THE STORY SO FAR
When biij came into being in early 2005, it was envisioned as a tool for the dissemination
of scientific knowledge. Today, biij continues to fulfill this role, having gone through
a process of evolution and growth.
In the early days [1], the email system was the main means of communication. All manuscript
submissions, including its figures and images, were sent as email attachments to the
managing editor. The subsequent reviewing stages were also done via email. To simplify
the tracking process, the managing editor developed an in-house software to view and
update the status of each of the submitted manuscripts. It was developed using the
Active Server Pages (ASP) programming language and a Microsoft Access database, and
is only viewable by the editors. Although the software served its purpose well, the
journal has grown so much so that its requirements for additional features far outweigh
the resources that were currently available.
From January 2007, biij gradually implemented the open source Open Journal Systems
(OJS) software for online manuscript submission, tracking and management. The software
was developed as part of the Public Knowledge Project, managed in partnership between
the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, the Simon Fraser University
Library, the School of Education at Stanford University, and the Canadian Centre for
Studies in Publishing at Simon Fraser University [2].
From the outset of biij's birth, the publishers have always emphasised the searchability
and availability of biij’s contents. In October 2005, biij became a member of CrossRef
[3] and provided a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for each of the published
manuscripts, including the abstracts from selected meetings and conferences. This
ensures that biij’s contents remain available in the future, even if there are changes
to the structure of its website.
Biij is now indexed in a number of indexing databases, including Scopus, Embase, and
Compendex (since January 2008); Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) (since April 2006);
INSPEC (since March 2006); Index Copernicus International (since April 2006); Google
Scholar (since December 2005); and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (since
September 2005). In November 2008, Elsevier also agreed to include all manuscripts
prior to 2008 in its Scopus and EMBASE database.
Biij contents are currently being submitted to Pubmed Central [4], the online repository
for biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes
of Health (NIH) [5]. This process is part of the requirements for the application
of evaluation for the Pubmed/Medline database, to be initiated sometime in 2009.
THE FUTURE AND BEYOND
The main objective of a journal is the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The
concept of biij was to offer a platform for effective communication between the authors
and readers [1]. One jargon that has been used is ‘enhanced discourse’. It refers
to an expanded and facilitated scientific discourse about research, online letters
to the editor and discussions concerning articles with links to the articles in question.
To achieve the above, a new feature was introduced recently, a feedback/ comment box
where readers can send their comments to the journal. This feature, hopefully, will
enhance the communication between the authors and the scientific community.
There are, of course, challenges that lie ahead. For a biomedical imaging journal,
high quality images play a prominent part in the manuscripts. However, imaging journals
still publish images in low resolution formats, such as jpeg. Until today, there is
still no appropriate interface for readers to display and interact with DICOM images
in real time while reading the paper. Many researchers and readers recognise that
there is a need to have a browser-based image viewer embedded into the journal in
a seamless manner.
The other challenge is to maximise the multimedia features of biij. One of the biggest
attractions for journals to go electronic is the potential utilisation of multimedia
in the paper – for example, the inclusion of video clips, 3D movies, animation, etc.
The journal Medical Physics is using the Electronic Physics Auxiliary Publication
Service (EPAPS) [6]. It is an electronic depository for material that is supplementary
to papers appearing in journals published by or through the American Institute of
Physics (AIP). Appropriate items for deposit include multimedia (e.g., movie files,
audio files, animated .gifs, 3D rendering files), colour figures, data tables, and
text (e.g., appendices) that are too lengthy or of too limited interest for inclusion
in the printed journal. Materials are available free of charge to users via links
from the online journals or by browsing the EPAPS' depository directories.
However, not many biij authors have taken advantage of this multimedia feature. One
of the reasons could be due to the technical hassles involved. It may take several
more years for this feature to become the norm.
As Internet technology is progressing ever so rapidly, the landscape of electronic
publishing will be continually changing as well. The world is witnessing a revolutionary
change in the paradigm of scholarly publishing.