Electronic Publication

[Leslie Johnston-Dow]

Bob.Gross at MAC.DARTMOUTH.EDU writes:
< lots of stuff deleted >
>* If hypermedia links could be implemented, it should be possible to 
>have  references in the text of the paper actually link to the 
>referenced paper  itself.  Clicking the reference in the text of the 
>paper with a mouse wouldthen open another window containing the 
>referenced paper.  Obviously, this will  take many years and many 
>electronic publications to become at all feasible,but  it might be an 
>important long range goal.
>* Again, utilizing hypermedia techniques, it would be interesting to 
>allow some  (refereed) comments to be attached to the published 
>paper.  These comments or notes could be accessed as in the last 
>point with a mouse.  For example, I  might attach a comment to text 
>in the paper suggesting an alternative  interpretation of the data; 
>the authors of the paper may attach new data at a  later date that 
>relates to the original paper (or at least attach a pointer to  a newer 
>paper).  Thus the original publication can be considered 
>dynamic. The  old data always will be there, but will be put in the 
>context of more recent  information and will benefit :) from 
>comments of knowledgeable readers.


Well, what the above says to me is that electronically published 
papers might also be linked to the databases. or possibly included in 
the databases. For example, would the sequence and the features of 
the sequence ( in a DNA sequencing paper) really need to be included 
in the papers or could they exist as a pointer to a location in 
GenBank? This could help to solve the problem concerning 
researchers submissions of published sequences to GenBank. 

>Bob writes......>
>* The previous point raises the question of what constitutes a paper 
>and  therefore what constitutes authorship.  If I attach to a 
>published paper a 4  page comment that contains experimental data 
>and interpretive text, do I get  "credit" for a publication?  Should the 
>original authors be co-authors on the  added "comment"? etc.


I would not be too concerned with the authorship problem if all of
 this was contained inside a database. I could envision an electronic 
journal existing initially as a separate entitiy. As newer 'volumes' are
 'published' the older ones would be included in a database . This
 woudl be the obvious place to add on the comment updates etc. That 
way there would be different forums for the initial publication and 
the subsequent, ah shall we say......'comments'   8-)   8-) .. So when 
the 'comments become too extensive they could be published in a 
different format, in an original electronic journal. 

Would any of the GenBank people like to comment on the feasibility
 of this?

Leslie


Leslie Johnston-Dow
ldow at apldbio.com
Disclaimer "MINE MINE MINE"