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Notes from meeting with representatives of the A I Journal (AIJ) and Elsevier Science Publishers (Elsevier) on 29.4.1997
Participants: Mike Brady (A I Journal), Ian Sevenster + two colleagues (Elsevier), Erik Sandewall (ETAI).
Venue: Amsterdam, Elsevier building
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss possible points of cooperation between the ETAI on one hand, and AIJ/Elsevier on the other. Clarification or agreement was reached on the following points.
1. It was observed that Elsevier's present standard publishing agreement with authors allows the author to maintain the preliminary version of his/her article on-line, provided that it is not promoted as the final version, and provided that proper reference is made to the final version published at Elsevier.
2. It was confirmed that articles which have been communicated using the ETAI scheme can always be received for review and eventual publication by the A I Journal. The ETAI scheme, in this sense, means that the article has been published by an ETAI First Publication Archive (published, but without international peer review), that it has been mentioned in an ETAI News Journal, and that it has been subject to the open review-debate there.
3. It was also mutually agreed that, in accordance with common practice, an article can not be concurrently reviewed by more than one journal, and in particular, neither the ETAI nor the A I Journal wishes to review a paper that is concurrently considered by the other (or any other) journal. "Review" in this sense refers to the confidential review for acceptance by the ETAI.
4. It was observed that the ETAI has no particular interest in exactly how the First Publication Archives are organized, and by whom, as long as they satisfy the basic requirements set forth by ETAI. In particular, if it should happen that Elsevier (or any other publisher) sets up an FPA and offers it as a service to universities, then this is no problem for the ETAI. Articles published in this way can enter the ETAI system in the same way as articles published by university based FPA's.
5. The possibility of a reviewing pact between ETAI and the AIJ was discussed in a positive vein. The following would be the key aspects of such a reviewing pact:
6. It was observed that both the ETAI and the AIJ have an active interest in meta-level works, including survey articles, annotated bibliographies, and the like. These meta-level works may be conventional articles, but they may also be hypertext structures.
The AIJ is interested in pursuing this direction for the whole area of computational intelligence, and in a comprehensive fashion. It also wishes to include database query services using a search engine. The ETAI is interested in seeing it as a significant activity within each of the participating research areas, with some infrastructure support which is common for ETAI as a whole. [My comment: one might say that the ETAI is more oriented towards the authors of the meta-level articles, and the AIJ is more oriented towards the service-provider perspective].
Allowing for the fact that both ETAI-style "freeware" material and AIJ-style "commercial" material is going to exist, it was agreed that unnecessary duplication of work should be avoided, and that interoperability of the ensuing structures is very important. There is a need and a mutual interest, therefore, for active cooperation with respect to the infrastructure for such meta-level works, for example, for defining a formal naming scheme for research articles irrespective of their publisher. There is also a need and a mutual interest in defining a common framework for hyperdocument structures, so that cross-links from one structure to the other will work correctly and as intended. [My comment: it would be reasonable define all such naming and structuring schemes in an open fashion, so that participation by other publishers and organizations is welcomed as well].