From: Peter Schuck <pschuck@helix.nih.gov>
  To  : rasmb@bbri.harvard.edu
  Date: Thu, 06 May 1999 12:30:24 -0700

electronic publishing - who would be interested?

Dear Rasmb'ers

Responding to Borries Demelers suggestion of creating a RASMB Online
Journal, in my opinion this is a good idea and worth thinking about.
Jack's concerns about recognition of the published work are certainly an
important factor.  However, how prestigious and widely read such a journal
would be could depend on our efforts to include an efficient peer-review
system.  

In my opinion, discussion of pre-published work and technical issues could
continue to take place in this email-based forum, and a journal should be
reserved for high-quality original research articles.  Mixing
draft-manuscripts/discussion style articles with peer-reviewed articles
probably would make it difficult for anybody not too familiar with the
journal (or without looking it up) to decide if a citation is peer-reviewed
or just draft.  This probably would considerably limit the recognition of
the journal.  The other possibility, to make this journal a compendium of
reviews and methodological summaries seems to me as if it would not take
real advantage of the electronic publishing being faster than the
conventional publications.

While establishing an efficient editorial board seems to me crucial in
gaining wider recognition of the journal, this also could be a chance of
expanding the apparent focus of RASMB from the ultracentrifuge to other
areas, because it would have to include experts in other areas.  

Of course, initially, publishing original research articles there would be
somewhat of a risk, as Jack pointed out (because you couldn't publish the
same thing in a currently established journal), but the success would
largely depend on our RASMB group reading and citing these electronic
papers in their other work.  On the other hand, there is the advantage of
timing with electronic publishing, which on many occassion can be an
important factor in establishing priority on certain findings.  

Personally, I think it could be very worthwhile giving this a chance, and
would be happy to contribute to this.  If we can combine high-quality with
fast publication, I could imagine this taking off very rapidly.  

Best regards, 
Peter

***********************************************************
Peter Schuck, PhD
Molecular Interactions Resource
Bioengineering and Physical Science Program, ORS
National Institutes of Health
Bldg. 13 Rm. 3N17
13 South Drive 
Bethesda, MD 20892 - 5766
Tel: (301) 435-1950
Fax: (301) 496-6608
email: Peter_Schuck@nih.gov
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