430 lines
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430 lines
24 KiB
Plaintext
From LISTSERV@uacsc2.albany.edu Tue Jan 5 16:00:22 1993
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Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 15:55:18 -0500
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From: Revised List Processor (1.7e) <LISTSERV@uacsc2.albany.edu>
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Subject: File: "EJRNL V1N1"
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To: pirmann@cs.rutgers.edu
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March 1991 _EJournal_ Volume 1 Issue 1 ISSN # 1054-1055
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An Electronic Journal concerned with the implications
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of electronic networks and texts.
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University at Albany, State University of New York
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ejournal@albnyvms.bitnet
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There are 421 lines in this issue.
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CONTENTS:
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Electronic Journals of Proposed Research 226 lines.
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by Robert K. Lindsay
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Mental Health Research Institute
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University of Michigan
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DEPARTMENTS:
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Letters 11 lines.
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Reviews 10 lines.
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Supplements to previous texts 12 lines.
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Pointers to texts appearing elsewhere 21 lines.
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Information about _EJournal_ 92 lines.
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This electronic publication and its contents are (c) copyright 1991 by
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_EJournal_. Permission is hereby granted to give away the journal and its
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contents, but no one may "own" it. Any and all financial interest is hereby
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assigned to the acknowledged authors of individual texts. This notification
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must accompany all distribution of _EJournal_.
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Electronic Journals of Proposed Research
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by Robert K. Lindsay
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Mental Health Research Institute
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University of Michigan
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Asking the right question and asking the question right, it is often said, are
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the most important steps in science. After that, some say (exaggerating for
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emphasis), answering the question is just a mopping up operation. Nonetheless,
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the bulk of scientific publications are devoted to reports of the "mopping-up."
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The question-posing steps are most commonly relegated to grant proposals, where
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they are examined by a small number of reviewers, at times ill-matched to the
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task. Thus, proposals do not benefit from the open peer commentary that
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scientific publications receive, nor do they elicit recognition and reward,
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except, at times, in the form of money. It is safe to assume that some good
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ideas, especially if they are truly novel, never see the light of public
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scrutiny nor receive the resources necessary to carry them to fruition. The
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other side of the coin is that some effort, at least, is devoted to executing
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flawed designs or answering unimportant questions, as reflected in the
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remarkably low citation rates of research papers (Hamilton, 1990, 1991). In
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emerging fields, especially, the result is often that published research is
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followed by retractions, qualifications, and belated criticisms. Further, it
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is likely that some of the best suggestions are delayed or withheld altogether
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>from the proposal process because their originators lack the time or resources
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to carry them to the point where the rewards of recognition will accrue, and do
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not wish others to reap the benefits of developing them.
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Why do we not concentrate our most intense scrutiny on the most important
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steps? The current system of limited, anonymous, and selective peer review
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without opportunity for rebuttal or clarification is insufficient. Far more
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productive would be journals of open peer commentary (following the format of
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the very successful Behavioral and Brain Sciences) that publish research
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questions and experimental designs, followed by a dialogue of counterproposals
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and modifications before the expensive and time intensive steps of
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experimentation, field work, model construction, and data analysis are
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performed. The result would be detailed and carefully designed studies of
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acknowledged importance. These proposals would then be in the public domain:
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they could be carried out by anyone with the means and skill, or they could be
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referred to in applications to funding agencies.
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The emerging electronic global communications network will soon make possible
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the implementation of such publication channels in a manner far more useful
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than print. The fruits of efforts now underway to exploit the potential for
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electronic collaboration has opened the door to electronic publication. This
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technology could do more than simply improve the efficiency of document
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dissemination and speed the processing of proposals in the old mode. The
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opportunity to publish more than research "results" will be at hand.
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Electronic dissemination, combined with the publication of proposals,
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hypotheses, experimental designs, and criticism, could reward those who excel
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at idea generation but eschew the later stages, speed the progress of science,
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save resources now devoted to projects destined to be inconclusive, widen,
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rationalize, and make more fair the grant review process, while easing the
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(also unrewarded) burdens of grant review. Further, it could decrease the
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frequency with which good ideas lie fallow because of the vagaries of referee
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selection and the current review process.
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Mention of electronic networks conjures visions of bulletin boards, with scraps
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of paper tacked up, electronically, into a hodge-podge of junk mail that has so
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little of merit that most of us soon stop searching for the good stuff. The
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present suggestion is not intended to be a bulletin board, but rather a
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refereed journal. The most common contribution for the journal would not be a
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one paragraph "idea," but a detailed proposal of several pages that includes
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hypotheses, experimental designs, and the logic of the argument. In other
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words, the typical proposal would be similar to the scientific portion of an
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NSF or NIH proposal, without the investigator and institutional information and
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all of the other administrative paperwork. Editors and referees would select
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proposals that were serious and had prima facie merit, and request some
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referees to write reviews. Referees would evaluate and critique only the
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ideas, not the qualifications of the proposer or institution. The proposal
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would be "published" immediately, and the reviews would be distributed as they
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came in. Short, unsolicited reviews would also be distributed as they were
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received and edited (not refereed). The result could be the source of
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information for a revised and presumably much better proposal which could serve
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as the basis of a conventional proposal to a funding agency, either from the
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originator of the contribution or from someone else. The funding agency would
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be immensely helped by the extensive, documented review, and awards decisions
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could be made much more rapidly, with less money wasted pursuing ill-conceived
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ideas.
