JIME was launched in September, 1996. It's aims are:
- To foster a multidisciplinary and intellectually rigorous
debate on the theoretical and practical aspects of interactive
media in education.
- To clarify the cognitive, social and cultural issues raised by the use of interactive media in education.
- To radically improve teaching and learning through better interactive media.
- To publish leading international research on the theories, practices and experiences in the field.
- To link scholars and commercial practitioners
- Through its innovative use of interactive Net-based media, to be an action research project which explores the changing face of journals, and more broadly, scholarly practice in the age of digital publishing and communication.
Definitions
JIME's name is open to multiple interpretations, given the variation
in usage of each of the component terms. They are to be interpreted
broadly:
- Interactive - refers both to interaction through
the media with other people (e.g. teacher-student, student-student,
researcher-teacher), and to interaction with the materials
embedded in the media (e.g. control of a simulation or educational
game).
- Media - refers to the range of modalities which can be
used to support learning. Media may represent educational materials,
as well as other people relevant to that learning task. Media
embraces text, sound, still and animated graphics, video, model
worlds and virtual reality, as applied to the delivery of learning
materials and communication between relevant communities.
- Education - includes all levels and types: schools, colleges,
universities, home learning, open and flexible learning, distance
learning, personal development, skill learning, work-based learning,
lifelong learning.
Frequency of Publication
JIME does not have a chronological concept of "issue", this being primarily an economic artifact of paper-based publishing. JIME publishes articles for open peer review as they are received. Final versions of articles are published as soon as they complete the Review Process.
JIME's innovative review environment gives provides the opportunity to redesign
the conventional journal review model to be more open, responsive and dynamic:
- Authors have the right of reply.
- Reviewers are named and accountable for their comments, and their contribution acknowledged.
- The wider research community has the chance to shape a submission before publication.
The review process for JIME submissions is shown schematically below. (You may also find it helpful to read the Reviewer's Guide, which outlines the process from the reviewer's perspective)
Lifecycle of a JIME submission
This review model shows that
there are three stages of a submission to JIME: preprint under
private, open peer review, preprint under
public, open peer review, and finally publication. These are explained below.
Private open peer review...
Articles submitted to JIME are first reviewed by three reviewers who are named, and acknowledged for their contribution to a review. They post their reviews as threaded comments to a private site. Reviewers have the option of posting anonymously, but usually reviewers are happy toe named, and in JIME's conversational review model, it helps to know to whom you are talking, and hence, how better to interpret comments. Authors are encouraged to respond to these comments, and reviewers in turn (who may not necessarily agree with each other). This takes place during an agreed period when authors and reviewers are able to respond in a timely manner. We have found that this promotes more lively, productive discussions.
Publication as a preprint for public, open peer review...
On the basis of this discussion, if the editor assigned to the submission judges it to be
of sufficient quality -- that is, broadly acceptable, pending changes based on the review discussion -- the submission will then be published as a preprint for public open peer review, and announced to relevant communities to invite their participation. The author-reviewer discussion provides the 'seed' for this second phase of online review debate. This phase of open review will be closed
after one month.
The editor will post to the discussion an editorial report summarising the most significant issues, and specifying change requirements to the authors.
Following publication...
In conventional journals, the point of publication is the beginning
of scholarly debate. JIME brings this point forward by making
submitted preprints accessible, but of course continues to support
discussion about the revised, published article. In addition, the most interesting review comments/exchanges are published with the final version, providing readers with insight into the issues that arose during review, and enabling them to build on those discussions.
Thus, authors can post links to publications to point to subsequent work. Readers can post comments and links to point to work which has not been referenced, or did not exist when the article was written. Authors, reviewers and anyone else who has subscribed to the article will receive email alerts to new postings to its disussion forum.
The final publication will be freely accessible on the JIME site.
A few issues that this raises for authors, reviewers and readers
There are several issues raised by the JIME review model. One is the perceived risk which
authors may feel when exposing publications to large audiences
at the review stage. Submissions will be critiqued by many more
reviewers than is currently possible in the conventional review
process, and this will take place in a public rather than private
forum.
Another issue is that contributors to the public debate
may not wish to be identified for various reasons. While JIME prefers all comments to be signed, anonymous contributions are also permitted.
The willingness of both authors and reviewers to engage
in this process depends greatly upon the professionalism and netiquette
exhibited by contributors to the debate. The philosophy behind
this model is that perceived risks of this sort will be outweighed
on the one hand, by the benefit to authors of quicker and more
extensive feedback, and on the other, the increased opportunity
for peers working in the field to critique and shape a submission before it is published. Authors have reported that they have greatly valued the discussions that have emerged. Ultimately, we hope that these forces
can converge to create higher quality contributions.
JIME
JIME: An Interactive Journal for Interactive Media.
Simon Buckingham Shum and Tamara Sumner
First Monday, 6, (2), Feb. 2001 [http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_2/buckingham_shum/].
Also available as: Technical Report KMI-TR-99, Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, UK (2001) [http://kmi.open.ac.uk/tr/abstracts/kmi-tr-99.html]
Redesigning the Peer Review Process: A Developmental Theory-in-Action.
Tamara Sumner, Simon Buckingham Shum, Michael Wright, Nathalie Bonnardel & Aline Chevalier
Proc. COOP'2000: Fourth International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, (Sophia Antipolis, France: 23-26 May, 2000). [http://kmi/kmi-abstracts/kmi-tr-96-abstract.html]
From Documents to Discourse: Shifting Conceptions of Scholarly Publishing
Tamara Sumner & Simon Buckingham Shum.
Proc. CHI 98: Human Factors in Computing Systems, 18-23 April, 1998, Los Angeles, CA. ACM Press: New York. Also available as: Technical Report KMI-TR-50, Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, UK (1988) [http://kmi.open.ac.uk/tr/abstracts/kmi-tr-50.html]
Other Resources
Scholarly Journals at the Crossroads: A Subversive Proposal for Electronic Publishing (An Internet Discussion About Scientific and Scholarly Journals and Their Future).
Ann Okerson & James O'Donnell, (Eds.)
Washington, DC, Association of Research Libraries, June 1995, ISBN 0-918006-26-0.
[http://www.arl.org/scomm/subversive/toc.html]
Is the Journal as We Know It an Article of Faith? An Open Letter to the Faculty
Bruce Morton
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, 8 (2), (1997) [http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v8/n2/mort8n2.html]
Winners and Losers in the Global Research Village
Paul Ginsparg
Invited Address, Conference on Electronic Publishing in Science, UNESCO HQ (Paris, 19-23 February, 1996), at session: Scientists' View of Electronic Publishing and Issues Raised.
[http://xxx.lanl.gov/blurb/pg96unesco.html]
The Open Archives Initiative. Flowing from the work of people such as Ginsparg and Harnad (above), OAI is an initiative to disseminate research documents over the Net using open source tools enabling any community to set up interoperable document archives [http://www.openarchives.org]
Some slides that can be used if you wish to describe JIME in a presentation: PowerPoint format: JIME.ppt (1.3M)