00100	NOTES ON THE PROPOSED SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL IN THE ARPA NET
00200	
00300	
00400		1. At the December ARPA IPT Contractors meeting, it was
00500	suggested that a scientific journal be published using the ARPA
00600	net.  The suggestion met with approval, and a committee consisting
00700	of McCarthy (chairman), Engelbart, Raphael, Balzer, and Licklider was
00800	appointed to look into the matter.  At Newell's suggestion,
00900	Joe Traub of Carnegie was invited to join the committee, and he
01000	agreed.
01100	
01200		2. The subject of the journal was left to be decided by
01300	the committee.  It seems to me that a general journal would be
01400	best until a need for specialization develops.
01500	
01600		3. The main object of the exercise is to take advantage of
01700	the special facilities keeping the journal in computer memory will
01800	offer as well as the advantages of accessibility through the network.
01900	These advantages seem to me to be the following:
02000	
02100			a. Articles can be published promptly.
02200	
02300			b. Articles can be read over the network by anyone
02400	posessing suitable display equipment.
02500	
02600			c. Articles can be revised at any time by the author.
02700	
02800			d. Comments can be made, and readers can get the
02900	comments.
03000	
03100			e. Single copies of articles can be provided at
03200	any installation that has facilities for printing them.
03300	
03400			f. Various information retrieval services can be
03500	provided or at least made feasible by keeping the journal in the
03600	computer.  One of the simplest is to provide a citation index.
03700	
03800			g. Abstracting, review, and bibliographic services
03900	are easily provided.
04000	
04100		4. The effort could work out badly in the following ways:
04200	
04300			a. Newell is worried that the journal might not be
04400	properly refereed so that a lot of junk would be published contributing
04500	to the "information explosion".  In my opinion a paper should be available
04600	as soon as the author declares it so, but each paper should go to official
04700	referees who can require changes before the paper receives the
04800	official blessing of the journal.  The possibility of responding to
04900	critical comments by others than the official referee will also
05000	have some effect in inducing authors to revise papers.  Of course, some
05100	people may enter really bad papers that would not be published 
05200	at all in a conventional journal.  This can be obviated by making the
05300	official blessing consist of the inclusion of the paper in a selective
05400	growing bibliography.  This bibliography could also deselect papers
05500	that have become obsolete.  The whole business can be managed in a way
05600	that will have less possibility than the present system of inducing
05700	injustice or hard feelings because the papers will be available anyway,
05800	and a paper not being included in the selective part of the system
05900	could be that the author didn't find it worthwhile to complete the paper
06000	because of other interests.
06100	
06200			b. It could happen that we won't get good papers because
06300	it won't be regarded as real publication, or the papers won't be
06400	widely available or we won't get good editors.
06500			c. We could louse up some existing journal like the
06600	AI Journal which has a shortage of good papers now.
06700	
06800	There may be other hazards as well.
06900	
07000		5. In view of the above-mentioned opportunities and hazards
07100	we should consider the following possibilities:
07200	
07300			a. The articles should be in 96 character ASCII for
07400	the time being but as soon as possible we should require equipment
07500	capable of displaying, printing and storing an arbitrary character
07600	set with conventions for character description by dot matrix or
07700	stroke sequence.  When possible diagrams and illustrations should
07800	be storable and printable.
07900	
08000			b. We should consider whether the papers should be
08100	stored and edited in  a single system or whether the home of
08200	a given paper could be anywhere on the network.  My present opinion
08300	is that the latter would be better.
08400	
08500	This memo is incomplete because I have to go to a meeting, but I
08600	am sending out copies that hopefully will arrive before the 
08700	telephone conference of the committee.  Here is a list of names
08800	and addresses:
08900	Dr. Robert Balzer
09000	RAND Corporation
09100	1700 So. Main Street
09200	Santa Monica, Ca.  90406
09300	(213) 393-0411 x323
09400	
09500	Dr. Doug. Engelbart
09600	Stanford Research Institute
09700	333 Ravenswood Avenue
09800	Menlo Park, Ca.  94025
09900	(415) 326-6200 x2220
10000	
10100	
10200	Dr. J.C.R. Licklider
10300	Project MAC
10400	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
10500	Cambridge, Massachusetts   02139
10600	(617) 864-6900 x7705
10700	
10800	Prof. John McCarthy
10900	AI Project
11000	Computer Science Department
11100	Stanford University
11200	Stanford, California  94305
11300	(415) 321-2300 x4430
11400	
11500	Dr. Bertram Raphael
11600	Stanford Research Institute
11700	333 Ravenswood Avenue
11800	Menlo Park, California  94305
11900	(415) 326-6200 z4122
12000	
12100	Dr. Joseph Traub
12200	Computer Science Department
12300	Carnegie-Mellon University
12400	Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania 15213
12500	(412) 683-7000 x152