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The central idea of this proposal is to extend critical peer review to the
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earliest and presumably most critical steps of science, the problem and/or
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experiment definition. This would be of some value even if carried out in
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traditional ways. Such review is in fact now done for the very largest
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projects, where the costs of mistakes are most obvious. The human genome
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project, for example, is going through an extensive planning and review stage.
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Most large engineering and business projects are extensively reviewed before
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investing in them. It is my contention that smaller scientific projects should
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also receive broader review than they now get. This is not primarily to give
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overlooked ideas a better chance at funding, but rather to improve the
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proposals that do get funded before serious design flaws cost time and money.
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Savings are increasingly important, since the federal science budget has not
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kept up with the supply of researchers and the cost of equipment (Lederman,
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1991). I do not think that the present system of peer review is always
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appropriate, because it is too narrowly specialized, anonymous, overly
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selective, unrewarding to the referees, and slow. In electronic networks I see
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the possibility of correcting these problems. An electronic journal of
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proposed research is based on the assumption that refereed and edited material
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could benefit from the speed of distribution, wide accessibility, machine
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searching and editing, and low user marginal cost that are the most important
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merits of electronic distribution.
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Such journals would not be substitutes for current funding procedures. In fact,
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the journals would not be involved in making monetary awards, so the
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conventional route would still be needed to obtain funding. The open peer
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review process is rather an alternative for those who, for whatever reason,
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choose to use it. Any investigator unwilling to submit a proposal for open
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inspection and perhaps implementation by another person would simply not do so.
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Currently there are, of course, many grant awards made primarily on the basis
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of the institution/investigator qualifications and abilities, with scientific
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specifics being secondary. That is entirely appropriate and should continue; my
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proposed journals do not address the issue of reviewing investigator
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qualifications, but would confine themselves to scientific questions. I
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believe there are many occasions where the new avenue would be attractive to
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serious workers.
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What would induce a person with a good research idea to use this avenue rather
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than the customary method of seeking funding and the opportunity to carry the
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idea to fruition, thus obtaining the intellectual credit that goes with this?
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There are several possible motivations.
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Science has long been compartmentalized as different disciplines, and the
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specializations get narrower and narrower. Some sciences also specialize along
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methodological lines: experimental versus theoretical, apparatus A versus
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apparatus B. Yet it is still not institutionally acknowledged that some people
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are better at generating ideas, some are better at criticism, some are better
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at seeing the implications of hypotheses, and some are better in the laboratory
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or at the computer. It is time to exploit these differences and reward them
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equally with recognition and citation, while bringing our best weapon of
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reason-- open peer commentary--to bear on all aspects of scientific work.
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Second, some research requires expensive or one-of-a-kind equipment and the
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appropriate infrastructure of human and other resources. Not everyone with
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appropriate knowledge and creativity has access to the necessary facilities,
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which cannot be duplicated for a single project.
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Third, many of our most highly creative scientists already have a full plate of
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research, and would be eager to see some of their good "excess" ideas explored.
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Then, too, there may be cases in which a proposer fully intends to do the
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research but wishes to have the benefit of constructive advice from a
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scientific community that extends beyond a limited network of colleagues and
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advisors. In still other cases, the "mopping up" operation may indeed be
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straightforward and could be done by support staff elsewhere at low cost.
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Finally, and more speculatively, there may in the future emerge another source
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of research ideas born of computer technology and artificial intelligence. The
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scientific literature is a vast warehouse of information which certainly must
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contain the seeds of many important discoveries. Yet these seeds are dispersed
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among different, often disconnected literatures that are not commanded by any
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specialist. Human efforts augmented by electronic analysis of available
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literature databases such as MEDLINE have in a few cases already revealed
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previously unappreciated connections that suggest new experiments (see Swanson,
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1987, 1989, 1990). Such discoveries have been and will continue to be made by
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information specialists rather than those who are qualified to pursue the
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necessary research. An Electronic Journal of Proposed Research (EJPR) would
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provide an avenue to make such ideas public.
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For an EJPR to succeed, it is important that it be edited and that it be
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indexed into appropriately sized subdisciplines to permit automated, selective
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browsing and dissemination, so that readers would not have to sift through
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large files of material on subjects foreign to them. It must provide rapid
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turnaround; and most important, there must be recognition of the contributors.
