Electronic Colloquia in the WWW ― A New Form for Scientific Publications

摘要

The scientific community, especially the more computer related fields of science like computer science and mathematics, have not only been doing research in information technology, they have simultaneously begun to exploit its advantages for their own purposes. However, scientific publishing is different from other areas where information technology has been applied in that it requires publications to be not only fast, but also comparable to traditional media in terms of quality control and long-term availability. Peer reviewing and paper-based publishing are still the methods of choice to achieve the latter goals, restricting electronic means to more or less "inofficial" communications. Within the field of scientific communication, we find a number of types of communication with slightly different goal and character: From scientific journals with their extensive and, consequently, slow reviewing mechanisms over conference papers to ― nowadays usually electronic ― forms of publication by the author. On the other hand, and in spite of the delay incurred, peer review is advantageous: The remaining publications are reasonably filtered for quality, making the seriesworthwhile to read. The department for computer science at the University of Trier (Treves), Germany, is researching and implementing solutions in the area of information technology. In this paper, we will present one of our three main projects, the Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity (ECCC) We will introduce the specific situations it was developed for (Section 2.1), present the specific problems of interest and the chosen solutions (Section 2.3), and conclude with a report of current status and use (Section 2.4). Finally, we will outline our view of the future both for the field as a whole and for the specific project (Section 3).