Scholarly Communication: A New Generation of Technology Copyright 1993 CAUSE. From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 16, Number 2, Summer 1993. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear,and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission.For further information, contact CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301, 303-449-4430, e-mail info@CAUSE.colorado.edu SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION: A NEW GENERATION OF TECHNOLOGY by Stephen J. King and Carol Taylor ABSTRACT: Currently, over $3 billion a year is spent on printed materials in higher education. Books, serials, computer print-outs, copies are all growing in numbers and cost. The advent of digital technology for the storage and processing of information and the rapid growth of the networked infrastructure for information distribution promise to transform the way information is delivered, replacing the paper model with the electronic. To realize the full potential of these developments, new coalitions and collaborations are needed among campus units that have traditionally acted as providers of differentiated, sometimes competitive information services and products. For centuries paper has been the standard medium for capturing, storing, distributing, and accessing information in the scholarly environment. The advent of digital electronic technologies now is precipitating what educational leaders have called the "second Gutenberg revolution": the transition from analog technologies (primarily paper, but also film, microfilm, audio and video tapes, and phonograph tapes) to digital capture, storage, and distribution of materials. The impact of this emerging technology on the academic community has already been profound. The vision of the electronic library has been characterized as a shift from archive to access, from "just in case" to "just in time."[1] The new technology separates content from carrier: music is no longer tied to a record or tape, a novel need not exist only on paper, and medical images and records can be linked together in one database.[2] The new technology blurs traditionally defined roles and separations between author, publisher, and distributor, and stretches the boundaries of existing legal conventions, particularly copyright and royalty mechanisms. After some hesitation, more and more players are changing from resisting the tide of technology to surfing the wave--or at least testing the temperature of the ocean. "It's a big, wide frontier where we're all trying to figure out our territories," as one "electronic media manager" was recently quoted.[3] Why now? Several factors are driving the multiple changes we see under way: 1. The rapid development of network infrastructure is one of the key enablers. The Internet now processes over one million messages daily. Regional and institutional networks connecting to the Internet backbone are proliferating; e.g., the New England Research Network (NEARnet), started only four years ago, now connects over 200 academic institutions. Hundreds of colleges and universities nationwide have invested millions of dollars in high-speed campus networks. Local area networks (LANs) on these campuses provide departmental and individual access to this worldwide highway system. At all of these levels, plans are under way to increase bandwidth and to improve network integrity. 2. The technology curve is another enabler. Computing power is currently doubling approximately every eighteen months,[4] while prices drop. The desktop workstation, connected to the LAN and the world, has the power and storage capacity to process and manipulate the information. The development of client-server software to enable networked printing provides an opportunity to leverage campus investments in workstations. 3. New technologies that form part of the chain include digital copier/printers developed in the last three to five years, high- quality scanners, library and document management software, finishing systems, and new storage media. At Harvard we have been working with Xerox, Kodak, Canon, and McGraw-Hill for the last two years in development partnerships. Prototype projects using a number of these companies' products and services with existing University facilities and organizations have allowed us to see the potential value of a "networked printing" vision. 4. Electronic publishing promises to reduce the spiraling growth in costs of scholarly books and journals, a major complaint of libraries, researchers, instructors, and students. Electronic storage, with networked access and distribution to desktop view for local "print on demand," saves inventory and production costs and shifts some costs to end users, who may choose to pay for a print copy. The rising cost of textbooks has forced publishers to look at new ways of cost- effectively packaging up-to-date, selected information. Teachers have already begun to move towards "course packs" to provide extracted, timely, and affordable information to students. What can networked printing technology do? Networked printing technology has the potential to transform the delivery of services such as production copying, offset printing, data center and server print output, departmental copying/laser printing/fax, and records/image management. For example, the registrar, admissions, financial systems, facilities maintenance, library archives, and other offices are all looking for ways to index, store, retrieve, and print high-quality images of transcripts, applications, invoices, real estate records, rare or fragile materials, and so on. The sophisticated document management systems already on the market offer potential for reduced costs and increased efficiency, but require major capital investments and the business structure to provide services to multiple users across the campus. Networked printing provides a new paradigm for the publication and pricing of books, handouts, manuals, and publications. The early application prototypes have included custom course materials, demand print, merging of scanned/digital/multimedia images, and electronic access with the ability to print excerpts. Some publishers and bookstores are taking the lead in this area, as well as a number of higher education associations. In a recent Harvard prototype, in collaboration with McGraw-Hill, textbooks for the Program in English as a Second Language were converted into PostScript form and loaded into the Primis database. Using software and print technology developed by Kodak, selections from Primis, together with scanned print material and instructors' notes, were assembled into customized textbooks for different sections of the courses. This approach allowed instructors to make last-minute changes in text selections to suit the interests of the students, after initial class meetings. Each textbook was paginated automatically, and a table of contents, title page, and index appended. Just-in-time printing removed costs of extra, unsold copies based on guesstimates of class size. The software provided automatic copyright and royalty accounting. And the convenience of the new system increased instructors' use of the publisher's materials. These prototypes provide a glimpse of the exciting possibilities of networked printing applications. Others are under way at many campuses. Library materials can be delivered to patrons electronically, with access to the holdings and publications of both on-campus and distant collections. Vendor documentation and communication can be stored on servers and distributed through networked printing. The preservation of and access to brittle books, archives, and storage media such as microfiche could be dramatically improved by scan-store and print-on-demand facilities and services. Increased