choice and will be given the right to provide access to that material. As technology changes institutions that have dropped may obtain upgraded material for a fee.
As a special offer, libraries will be given access to back years (through 1995) for which they had paid subscriptions if they subscribe during the first year of the electronic format delivery.
Ralf Jaumann
For the Publications Committee
Related topics:
Previous communications have described some of the changes that will occur in the next few months as AGU makes the transition to fully electronic publishing. This piece discusses subscription options and new services that will be available to members in 2002, ones that the Publications Committee believes will be sufficiently attractive to encourage many members to continue or intitiate personal connections with the AGU journals in electronic form.
Member subscribers will have many possibilities, for online access. The different options for back issue access are intended to provide fairness for all members and also to discourage random-year subscriptions.
1. Members may elect to subscribe to an entire journal or a JGR member subset. The subscription will provide access to the on-line AGU articles that are cited therein. Additionally, members will have access to the back issues for the consecutive years for which they maintained a subscription. If the subscription is cancelled, the sequence starts over. For a small surcharge, members can purchase access to all back issues of that journal even though they did not subscribe previously.
2. Members will be able to subscribe to a thematic collection of articles across several AGU journals. We expect to have several such "crosscuts" available by 2002 and hope to start one or two of these this year. A Collection Editor assisted by advisors will choose the articles to be included in the theme. Members who had subscriptions in 2001 will continue to have access to the online back issues to those journals. Members may also pay a fee to obtain access to back issues to which they did not subscribe.
3. Members can build a personal journal by subscribing to one or more topical areas; i.e., members will receive access to the articles matching the index terms they have chosen. This subscription will also provide access to AGU articles cited in the papers covered by the subscription. Members will have back issue access as described in the item above.
4. Members may purchase access to a certain number of articles (probably packs of 20) from the full range of AGU journals and have access to the cited articles. Members who have a subscription to a full journal or JGR member subset will also have the opportunity to purchase 10-article or 20-article packs, and thereby have access to current-year articles in other AGU journals. For subscribers, we expect the packs will be discounted since they are an add-on to member subscriptions.
5. As is true today, members can sign up for an e-mail alert to the table of contents for all AGU journals of interest. For a fee, members will be able to create an alerting service based on their interest profile.
Member access for any of the options will be by password; thus, members can reach their particular package from any computer at any time. Prices will continue to be set as low as practicable. The range of new services will let each member find an approach that best suits his or her needs.
Veronique Dehant
For the Publications Committee
Related topics:
Previous communications have described some of the many changes that will occur in the next few months as AGU makes the transition to fully electronic publishing. With the advent of the new AGU electronic publishing system, manuscripts will be submitted, edited, reviewed, and published in electronic formats. This piece discusses the new submission process from the point of view of the author.
For more than five years authors have been sending computer files to AGU headquarters containing LaTeX versions of papers for Geophysical Research Letters. These files were used in the review process and in the final production of accepted papers. Everything else for AGU's traditional journals was done with paper. AGU publications staff have been working on a very capable, web-based peer-review and tracking system, which they are in the process of rolling out for all journals. It is called GEMS (Geophysical Electronic Manuscript System).
GEMS allows authors to submit manuscripts written in Microsoft Word (.doc files), Corel WordPerfect (.wpd files), and Portable Document Format (.pdf) for peer review. In addition, since many authors prefer LaTeX, especially for heavy mathematical subject areas, the new system will also accept .tex files. Artwork continues to be a concern since standards and software used vary widely. Authors are asked to submit true encapsulated postscript (.eps) files to ensure accurate and complete reproduction.
GEMS is also a sophisticated tracking system that allows authors to "check the status" of their article through all stages of the peer-review process. Editors, Associate Editors, and reviewers log in and can perform all activities, including reviewing the manuscripts and art, online. When a manuscript is accepted for publication, authors will be asked to deliver the final version in Word, WordPerfect, or LaTeX through GEMS. These files will be converted to SGML for the perpetual archive, and PDF and HTML for electronic delivery. The electronic files will also be used by vendors to print the hard-copy issues of those AGU journals that are produced in both electronic and printed formats. Since mathematics and complex tables require significant additional coding to prepare these files, the plan is to have publication fees help cover the costs of the file conversion and development.
GEMS takes AGU one giant step closer to making the journals fully electronic. These electronic files also offer a wide range of new products and capabilites that will be introduced in 2002, including a wide variety of new subscription, searching, indexing, and linking services for AGU members and subscribers.
James O'Donnell
For the Publications Committee
Related topics:
Previous communications have described some of the many changes that will occur in the next few months as AGU makes the transition to fully electronic publishing. With the advent of the new AGU electronic publishing system, manuscripts will be submitted, edited, reviewed, and published in electronic formats. This piece discusses the review process from the point of view of the reviewer.
The following is a description of how a typical review will work with AGU's new web-based software system GEMS (Geophysical Electronic Manuscript System). The process begins when you are contacted by an Editor, generally via e-mail, with a request to review a manuscript. The e-mail will contain a link (URL) to the abstract of the paper on the AGU web server so that you can read the abstract before deciding whether to review the manuscript. If you agree to review the manuscript, you will be provided a link to the complete manuscript.
