tokyo

Full electronic versions of a range of Japanese scientific journals will soon be available, thanks to a government-led project giving technical support to help national research institutes and academic societies to deliver their publications via the Internet.

The online journal project was launched earlier this month as a collaboration between the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST) and the National Centre for Scientific Information Systems. It will allow journals to receive, review, edit and publish manuscripts electronically, at a fraction of the current cost.

Software developed by the two organizations will enable authors to download templates for their articles which will be peer-reviewed and edited electronically. Authors, referees and editors will have real-time access to papers throughout the editorial process.

According to JST, the project has received ¥0.5 billion (US$4.2 million) for the current fiscal year, and will initially do a test-run on the journals of the Physics Society of Japan. It plans to register at least 25 academic societies by next March.

A few Japanese scientific journals, such as the Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Japan and the Journal of Biochemistry, are already available on the Internet. But Japan's science publishers have been slow to use the advantages of Internet publishing.

“The demand for online journals has been very high, but academic societies, particularly the less powerful ones, did not have the capacity — either technical or financial — to venture into Internet publishing,” says Takashi Sahara of JST's information business division. “Unlike international publishers such as Reed-Elsevier and Springer, which hold a very strong position in the online publishing market, Japanese publishers have not been able to take a lead in this area.”