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Paul V. Dressendorfer
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In this article I will give a brief overview of some of the background for and activities at IEEE in electronic publishing, and of how the Transactions on Nuclear Science (TNS) and its authors are involved with that initiative.
As most readers are no doubt aware, IEEE has been making a strong push into electronic publishing over the last few years. Their goals in this endeavor are to achieve faster, more useful, more convenient, and improved-value publishing. Several years ago IEEE began offering a number of their journals online, including TNS, through their Online Periodicals and Research Area (OPeRA). That effort has evolved into a single Web site for all IEEE material for users, known as IEEE Xplore™ (http://www.ieee.org/ieeexplore).
IEEE Xplore™ has IEEE journals, transactions, magazines, and conference proceedings published since 1988, and current IEEE standards. Each document has a searchable abstract/citation record and a PDF full-text file. It is planned that journal, transactions, and magazine articles (starting from 1996) will also have HTML full-text files, which will allow searches of the complete article content. Searches may be done using the author’s name, keywords, or Boolean expressions, giving users a powerful means to locate the information they seek. New issues of a journal appear on the web site before the printed version, providing faster dissemination of information. It should be noted that access to the various publications on the Web is determined by an individual’s or an institution’s subscriptions with IEEE.
A feature that IEEE is working on implementing is live reference links in the electronic articles. When fully functional, this capability will allow the reader of an article to click on the reference of interest and then see the full text of that reference. Other enhancements include linking within an article (e.g., clicking on "Fig. 2" in the text will take the reader to the figure, or perhaps to a "movie" illustrating the results of a computer simulation). Overall the thrust of these initiatives is to address the goals for electronic publishing noted in the paragraph above.
The whole arena of electronic publishing is evolving rapidly, and IEEE is trying to stay at the forefront. However, with these innovations come a slew of issues. Archiving of digital articles is a multi-faceted concern – the physical media must be kept safe, files must be migrated to next generation technology, and means of providing access must be secured. (For example, can you read any of your old WordMarc files or files on a 20 MB Bernoulli anymore?) How does one keep hypertext links current (as items are moved or removed from sites)? How should multimedia objects be handled (does the application software necessary to view them need to be archived and maintained)? On the business side, there are a number of matters involving payment for electronic access and viewing. Means to address these issues are being developed.
TNS began directly supporting this thrust towards electronic publishing in 1996. At that time, authors of regular contributed papers (those not associated with conference issues) which were accepted for publication were asked to supply electronic files of the text and of the figures for their manuscripts. These were then used by IEEE to supply the TNS articles available in IEEE Xplore™.
To continue our support of the electronic initiative, TNS is now going to electronic submission of files for papers in conference-related issues. In the past, these manuscripts have been submitted as camera-ready copy, a format that is not conducive to electronic publishing. Given that authors typically generate their manuscript using a computer, it is hoped that this change will not prove too onerous. However, it must be noted that to preserve efficiency at IEEE, the acceptable file formats are limited and somewhat restrictive (particularly for graphics). I will go into the details of these in a future edition of the newsletter. For any readers wanting to learn more now, general IEEE instructions for electronic files and graphics can be found at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/transactions/information.htm. A document which is more specific to TNS (and which is also a Word template file for the correct format) can be found at http://www.nsrec.com/editathr.htm (under "Preparing Your Final Manuscript").
In upcoming issues I will discuss some of the above items in more depth, and also talk about a move of the manuscript review process for TNS to an electronic/ Web-based system.
Paul Dressendorfer, the Editor of The IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, can be reached at the Sandia National Laboratories, Department 1732, 1515 Eubank SE, Albuquerque, NM 87185-0525; Phone (505) 844-5373; Fax: (505) 844-8168; E-mail: dresspv@sandia.gov.
Teresa Farris, the REC Publicity Chairwoman, can be reached at UTMC Microelectronics Systems Inc. (UTMC), 4350 Centennial Blvd., Colorado Springs, CO 80907; Phone: (719) 594-8035; Fax: (719) 594-8468; E-mail: farris@utmc.com.