Andrew Marriott
School of Computing
Curtin University of Technology
Hayman Rd, Bentley. Western Australia.Email: raytrace@cs.curtin.edu.auJoanne Ng
URL: http://www.cs.curtin.edu.au/~raytrace
SilkRoute Ventures Pte Ltd
287 Beach Road #02-00. Singapore 0719Email: ngsej@cs.curtin.edu.au
URL: http://www.cs.curtin.edu.au/~ngsej
This paper explores the advantages and disadvantages
of a World Wide Web (WWW) based academic journal for Com-
puter Graphics and Computer Vision and gives results from
a developmental case study for jagi whose first issue is
due mid year 1996.
Techniques for using Software Agents for creating
value-added articles as well as document track-
ing/shunting between author and reviewer are also pre-
sented.
Information has become a key resource for academics, researchers and corporations. Much of our work requires communication to occur for tasks to be completed. Dickson and Lloyd (1992, p. 1) note that seventy percent of work is on information handling tasks: hence a person's work predominantly consists of getting access to, understanding, manipulating and storing information. Access to the Internet enables multi-media communication by means of two key areas. The first is through the existing Internet mail system, the second uses its own protocol for passing information.
The e-mail standard, called Multi-Purpose Internet Mail
Extensions or MIME (Borenstein and Freed, 1992), is designed to
build over the top of the current Internet mail protocols (RFC
821/822).
"Ever since the inception of electronic mail, there hasResearch into multimedia e-mail stretches as far back as 1979. In 1984-5 one of the first multimedia electronic mail systems emerged: Diamond (Reynolds 1985; Thomas 1985). It combined user interface technology and communications technology to produce a system that could send a combination of text, images and sound. Since then many organisations have produced their own versions of multimedia mail: Diamond, Andrew, NeXT, the Internet Experimental System, NSF EXPRES and MONTAGE multimedia electronic mail systems. MIME was developed for non vendor- specific multimedia communication.
been much discussion of its even greater potential."
(Borenstein, 1991g, p. 79)
The arrival of the World Wide Web (WWW) allowed for delivery of text, images, sound, movies and software to any site on the Internet which had a WWW browser. This then became the standard for multimedia communication (it did however use the concepts of the MIME types and applications).
Most journals today present text and images. The text is linear in nature (except for a footnote or a citation - primitive forms of hyperlinks) and the images are usually of poor quality compared to what the author wants to show to the reader. The delivery of the journal is very resource intensive and is limited in distribution. The articles are often very out of date ( a turn around time of 18 months is common) and hence the articles are of historic use rather than showing what is happening now!
An electronic journal can show text in a non-linear fashion with links to other sources of information as well as present images at any desired quality ( the author can provide any level of quality limited only by the time and space available to the him or her self). But also, the author can provide an audio narrative, provide the software that is being detailed, the algorithms that are being explained, the data that is being used. This can foster research in a collaborative manner rather than contribute to the "re-invent the wheel" syndrome. The author can also provide PostScript hardcopy (or the original document in proprietary format) as well as movies of results if appropriate.
In the two frustrating years since this journal was first proposed many australian electronic journals have been developed, with success stories such as COMPLEXITY INTERNATIONAL showing what can be done. Fortunately, in late 1995, the Electronic Publishing Working Group of The Australian Vice- Chancellors Committee awarded us a grant to set up a Computer Graphics and Computer Vision electronic journal.
This journal highlights Australasian research in the fields
of Computer Graphics and Computer Vision. The editorial and
advisory boards consists of Australasian and international
researchers, recognised in their field. The journal is concerned
with (but not limited to) publishing fully refereed, multi-media
articles on:
computer animation
The journal is freely available to any researcher or organisation on the Internet network and enables the reader to receive text, PostScript documents, full colour, high resolution images, software, movies, audio and computer data. The transport mechanism is the HTTP protocol with the journal being available from our World Wide Web (WWW) site at Curtin University and mirrored from various sites throughout the world. The subscriber will "read" the journal via a WWW browser.
The journal publishes only material of high quality in the correct format. The refereeing process has the same rigour as any conventional journal. Original papers and seminars receive at least three international referee reports. Technical notes are assessed by two referees. Images are judged on quality and innovation. Each article should be an original piece of work that has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis) and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Each article must be approved for publication by all co-authors, and where appropriate, by the responsible authorities at the institute where the work has been carried out.
Articles are considered under the following categories: Original Papers, Technical Notes, Seminars, Images, Software and Email to Editor. The language of the journal is English. However, authors are encouraged to include a copy of all or parts of the paper in any language of their choice via hyperlinks in their title page.
A journal of this calibre, providing these services, with world-wide circulation will have an enormous impact on Graphics and Vision research and will provide the vehicle for transporting this research well into the next century.
The feedback to the author is overnight and serious discussion can be introduced into the current issue about the article! (Since the author can be contacted via e-mail and the distribution of the journal is world-wide, the article is reviewed or refereed by the entire world rather than just by an Editorial Board!! Similarly, if the software is available, other researchers can test algorithms for validity. This raises the quality of the articles in the journal.)
In a similar manner, the contact point for an author is now no longer just an address nor even an e-mail address. Most authors will have a WWW entry on their home machine which will let people get access to more information about that person - past publications, current projects, interests, etc. It is assumed that the list of past publications may also be hyperlink documents which will let an interested reader browse and obtain other information of relevance.
Because the journal is available at your workstation, it is a part of your work. It will not be necessary to go to a library or to have it circulated (and be weeks overdue) - it is part of your information environment. This will lead to the journal being seen as an information source rather than as just late night catch-up reading! It will take its place alongside other information sources such as Archie, Veronica and, of course, a WWW browser such as Mosaic or Netscape.
One of the outcomes of the Webbing of the Computer Graphics course notes was increased e- mail traffic to the authors. (E-mail from around the world asking about solving their particular problems!) This had some major educational benefits but in the context of an electronic journal, this ease of access to the journal's board members may pose serious time problems: e-mail will arrive at any time of the day (or night) due to the worldwide audience and should be answered quickly.
Hence we hope that a Software Agent System be developed to
help process routine queries (submissions,formats,back
issues,contacting authors,etc),
help route submissions to the appropriate referees (and
then remind them periodically about returning their
evaluation)
help with Value Added References - add hyperlinks in the
reference section of submitted documents.
This System will alleviate the editorial pressure and hopefully encourage more researchers to give of their time as editors/advisers. It will also add to the quality and consistency of the journal by performing many necessary but tedious tasks. More information about Software Agents may be found at http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~amw/agents/ and in answer to the question "What's an Agent?" see http://foner.www.media.mit.edu/people/foner/agents.html
The first issue of the journal is due out mid 1996 -success
or failure will not lie with this issue but with the acceptance
of electronic journals per se. I think that the future has the
rosy glow of electrons.....