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Validating priority of ideas is also important, although this is not a new
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problem. If anything, electronic distribution reduces this problem in
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comparison to print distribution which is slower, less accessible, and more
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coarsely time stamped.
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As I noted above, this proposal is not primarily motivated by the fact that
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good ideas go unfunded, although pointing out that good ideas are not always
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recognized is not a sour grapes argument, any more than pointing out that
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awardees are generally worthy is an elitist argument. The beliefs that no good
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ideas are overlooked by current procedures and that all funded research is the
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best it can be are too preposterous to bother to counter with specific
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examples. Problems with current procedures have been noted with concern (for
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example, Marshall, 1987; Muller, 1980) and even with alarm (Snyder, 1985), and
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various suggestions have been offered for reform (Koshland, 1985). I have
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suggested an improvement that addresses these concerns in a new way: wider,
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open peer review of scientific content, followed by revision and competition
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for funding, expedited by the wide accessibility and manipulation of documents
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through currently available technology. Although there would be many such
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journals in the sense that there would be many specialized editorial boards,
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they would be one journal in the sense that access over the electronic network
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is uniform. I have not seen this proposed previously, and I think that it has
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sufficient potential to merit serious consideration.
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References
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Hamilton, D. P. (1990) Publishing by - and for? - the numbers. Science
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250(4986): 1331-1332.
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Hamilton, D. P. (1991) Research papers: Who's uncited now? Science
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251(4989): 25.
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Koshland, D. E. (1985) Modest proposals for the granting system.
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Science 229(4710): 231
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Lederman, L. M. (1991) Science: The end of the frontier? Science.
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Supplement to Volume 251, Number 4990, January 11, 1991.
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Marshall, E. (1987) Gossip and peer review at NSF. Science 238(4833):
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1502.
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Muller, R. A. (1980) Innovation and scientific funding. Science
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209(4459): 880-883.
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Snyder, L. There are problems with the review process. Communications
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of the ACM. 28(4): 349-350.
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Swanson, D. R. (1987) Two medical literatures that are logically but not
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bibliographically connected. J. American Society for Information
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Science, 38(4): 228-233.
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Swanson, D. R. (1989) A second example of mutually isolated medical
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literatures related by implicit, unnoticed connections. J. American
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Society for Information Science, 40(6): 432-435.
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Swanson, D. R. (1990) Somatomedin C and arginine: Implicit
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connections between mutually isolated literatures. Perspectives in
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Biology and Medicine. 33(2): 157-186.
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[ This article in Volume 1 Issue 1 of _EJournal_ (March, 1991) is (c) copyright
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_EJournal_. Permission is hereby granted to give it away. _EJournal_ hereby
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assigns any and all financial interest to Robert K. Lindsay. This note must
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accompany all copies of this text. ]
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Robert K. Lindsay robert_lindsay@ub.cc.umich.edu
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205 Washtenaw Place
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Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
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Letters:
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_EJournal_ is willing publish letters to the editor. But at this point we make
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no promises about how many, which ones, or what format. Because the "Letters"
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column of a periodical is a habit of the paper environment, we can't predict
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exactly what will happen in pixel space. For instance, _EJournal_ readers can
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send outraged objections to our essays directly to the authors. Also, we can
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publish substantial counterstatements as articles in their own right, or as
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"Supplements." Even so, there will probably be some brief, thoughtful
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statements that appear to be of interest to many subscribers. When there are,
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they will appear as "Letters."
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Reviews:
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_EJournal_ is willing to publish reviews of almost anything that seems to fit
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under our broad umbrella: the implications of electronic networks and texts.