efficiency of information management, office storage needs, and workspace use becomes possible with scan-store-print technologies. Studies have shown that typically over 90 percent of paper files are inactive. The search and access capabilities of the new technology may facilitate access to such material. What is needed? Networked printing services will realize their full potential as related technology services develop. Primary among these are: 1. Streamlined, online systems for monitoring, accounting, and billing for copyright clearance and royalty payments. Several prototypes are under way, including the Primis system noted above, which accounts for material within its database, and the Library Collection Services Project at Case Western Reserve University, in collaboration with IBM, which is prototyping a royalty manager system that tracks the flow of documents and associated charges from source to user. 2. Directories, catalogs, and key-word tools for database search and management. In the last fifteen years, libraries have automated many of the processes for acquiring, cataloging, and searching for paper documents. These tested library and associated industry standards form a good model for organizing and accessing image information in online catalogs worldwide. Faxon is developing an online periodicals index from which specific articles can be ordered for delivery by fax and electronic mail. Desktop document and image management systems are proliferating. Further partnerships between libraries, universities, professional organizations, and vendors would be a good way to coordinate the reengineering of information access systems to maximize the utility of the new information formats for different constituencies of users. 3. Standards for distribution of networked information. A subcommittee of the Consortium for University Printing and Information Distribution (CUPID), including Harvard, Cornell, Michigan, Princeton, the University of California, and Virginia Tech, has drafted a technical architecture for networked printing. The CUPID architecture describes the fundamental set of protocols and services needed to facilitate the benefits of networked printing across higher education. The system will employ origination and destination servers, will support image standards including PostScript and Group 3/4 scanned images, and will run on common network protocols including TCP/IP. The basic services to allow a networked printing request to be successfully completed include workflow management, authentication and access services, encryption, validation, document assembly, image conversion, Internet- related services, accounting, and system services. The CUPID architecture was distributed to vendors through the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) in November 1992, and a 1993 workshop is planned to implement demonstration and feasibility projects in collaboration with vendors. The challenges Networked printing provides a major opportunity to improve college and university administration and to effect change in the delivery of higher education. One of the biggest challenges in realizing the networked printing vision is to develop management models for the delivery of services to heterogeneous groups of users. Libraries, university publishers, university presses, bookstores, and information technology providers have perceived themselves as providers of differentiated products and services. Increasingly they are competitors, with a need to become collaborators. New partnerships are critical to the successful implementation of these far-reaching technologies. At Harvard, the Office for Information Technology has begun collaborations with academic departments and publishers to develop new models for course materials, with the libraries for access and support of online databases, and with administrative offices to model workflows in the networked office of the future. These partnerships are not always easy to achieve or maintain. Critical success factors include multi-year plans, high-level sponsorship outside the technology organization, an integrated or cross-disciplinary approach, and substantial funding levels. The benefits of cost savings, efficiency, increased productivity, avoidance of duplication, and leverage of existing infrastructure investments may seem nebulous in the current environment of cost containment and control, where each service provider seeks individual profit and advantage from new technologies. A dedicated service development and management approach is needed to overcome the barriers and promote cooperative efforts, especially in decentralized environments such as Harvard's. A senior manager can obtain institution-level support and bring together the talents and interests of many groups including the legal and financial offices, records management, libraries, bookstores, publishers, press, faculty, and students. The overall vision and inspiration must be combined with defined projects, serving real customers across a range of applications and providing measurable benefits in short time frames. These efforts both demonstrate and explore the value of the new technologies. Successful projects expand existing business for cooperating providers and attract potential customers who have not yet seen the fit between their needs and the potential of the new technologies. These processes are iterative as applications increase and costs decline, bringing the technology to a widening market. However, the realization of the document image and networked printing vision will ultimately depend more on cultural and behavioral changes in higher education than on the assimilation of technology or the transformation of existing services. Universities and colleges sometimes resist new ways for doing research and instruction. New technology can be intimidating, and expensive, often complex, and sometimes unreliable. Convenience and cost advantages are critical success factors. The growing ease of students with technology and their expectations for its role in their education, coupled with increasing faculty recognition of the possibilities of new technologies, will provide the "pull" to complement the "push" exerted by the new partnerships of service providers and vendors. ====================================================================== Footnotes: 1 Jon Baumgarten, "Digital Use of Scientific and Technical Information," paper presented at World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Worldwide Symposium on the Impact of Digital Technology on Copyright and Neighboring Rights, Harvard University, March 31-April 2, 1993. 2 David Baron, "Digital Technology and the Implications for Intellectual Property," paper presented at World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Worldwide Symposium on the Impact of Digital Technology on Copyright and Neighboring Rights, Harvard University, March 31-April 2, 1993. 3 Michael J. Jensen, University of Nebraska Press, quoted in "University Presses Try to Ride the Wave of Electronic Publishing," Chronicle of Higher Education, 24 March 1993. 4 Baron, op. cit. ********************************************************************** Stephen J. King is Associate Director of the Office for Information Technology at Harvard University, responsible for Data Center and Reprographics service organizations. He is a finalist in the 1993 Computerworld Smithsonian Technical Achievement program for the application of custom textbooks. Carol Taylor is a senior consultant in the Technology Planning and Support Group of the Office for Information Technology at Harvard University, providing coordination and support for University-wide IT initiatives in emerging technologies. **********************************************************************