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Kling, Rob and McKim, Geoffrey. 1998. " The Shaping of Electronic Media in Supporting Scientific Communication: The Contribution of Social Informatics" A paper presented at the "European Science and Technology Forum: Electronic Communication and Research in Europe" Darmstadt/Seeheim, 15 to 17 April 1998. [full text, HTML]
 

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Kling, Rob and McKim, Geoffrey. 1999. " Scholarly Communication and the Continuum of Electronic Publishing". Journal of the American Society for Information Science 50(9): 890-906. [e-print]

Abstract: Electronic publishing opportunities, manifested today in a variety of electronic journals and Web-based compendia, have captured the imagination of many scholars. These opportunities have also destabilized norms about the character of legitimate scholarly publishing in some fields. Unfortunately, much of the literature about scholarly e-publishing homogenizes the character of publishing. This article provides an analytical approach for evaluating disciplinary conventions and for proposing policies about scholarly e-publishing. We characterize three dimensions of scholarly publishing as a communicative practice -- publicity, access, and trustworthiness, and examine several forms of paper and electronic publications in this framework. This analysis shows how the common claim that e-publishing "substantially expands access" is over-simplified. It also indicates how peer-reviewing (whether in paper or electronically) provides valuable functions for scholarly communication that are not effectively replaced by self-posting articles in electronic media.

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Kling, Rob and McKim, Geoffrey. 2000. " Not Just a Matter of Time: Field Differences in the Shaping of Electronic Media in Supporting Scientific Communication" Journal of the American Society for Information Science.  51(14):1306-1320

Abstract: The shift towards the use of electronic media in scholarly communication appears to be an inescapable imperative. However, these shifts are uneven, both with respect to field and with respect to the form of communication. Different scientific fields have developed and use distinctly different communicative forums, both in the paper and electronic arenas, and these forums play different communicative roles within the field. One common claim is that we are in the early stages of an electronic revolution, that it is only a matter of time before other fields catch up with the early adopters, and that all fields converge on a stable set of electronic forums. A social shaping of technology (SST) perspective helps us to identify important social forces centered around disciplinary constructions of trust and of legitimate communication that pull against convergence. This analysis concludes that communicative plurality and communicative heterogeneity are durable features of the scholarly landscape, and that we are likely to see field differences in the use of and meaning ascribed to communications forums persist, even as overall
use of electronic communications technologies both in science and in society as a whole increases.

[SCIT-4]
Kling, Rob, McKim, Geoffrey and King, Adam (2003) "A Bit More to IT: Scientific Multiple Media Communication Forums as Socio-technical Interaction Networks". Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 54(1), 47-67.
 

Abstract: We examine the kind of design conceptions that help us best understand cost and complexity of starting and maintaining a scientific multiple media communication forum, such as pre-print servers, field-wide data sets, and collaboratories. We refer to these various communication forums as Multiple Media Forums (or MMFs). We first present and document the model that is implicitly advanced in most discussions about scientific communications. We develop what we call the “Standard Model of scientific MMFs.” Then we present an alternative model, a model that considers technologies as sociotechnical-networks. This model provides a richer understanding of the scientific MMFs themselves, and also a more complete understanding of the conditions and activities that support the sustainability of an MMF within a field. We illustrate the significance of Socio-Technical Interaction Network models with examples of MMFs drawn from the fields of high energy physics, molecular biology and information systems.

[SCIT-5]
Kling, Rob, McKim, Geoffrey, Fortuna, Joanna, and King, Adam. 2000 "Scientific Collaboratories as Socio-Technical Interaction Networks: A Theoretical Approach" [e-print]

Abstract: Collaboratories refer to laboratories where scientists can work together while they are in distant locations from each other and from key equipment. They have captured the interest both of CSCW researchers and of science funders who wish to optimize the use of rare scientific equipment and expertise. We examine the kind of CSCW conceptions that help us best understand the character of working relationships in these scientific collaboratories. Our model, inspired by actor-network theory, considers technologies as Socio-technical Interaction Networks (STINs). This model provides a rich understanding of the scientific collaboratories, and also a more complete understanding of the conditions and activities that support collaborative work in them. We illustrate the significance of STIN models with several cases drawn from the fields of high energy physics and materials science.

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Kling, Rob, Fortuna, Joanna and King, Adam. 2001 "The Real Stakes of Virtual Publishing: The Transformation of E-Biomed into PubMed Central"

Abstract:  In 1998, NIH Director Harold Varmus proposed a national biomedical literature server called “E-Biomed.”  E-Biomed reflected the visions of scholarly electronic publishing advocates: it would be fully searchable, free to access, and contain full text versions of both pre-print and post-publication biomedical research articles.  However, in less than a year, the E-Biomed proposal was radically transformed, eliminating the pre-print section, instituting delays between article publication and posting to the archive, and changing the name to “PubMed Central.” This article examines the remarkable transformation of the E-Biomed proposal to PubMed Central by analyzing posts to an online E-Biomed discussion forum created by the U.S. governments’ NIH, and other forums where E-Biomed deliberations took place. We find that the transformation of the E-Biomed proposal into PubMed Central was the result of highly visible and highly influential statements made by publishers and scientific societies against the proposal. We conclude that: 1) scientific societies and the individual scientists they represent do not always have identical interests, especially in regards to scientific e-publishing; 2) stakeholder politics and personal interests reign supreme in policy debates, even in a supposedly status-free online discussion forum; 3) multiple communication forums must be considered in examinations of public policy deliberations.

[SCIT-7]
 Kling, Rob & Callahan, Ewa. 2001.  Electronic Journals, the Internet, and Scholarly Communication
For: Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST), vol. 37

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The Guild Model  Rob Kling, Lisa Spector & Geoff Mckim -2002. Locally Controlled Scholarly Publishing via the Internet
A revised vereson appears in the August 2002 issue of the Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP)

Abstract:Many librarians and scholars believe that the Internet can be used to dramatically improve scholarly communication via research articles. During the last decade there has been substantial discussion of four major publishing models where readers could access articles without a fee: electronic journals, hybrid paper-electronic journals, authors' self-posting on web sites, and disciplinary repositories where authors post their own unrefereed articles. There have been numerous practical projects within each of these models, as well as extensive discussions about their strengths and limitations. While some of these projects have become important scholarly resources in specific disciplines; none of them has become commonplace across numerous disciplines. There is a fifth model that has been quietly adopted and developed in a number of disciplines -- the research publication series that are called working papers or technical reports that are sponsored by academic departments or research institutes.  Many of these manuscript series are now made available to readers, online, and free of charge. This model -- which we call Guild Publishing --has a distinct set of advantages and limitations when compared with the other  four publishing models.  This article explains the Guild Publishing Model, provides some examples, and discusses its strengths and limitations.