SCIENTIFIC ELECTRONIC JOURNALS - STATE-OF -THE-ART AND PERSPECTIVES ON USER-ORIENTED DESIGN

At present, the potentials of electronic publishing are discussed prim arily in the context of scientific journals. Information specialists i n science, publishing and librarianship are discussing the possibiliti es of providing journals via telecommunication networks or CD-ROM. Sci entific societies, publishing companies as well as the scientist himse lf put a growing number of electronic journals on the market. Against this background, the paper describes the development and the state of the art of scientific electronic journals. Doing this, the essay focus ses on the functions of scientific journals and on user studies, which allow first conclusions about a user-oriented design of electronic jo urnals.