General response: Some 8 journal requests received "n/a" or "no longer on this surver", etc. errors, effectively reducing the sample to 101 journals. Of these, 30 offered responses, a not untypical rate for first-round mail surveys. Very few of the "major" or well-known journals responded, and the North American, English, and smaller/weaker/newer journals were over-represented in the responses. Nonetheless, the responses were generally informative, and identified some major issues, and elaborated on concerns.

Summarization of Responses to the Initial Electronic Survey

Background:

1. What are the historical origins of your electronic journal?

E-journals have generally "spun-off" from print journals (either from board/editors' initiatives, or, more recently, from publishers marketing efforts), or alternatively have been "labour-of-love" projects of a few committed individuals; some major professional organizations (e.g., research groups of the International Sociological Association) have sponsored new e-journals. Not surprisingsly, social researce journals tend to have been university "supported" in the sense of web-access being "freely" available and computer literacy encouraged. Very few predated 1995.

2. Could you please supply a summary of its growth (in readership, submissions, frequency of issue, size of issues, etc.)

The near 10% "unavailable" messages from those surveyed indicate a considerable rate of attrition; this is offset by the astounding growth from a few dozen journals in 1995 to perhaps a 1000 by 1997 to an estimated 3000 in 1999 (of which about one quarter to one third are "social research" broadl construed.) As could be expected, in general, earlier entries from more prestigious institutions, piggy-backing on print journals have become most "established", with the largest readership, submissions, etc. But readership is difficult to measure for non-subscription "free" journals other than by notoriously unreliable "hits" counts. Nonetheless, the "hit counts" seem to be triple or more the previous number of print subscribers; even small "basement" journals reported 500 hits per issue; one excellent documentary photography journal reports 1.5 million hits per month from 92 countries!

A number of journals also mentioned seriously reconsidering the whole notion or structure of "issues", which the time-collapsing of the Web does not inherently support (for instance, one journal specializing in book reviews now does non-issue releases of reviews as they arrive.)

3. What are the demographics of your readership base/audience?

Again, for the non-paid subscription journals, this is difficult to determine with any certainty. Journals reported a "globalization" of readership e-mail response compared to their print-partners, and suggested more interdisciplinary contact. Understandably, the readership of social research journals remains social researcher based! There is some suggestion that younger (presumably more computer literate) readerships are developing. Additionally, the net-bias towards English is very pronounced (but this may well be an artifact of my survey selection procedures!)

4. What support (both individual and organizational) is available for continued publication?

Other than university provision of general computer desktop equipment, and free access to the web, plus supplying of some facutly and graduate student time, there seems to be almost no economic support--except in the case of the web-journals recently being spun off by commercial publishers. How long such "labours-of-love" can be sustained is questionable.

5. Are there other electronic journals associated with yours? If so, what is the nature of your relationship?

Other than the commercial multi-journal publishers, few e-journals reported associations other than reciprocally linking to compatible other journals.

6. What are the major issues and problems which confront your publication?

The major issue almost unanimously mentioned was lack of financial resources, and paid staff (or staff release time.) Overtime efforts and graduate students' contributions seem very important, especially regarding mundane, time-consuming tasks such as copy-editing and html conversion, layout, etc. Some journals reported seriously considering soliciting paid advertisements as a means of fund-raising.

A second concern raised centered legal issues around copyright (especially of graphic/visual material.)

7. How has the publication evolved in responses to changes in technological possibilities offered by the Internet and World Wide Web?

Most journals reported an attempt to utilize enhanced technological possibilities on the web--but only if and when they felt their audience/readership could manage and benefit from such. They explicitly avoided being "cutting edge" as that would entail cutting off their readership!

8. What are the major new directions in which the publication is moving?

Few journals reported clear trends here: one has a sense of short-term directions dictated in part by submissions, but also a recognition that web-changes have been so rapid as to mitigate against long-term, multi-year strategic planning.

9. To what extent are you considering:

--incorporation of visual materials?

--incorporation of graphic formatting?

--incorporation of interactivity?

-- incorporation of multimedia (video, sound, etc.)

A majority of journals claimed to have been willing and able to incorporate visual matierals, but had received few such submissions; most claimed to have incorporated some basic graphic layout, and interactivity in the sense of hyperlinks. Almost all were very concerned that limited bandwidth prevented and serious incorporation of multimedia in the immediate future.

10.What problems or issues do you anticipate in incorporating such changes in your journal? Any suggestions to address these?

Bandwidth and audience/readership lack of capacity was cited as the main technical problem, accompanied by the lack of technical expertise/staff in the available voluntary editing pool.

11. Are there any additional comments you would like to make?

Generally, the repondents seemed to appreciate someone being interested in their issues and problems, and expressed interest in being informed of the results.