Manuscripts can be submitted in a variety of formats (e.g., Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, Portable Document Format (PDF), and LaTeX). For review and publication purposes, all manuscripts will be converted to PDF. In the future HTML (World Wide Web) format may be added. Reviewers who prefer to have a printed copy of the text of the manuscript will be able to print the PDF version by using Acrobat Reader which is free, or other Acrobat products. Remember that manuscripts containing only static text and figures will convert to PDF format in their entirety. Other manuscripts, such as those containing video or other multimedia material, may not translate completely to PDF; parts of those manuscripts will have to be reviewed online in HTML format using a web browser. Given current technology, the conversion of mathematics and tables from word processor files (except LaTeX) to HTML is often problematic which is the reason for the delay in providing HTML of all parts of an article for review. At present, PDFs are the most reliable version of the article for review purposes, with the exception of dynamic material that cannot be converted to PDF.
Your review will be submitted to the Editors via your web browser. The web interface for submitting reviews will contain certain standard items, questions specific to the journal, plus a place for the reviewers comments. Reviews that contain only text can be copied and pasted into the review form. At present, reviews that contain mathematics or figures should be submitted in PDF format to ensure readability.
Ken Bowman
For the Publications Committee
Related topics:
Previous communications have described some of the many changes that will occur in the next few months as AGU makes the transition to fully electronic publishing. With the advent of the new AGU electronic publishing system, manuscripts will be submitted, edited, reviewed, and published in electronic formats. This piece discusses how the electronic journal will differ from the print journal.
Electronic publishing will require some adjustments to the ways we currently think about journals from our perspective of standard print versions. Visiting AGU's Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-Cubed) website is a great way to get familiar with the look and feel of electronic publishing. However, protocols, especially for citations of articles, are still evolving. Some of the biggest changes for users of AGU publications may be the lack of page numbers, use of a unique identifier (DOI), and changes in citation style.
As of 1 January 2002, all AGU journals will be distributed online in both html and pdf formats. At that time, the electronic edition (html) will constitute the journal of record of the Union. Each article will be published online as it is ready, not held for some arbitrary issue. It is these online articles that will be cited in the literature and the print journal will be a byproduct of the electronic journal. The html file will constitute the version of record because it will contain the non-static material accepted for publication and archiving, and therefore the html file may include material not found in the pdf or the printed journal. It must be understood that some material cannot be rendered in the printed journals, e.g., active links, extensive data tables, programs, animations, and video clips. However, in all other ways the printed version will reflect the electronic.
The html version will not carry any page numbering, primarily because the concept of fixed pages does not translate to the html format. The pdf for journals that have a print component will carry a page number that is a combination of the article number, which is the order of publication within the month, and consecutive numbers for the pages within the article. For the sections of JGR that have subsets, each article will carry a two- or three-letter designation for the package and the article numbers will be in order within that package. Thus, page numbers for the Climate and Dynamics member package of JGR-Atmospheres, would, for example, be CD1.1, CD1.2, etc. Special issues/collections will carry a short identification preceding the article number. Using this page number scheme means that the order in which articles appear in the print journal will be governed by the order in which they are published (i.e., posted online).
Citations: AGU will use the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for uniquely identifying articles in a citation. This concept was developed by publishers, motivated by concerns over control of their products in cyberspace. The International DOI Foundation (IDF) maintains a website where applications of DOI can be viewed. A DOI is a unique and persistent identification code for digital objects and could be assigned to an entire journal, an individual article within the journal, or a specific figure, data table, or paragraph within an article. Numbered products and their associated online addresses will be registered in an online directory which will enable linkage with publishers' web sites and acquisition options. If changes occur in the location of an object, the copyright owner must forward the change to the DOI directory database. Several major scientific publishers have already started using the DOI in citations.
The DOI is an international standard with a central authority for registering the identifiers and for maintaining the standard. The DOI for an AGU journal article consists of a 6-digit number assigned by the central organization and the article identification that is assigned when an article is submitted. In the future the AGU DOI's will be expanded to include smaller units of content such as the electronic supplements. Ultimately, the DOI's enable cross-linking of reference citations so that for example one could link between article references and the actual article and between different journals by different publishers.
Style for Citations and for Publication Date: The full citation to the article must be made known when the article is published online so that it can be properly referenced from the moment of publication. The exact date of publication will appear on the published article along with the date submitted and date accepted. To give these dates more prominence, this information will be moved to the first page of articles in all AGU journals not later than the January 2002 publications.
Format for Citations to AGU Journal Articles:
Author, I.M., Article title, J. Geophys. Res., 107(A1), 10.1029/2001JA001490, 2002.
Change to format introduced 13 August 2002.
How to Cite an AGU Article, updated 31 December 2003
Sam Bowring
For the Publications Committee
The Publications Committee welcomes comments from members on any and all aspects of AGU publications, pubmatters@agu.org.