Stretching the Web: Early Experiences with Publishing Applied Physics Letters Online
Timothy Ingoldsby, Director of New Product Development, American Institute of Physics
W. Daviess Menefee, Consulting Product Specialist, OCLC Online Computer Library Center
What are the characteristics of the ideal online journal?
Certainly, it must be capable of reproducing all forms of
information contained in current print journals. Beyond that, it
should support the creation of hyperlinks among the various
components of the document, and between the document and other
related documents or databases. Eventually, it should support
new forms of information transfer, including access to the
underlying data used to construct tables and graphs, an ability
to manipulate equations contained in documents, and support for
information types not possible in a paper-only journal.
Since 1988, the American Institute of Physics (AIP) has been engaged in a process
designed to transform its entire 250,000+ annual-page publishing
program to provide fully digital "pages," suitable for online as
well as print publication. By 1993, AIP had progressed far enough
in this project to begin to consider options for the creation of its
first online journal. It quickly became clear that the Electronic
Journals Online Service developed by OCLC - Online Computer
Library Center, featuring the Guidon(tm) user interface, provided
the best match of capabilities compared to AIP's criteria.
Accordingly, AIP began negotiations with OCLC, which
culminated in the signing of an agreement early in 1994 for the
development of Applied Physics Letters Online, an online version
of AIP's prestigious weekly letters journal. Working closely
with OCLC developers, AIP refined its SGML Document Type
Definition (DTD), based on the ISO12083 standard. In support of
AIP's desire to use this internationally accepted form for SGML
information presentation, OCLC developed a translation program to
properly process all elements of the AIP DTD including special
characters and equations in coded to the ISO standards.
APL Online became available with the first issue of 1995.
Already, it has attracted a substantial number of subscribers,
which should grow even larger when Physical Review Letters
Online, a publication of the American Physical Society
(APS) - one of AIP's Member
Societies - joins APL Online on the EJO system in
the beginning of July of this year.
At the same time that AIP was negotiating with OCLC, the
development of NCSA Mosaic, and its effect on the
hypermedia-based World Wide Web, created a great deal of interest
by both parties in producing a Web version of EJO. In addition
to the obvious similarities between the capabilities of documents
based on the Web protocols with the features provided by
EJO/Guidon, a Web version of EJO would extend the accessibility
of APL Online beyond the Microsoft Windows Guidon platform to
support Macintosh or X - Windows user communities. When surveys
of potential subscribers indicated a substantial population
wishing to use Macintosh computers, OCLC and AIP agreed that
development of a Web version of EJO would be desirable. The
first phase of EJO/Web was completed in time for the product
launch in January.
While not yet as full-featured as EJO/Guidon, the Web
version represents a dramatic engineering achievement by OCLC,
which has transformed the "stateless" Web protocols into a system
capable of retaining "session" information. To provide these
capabilities, OCLC has stretched the Web protocol to the maximum,
and beyond. For example, EJO/Web keeps track of what previous
requests have been issued by a user, and can use that knowledge
to determine what document should next be presented in response
to user requests such as "next document," "next page of results,"
or "previous page of results."
To unite the stateless and the stateful, a separate gateway
session is initiated and maintained at OCLC whenever a user logs
on, holding the information required by the OCLC online systems,
such as authorization number and profile information. This also
allows control of the number of multiple simultaneous users per
authorization. A unique, randomly-generated session id is
created and tagged to each transaction conducted by the user. As
the user interacts with the system, additional information about
the session, including current and previous search results, is
added to the information stored in the gateway system to allow
user navigation within the activity of the session. Once the
user logs off or is timed out, the gateway session is terminated.
OCLC's efforts to display the rich content of scholarly
scientific research documents has highlighted a variety of
shortcomings in the current HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
specification, Version 2.0. Beyond the obvious problem of lack
of support for special characters (e.g., Greek letters,
mathematical symbols, etc.), built-up mathematical formulas
(display equations), and overstruck characters, the interaction
of HTML files with the capabilities provided by various browsers
leave much to be desired. In fact, for physics information, the
data displayed on a browser may contain inaccuracies. To alert
subscribers to this potential, OCLC was compelled to develop a
symbol, a "caution" sign, that is displayed when characters may
be inaccurately positioned. Even now, most browsers cannot
accommodate super- and subscripting, certainly minimal
functionality for the accurate rendition of a printed article.
Additionally, users of these browsers have developed high
expectations for their local printing capabilities. These
expectations are rarely met.
Enhancements of the Web protocols and browser capabilities
to meet the needs of scholars and publishers will take time, and
will require the combined effort of the community. Projects such
as the cooperative efforts of OCLC and its journal publishers,
the NSF/ARPA/NASA Digital Libraries projects, and other network
publishing initiatives provide the test environment to define and
refine the requirements for next-generation Web standards and
browser enhancements. It is vital for scholarly societies to
assist or even coerce (politely, of course) the developers of the
browsers in order to achieve the necessary functionality for
scholarly communication. The form that this assistance takes may
include minimum specifications for community-wide adoption or
even a "recommendation of approval" by a society. The lack of
standards in this rapidly changing area will continue to foster
the development of popular features at the scholar's expense.
For further information about APL Online, send your comments to
aplonline@aip.org.
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