Editorial ALT-J non-electronica

Abstract

The ALT Executive Committee has discussed on a number of occasions the question of making ALT-J wholly available in electronic form on our Web site (at present only the editorial and abstracts of papers appear), and even of turning it into a full-blown electronic journal. I have gently but consistently opposed this move, on occasions to the intense irritation of some of my fellow members, and always at the risk of appearing to be a Luddite. Explicitly ('Who, if not we as learning technologists, should be in the forefront of the soon-to-happen electronic-journal revolution?') and implicitly ('It is estimated that within two years, paper-based journals will be considered the dinosaurs of the academic world'), I have increasingly come under pressure to accede to an apparently unstoppable, apparently imminent change in the method and form of scholarly publication. I set out here my reasons for my continued resistance.