Yet another scientific journal seminar

I have been giving seminar on electronic journal publishing since 2005 while I was still with Elsevier. The activity has become regular now, even though I am not with Elsevier anymore. The forthcoming seminar will again at Airlangga University, Surabaya (Indonesia) on June 4th and 5th, 2008.

The topic for the first day will be ‘Citation Index and Impact Factor’ while for the second day will be ‘The Marketing Mix in Scientific Journal Publishing.’ Actually the materials are improvements from similar topics from November 2007 seminar, with more materials included on the PowerPoint presentation rather than online. I also differentiate ‘marketing’ into ‘input marketing’ and ‘output marketing.’

Electronic Journal Hosting

I have been toying around with electronic journal hosting initiative for some time. Once we planned to set jurnaldigital.com with some commercial model, then the idea of Indonesian online dissertation and theses (similar with PQDT - ProQuest Dissertation and Theses).

None of them are easy. Both are challenges.

Indonesian scientific journals are published mostly by universities as part of their three pilars of function, and hence, very much for the sake of Higher Education General Directorate’s accreditation. This would include minimum printrun of 300 copies (yes! print!) with 300 subscribers (must have proof of receipt shown!).

Electronic journals? It’s just web site companion of the print version, at its best. Airlangga University has tried to go beyond that, but it still has a long way to go.

As for Online Dissertation and Theses, the main stumbling block is ownership of the papers. Libraries are not willing to let their dissertation and theses collection out of their premises. At best they give online access to the full texts using a special reader that would prohibit the files to be downloaded. This is the case with Petra Christian University, Surabaya. The others? You’re lucky to be able to browse the titles, but not the abstracts (let alone full texts).

At the end of this exhaustive search for some business model, we have decided to:

1. Postpone the Online Dissertation and Theses initiative and work with libraries in promoting OAI (Open Archive Initiative) instead. This would be in form of seminar, workshop or training for librarians or university’s IT personnels. Petra Christian University (Surabaya) and Atma Jaya University (Jakarta) has shown some interest and we may have the first seminar in January 2008.

2. Establish online journal hosting as a free service, as an extension to existing businesses. My colleague from Graha Ilmu Publisher will have http://jurnaldigital.com (which I planned to be in but not at the end) and myself will have Discovery Indonesia Journal Hosting (http://journal.discoveryindonesia.com). Both beta versions are available for browsing). I’m lucky to have my first hosted journal from Surabaya (Berkala Penelitian Hayati - Journal of Biological Researches) and soon another one from Bogor (Jurnal Teknologi & Industri Pangan - Food Science & Technology Journal).

Loosely related to this is my initiative for education materials hosting and sharing, which idea can be read from http://www.edu2000.org (Sorry folks! This site is Bahasa Indonesia only) and the archive of the late Neotek magazine (http://www.neotek.co.id). I might soon prepare a searchable repository for this archive. It might be part of edu2000.org initiative.

Migrating to Joomla!

I have just finished migrating my newly created online magazine, www.discoveryindonesia.com from just static pages of HTML (not even with CSS) to the most popular content management software today, Joomla!

I have known Joomla! since earlier this year and at that time there was not many interesting templates available, not to mention plug-ins. Today, however, tons of Components, Modules, and Mambots (or plug-ins) are available on the Internet. Either for free or for some fee.

I have enriched my Joomla! version of online magazine with Virtuemart, video plug-in and Google maps! Very suitable for a site promoting a vast country like Indonesia as well as trying to make some fortune while doing it.

The Joomla! version of www.discoveryindonesia.com is not officially published but accessable at www.discoveryindonesia.com/portal.

The Discovery Indonesia Online Shop was build using Virtuemart with actual products from Kalimantan Borneo. We haven’t really setup the logistics, but payment gateway using PayPal was already setup (paying to my PayPal account which is linked to a Singapore bank).

You’re welcome to shopping at this rudimentary online shop (a bad excuse of not being able to guarantee good service).

I learned that several of our former Neotek magazine fans (neoteker) are considering to continue the publication of the magazine in some form (online portal, weblog, or even underground tabloid!).

Maybe a portal using Joomla! would be suitable for Neotek Online. Any comments?

It’s Just About Time for the New Neotek

My former executive editor at Neotek magazine (print) reminded me that the expiry date of the domain name neotek.co.id is September 30th, 2007. It’s very nice of him to remind his ex colleague, however I believe we have updated the domain name on September 10th when we move the hosting to the same hosting company I used for www.esolusi.co.id

September 30th was always important date for me. It was the notoriously communist failed coup d’etat in 1965. It was the date of laboratory accident due to my fault at the time I wasn’t supposed to work at the laboratory (1978). It was the date I decided to quit my position as director of PT Elex Media Komputindo (1987) to start my own initiative. It was the date I restarted my career as an empolyee for bigger company at the now-defunct SERC (Sampoerna Executive Resource Center) in 1988. It was the date I joined PT Pantja Simpati printer (1989). It was the date I joined Periplus Editions (1991), Prentice Hall (1995) and now starting up the Neotek website and weblog.

I’m not a suprestitious type of person. The same date of all the above milestones is just a coincidence (or is it?)

Some of my other important milestones, however, did not started at September 30th such as moving to Singapore (August 2000), joining McGraw-Hill (December 2000), joining Elsevier (May 2004). Even the first publication of Neotek (October 2000 and the first meeting on the magazine was on June 2000) and establishment of PT Esolusi Pirantikita Esa (early 1997).

Anyway, do visit my websites:
www.neotek.co.id
www.newneotek.com/wordpress

Business Aspects of Journal Publishing

I have just finished giving speech (together with my colleague from HK) at the Higher Education seminar which was held at Twin Plaza Hotel, Slipi, Jakarta.

I presented a short paper entitled: Business Aspects of Journal Publishing, in whch I discussed the main  function of scientific journals, the development of journals and how journals publishing becoming big businesses, especially in the internet era.

The audience are representatives from ten best journals in Indonesia according to Higher Education criterion. They are representatives from the ten best journals including five which are eligible to get government grant for journal development.

My colleague presented Managing International Peer Reviewer, Strategy for Capturing Interests of International Contributors, Language Mastery for Scientific Journals, and Self-Editing and Revisions. The response are very positive for both his presentation and mine (not bad for only less than a week notice).

It was a great opportunity to meet a wide range of players in Indonesian scientific community.

http://kosasihiskandarsjah.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/business-aspects.ppt

The book on book as visioned in 1932

There is an interesting posting at Eoin Purcell’s Blog:
http://eoinpurcellsblog.com/2007/08/19/information-the-long-now/

Those who think that we’re very modern and digital should think again. The old concept of currently digital publishing on the Internat has been visioned in this book on book which was published in 1932.