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Right now we are hoping to review one hypertext novel, and have no other
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works-- electronic or printed --under consideration. We do not solicit and
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cannot provide review copies of fiction, prophecy, critiques, other texts,
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programs, hardware, lists or bulletin boards. But if you would like to bring
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any publicly available information to our readers' attention, send your review
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(any length) to us, or ask if writing one sounds to us like a good idea.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Supplements:
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_EJournal_ plans to experiment with ways of revising, responding to, re-
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working, or even retracting the texts we publish. Authors who want to address
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a subject already broached --by others or by themselves-- may send texts,
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preferably brief, that we will consider publishing under the "Supplements"
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heading. Proposed "supplements" will not go through full, formal editorial
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review. Whether this "Department" will operate like a delayed-reaction
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bulletin board or like an expanded letters-to-the-editor space, or whether it
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will be withdrawn in favor of a system of appending supplemental material to
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archived texts, or will take on an electronic identity with no direct print-
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oriented analogue, will depend on what readers/writers make of the opportunity.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Pointers to text appearing elsewhere:
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This "Department" is Joe Raben's idea. It will appear whenever readers send
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similar citations. Here is Joe's initial list, now several months older than
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when he sent it, along with his suggestion:
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Joe Raben: "One service you might add is a list of relevant articles in
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places most of your readers would not be likely to look for them. For example,
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the following just appeared in _Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society_
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16:1 (Fall 1990):
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Ruth Perry and Lisa Gruber, "Women and Computers: An Introduction"
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Paul N. Edwards, "The Army and the Microworld: Computers and the Politics of
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Gender Identity"
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Sherry Turkle and Seymour Papert, "Epistemological Pluralism: Styles and
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Voices within the Computer Culture"
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Pamela E. Kramer and Sheila Lehrman, "Mismeasuring Women: A Critique of
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Research on Computer Ability and Avoidance"
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Information about _EJournal_:
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Users on both Bitnet and the Internet may subscribe to _EJournal_ by
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sending an E-mail message to this address:
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listserv@albnyvm1.bitnet
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The following should be the only line in the message:
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SUB EJRNL Subscriber's Name
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Please send all other messages and inquiries to the _EJournal_ editors
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at the following address:
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ejournal@albnyvms.bitnet
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_EJournal_ is an all-electronic, Bitnet/Internet distributed, peer-reviewed,
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academic periodical. We are particularly interested in theory and praxis
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surrounding the creation, transmission, storage, interpretation, alteration and
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replication of electronic text. We are also interested in the broader social,
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psychological, literary, economic and pedagogical implications of
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computer-mediated networks.
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The journal's essays will be available free to Bitnet/Internet addresses.
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Recipients may make paper copies; _EJournal_ will provide authenticated paper
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copy from our read-only archive for use by academic deans or others.
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Individual essays, reviews, stories-- texts --sent to us will be disseminated
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to subscribers as soon as they have been through the editorial process, which
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will also be "paperless." We expect to offer access through libraries to our
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electronic Contents, Abstracts, and Keywords, and to be indexed and abstracted
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in appropriate places.
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Writers who think their texts might be appreciated by _EJournal_'s audience are
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invited to forward files to ejournal@albnyvms.bitnet . If you are wondering
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about starting to write a piece for to us, feel free to ask if it sounds
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appropriate. There are no "styling" guidelines; we would like to be a little
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more direct and lively than many paper publications, and less hasty and
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ephemeral than most postings to unreviewed electronic spaces.
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Some subscribers may notice that we had to make up an incorrect name for you
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when we moved our distribution list to the Listserv utility. You can change it
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to whatever you want by sending the SUB message (above), using the name you
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prefer.
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This issue's "feature article," and those from other issues of _EJournal_, will
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eventually be available from a Fileserv at Albany. We plan to distribute a
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"table of contents" to a broad population occasionally, along with instructions
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for downloading.
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We are aware that leaving an essay's references at the end of the text makes it
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clumsy to consult the citations and return to a place in the text. We are
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trying to work out a convention--perhaps even "footnotes"--that will make the
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process easier.
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Board of Advisors: Dick Lanham, University of California at Los Angeles
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Ann Okerson, Association of Research Libraries
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Joe Raben, City University of New York
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Bob Scholes, Brown University
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Harry Whitaker, University of Quebec at Montreal
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Consulting Editors - March 1991 - Inaugural Issue
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ahrens@hartford John Ahrens Hartford
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ap01@liverpool Stephen Clark Liverpool
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crone@cua Tom Crone Catholic University
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dabrent@uncamult Doug Brent Calgary
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djb85@albnyvms Don Byrd Albany
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donaldson@loyvax Randall Donaldson Loyola College
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ds001451@ndsuvm1 Ray Wheeler North Dakota
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eng006@unomal Marvin Peterson Nebraska - Omaha
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erdt@vuvaxcom Terry Erdt Villanova
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fac_aska@jmuvax1 Arnie Kahn James Madison
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folger@yktvmv Davis Foulger IBM - Watson Center
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george@gacvax1 G. N. Georgacarakos Gustavus Adolphus
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gms@psuvm Gerry Santoro Pennsylvania State University
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geurdes@hlerul55 Han Geurdes Leiden
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jtsgsh@ritvax John Sanders Rochester Institute of Technology
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nrcgsh@ritvax Norm Coombs Rochester Institute of Technology
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pmsgsl@ritvax Patrick M. Scanlon Rochester Institute of Technology
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r0731@csuohio Nelson Pole Cleveland State
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ryle@urvax Martin Ryle Richmond
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twbatson@gallua Trent Batson Gallaudet
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usercoop@ualtamts Wes Cooper Alberta
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University at Albany Computing Services Center:
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Isabel Nirenberg, Bob Pfeiffer, Kathy Turek; Ben Chi, Director
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Editor: Ted Jennings, English, University at Albany
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Managing Editor: Ron Bangel, University at Albany
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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State University of New York University Center at Albany Albany, NY 12222 USA
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