[LINK] IT Journal Goes Paperlast

[Tom Worthington]

Linkers might be interested to know that the Journal of Research and 
Practice in Information Technology (JRPIT) 
<http://www.acs.org.au/jrpit/>, produced by the ACS is going "green". 
After thirty five years of distributing it on paper, the journal was 
put on the web and made open access so anyone could read it for free. 
A few years later we provided subscribers with the ability to opt out 
of the print edition, if they were happy with the online version. Now 
a few years later we are changing the default so that they can opt 
in, if the want the print version. This is being done to save paper, 
as well as printing and distribution costs. I expect that out of the 
13,000 subscribers, only about 200 will opt for the printed edition.

ps: The change to online publishing has been uncontroversial. The 
fact that it is not on paper does not effect the academic status of 
the publication, with the reputation of the editors and reviewers 
being unchanged. Also I suspect that retaining a print-like format 
makes the online journal more academically acceptable, even though 
this makes it harder to read online. More thoughts at 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/qpublishing.shtml>.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, ANU