BETTER EXPLOITING ELECTRONIC PUBLICATION WITH INTERACTIVITY

The transition from paper to electronic publication has mostly increased use of color and movies. The author-reader relationship remains unchanged: the reader must follow where the author leads. With the ever greater gaps between raw data and final interpretations made possible by increased computer power and larger and larger datasets, the ability of a reader to critically examine the constraints new data or new analyses impose on interpretation shrinks annually. Intermediate results are frequently inaccessible and occasionally irreproducible. The risk of accepting or rejecting new ideas mostly on prejudice grows accordingly.

This trend can be at least partially reversed by exploiting abilities in electronic publishing hitherto left fallow. Figures could permit the reader to interrogate datasets: equation parameters could be altered and shown against data with misfits. Multiple overlays could be combined in a manner most meaningful to the reader instead of the author. Three-dimensional interactive volumes could be explored directly without tedious redrafting. Specific map tools can permit interaction with geologic maps without cumbersome pdf software. Unfortunately, creation of these materials is not trivial. Without a demand from authors for these tools, journals are loath to allocate resources to create them, but without experience in interacting with papers in this way, few authors will demand such tools. Archiving is another problem: a current medium (e.g., Flash) could become obsolete and materials developed could become inaccessible. Perhaps some initial journal-developed templates could jumpstart the process: author-provided raw materials could be archived for each use of a template, and should the specific implementation of a template be superseded, new realizations of that interactivity could be achieved in new media with minimal cost to the journal.