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The Future of Interactive, Electronic Publishing Research
With the possibilities of modern technology, scientific publications and journals lag far behind modern hypertext textbooks and interactive learning programmes. At best and quite rarely, verbal information in a static layout is only occasionally opened up by explanatory diagrams and tables.
The goal of this project is to experiment with new forms of publishing, which are based on an electronic environment like the Internet. Static papers are intended to be replaced by dynamic, interactive hypertexts with many diagrams, links to related topics and links within the text. If it is useful to explain either the research method or the research results, ordering tables to different criteria could be used, or animated diagrams be introduced. Links to the full papers which are referenced might be given so that the papers are easily accessed to facilitate further reading and cross-checks of results by the readers. Abstracts in several languages could reinforce international collaboration and spread of the results.
The way of citations is one point to explore within the setting of electronic publishing. The old-fashioned footnotes may be revived in an innovative way: As links are possible, such footnotes need not be placed directly in the text; they may be outsourced to a companion paper. With such an approach, it is possible to give much more than the source reference to a statement; it is possible – without leading away from the principal idea of the main text – to embed the citation: why the author cites this and not another paper, how this paper is related within some approach to an issue, which other approaches would be sensible etc. This possibility leads to a body of text focussing on the message of research results while the companion paper shows their relation to other investigations.
Electronic publishing knows no limits with respect to quantity as compared to publishing in paper form. This feature my be used to invite authors to offers more material of the background of the papers: illustrating programmes, questionnaires, exemplary solutions, or case studies, animations, or videos of crucial interview passages. This may represent an authentic flavour of the presented research and also back up the results for the readers. It could also serve as a specimen for younger researchers to start their studies.
As often happens, the medium of research influences the results and thus – not surprisingly – the research changes its character during this process. It will be interesting how the scientific community will receive such experiments to publish scientific results in a strongly visual interactive hypertext.
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