Electronic journals.

Although electronic journals are becoming more common, they have not achieved as much penetration as many expected [23, 24]. As electronic journals develop, they will certainly improve informal and professional learning and will likely become useful resources in the K-12 arena which has traditionally maintained only modest journal collections in schools. Two common approaches to electronic journals are to: (i) store files in LaTeX, PostScript or ASCII form in a fileserver and email the files, or allow FTP access to them ("generic approach"); and (ii) store documents in hypertext/hypermedia systems and allow online browsing and perusal ("hypertext approach"). Table 1 gives a sample of electronic journals that use the generic approach and Table 2 gives a sample of those using the hypertext approach.

The main problems that these publications solve to different degrees are related to information retrieval support, display of complex graphics and formulas, and distribution speed and reliability. A recent journal using the "hypertext approach" is J.UCS, the Journal of Universal Computer Science (see http://www.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/Cjucs_root or send an email for general information to jucs@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at with subject [info]). It addresses these three problems by using a range of searching techniques including scoped searches; using HFT, RTF and particularly LaTeX and PostScript as file formats to provide high quality display; and using a world-wide network of initially 65 "foundation servers" to remove much of the access-time problems associated with earlier attempts.

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