SCRIPT-ed REDUX: NEW CHALLENGES, NEW DIRECTIONS
Shawn H.E. Harmon and Wiebke Abel
Cite as: S H Harmon and W Abel, "SCRIPT-ed Redux: New Challenges, New Directions",
(2007) 4:4 SCRIPT-ed 301 @: <
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/vol4-4/editorial.asp >
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© Shawn H.E. Harmon and Wiebke Abel 2007. |
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As the incoming Editor-in-Chief for SCRIPT-ed ~ A Journal of Law, Technology & Society, I, together with the new Managing Editor, Wiebke Abel, would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank past Managing Editors and Editorial Board Members who worked so hard to make SCRIPT-ed what it is – a highly successful online journal at the leading edge of considerations of how new technologies are changing and changed by the law and society.
Over the course of its first four years, SCRIPT-ed has been a quality, peer-reviewed journal, serving as a venue for both early-career-researchers and such luminaries as Roger Brownsword, Ruth Chadwick, Graham Greenleaf, Valentine Korah, Graeme Laurie, Ken Mason, Andrea Matwyshyn, Chris Reed, and Raymond Wacks, to name but a few. With the journal entering its fifth year of life (the April 2007 issue will be the first of its fifth year), we are desirous of pushing the boundaries of scholastic thought and imagination even further and of enhancing the stature of the journal within the academic community and beyond. As such, in future, and commencing with this issue, SCRIPT-ed will have a new “personality”.
The re-imagination of SCRIPT-ed will have a number of consequences,
namely enhanced flexibility in publication, improved and broadened
content, and improved internal production processes and visuals.
Specific reforms include the following:
Appearance: The redeveloped website is intended to highlight the close and supportive relationship SCRIPT-ed has with both SCRIPT, the AHRC Centre for Research in Intellectual Property and Technology, and with the wider University of Edinburgh; relationships we hope to nurture to great mutual benefit in future. Being both more attractive and easier to navigate, the new website should make it easier to find the information you need, whether that be submission guidelines, back issues or general information. Users will also notice that issue 4:4 is accompanied (and enhanced) by a cover, which has a number of objectives. First, we hope that dynamic covers will distinguish SCRIPT-ed from other online journals. Second, just as we encourage written submissions from early-career-researchers, so we are happy to facilitate the work of early-career-artists working in any medium. Third, it’s art – it’s just fun! This particular cover, our inaugural cover, was designed by members of the Editorial Board in collaboration with Julie Robinson of Medical Imaging at the university, and visually represents the two homes of SCRIPT-ed – in code and in the University of Edinburgh. We encourage anyone interested in submitting something for a SCRIPT-ed cover do so (and to that end please consult the Submission Guidelines page).
Frequency of Publication: After much consideration, we have decided to revise our publication schedule from quarterly to thrice yearly (April 15, August 15, December 15). Though representing only a one-month claw-back in the publication timetable, this revised schedule will allow the Editorial Board to concentrate on its new and more vigorous peer-review process, and its greater volume of material. However, mindful that a month can be a long time in cyberspace, and that a major strength of online publishing is the flexibility and timeliness it offers, we are instituting a practice whereby any contribution which is time sensitive will be published early online (i.e. as soon as the peer-review process is complete). Early published pieces will appear under the Next Issue heading on the Home page and will subsequently be collated into the issue with which it is associated when that issue goes live in the future.
Scope of Content: In response to comments from contributors and readers, we are endeavouring to find a better (and more equal) balance of contributions within the confines of the historically core subjects addressed, which have tended toward intellectual property, information technology, and medicine and biotechnology. With a view to achieving this better balance, we have decided to avoid, under normal circumstances, producing special issues. Though individual issues of SCRIPT-ed may contain a “Focus On” section, each issue will endeavour to cover the broadest range of topics within the scope of the journal. Additionally, we encourage contributions on topics or issues that are new, novel or experimental, and thereby hope to find a better balance between the core (and obviously important) areas previously listed and other emerging areas of interest associated with technologies. In recognition that we are a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary journal, we are increasing our efforts to solicit contributions from a wide range of fields within academia and practice, notably legal scholars, lawyers, policy-makers, scientists and social scientists. And in an effort to emphasise this broad remit, we have identified the social in our name, SCRIPT-ed ~ A Journal of Law, Technology & Society.
Access to Content: A number of efforts have been undertaken to facilitate those using SCRIPT-ed as a research tool and to increase SCRIPT-ed’s virtual presence, thereby benefiting both users and authors alike. Internally, users will note the improved process of accessing and viewing contributions. For example, one can now go from the Current Issue page, which lists titles, authors and abstracts, to the redesigned journal pages, which pop up as a new window in either PDF, HTML or Word format. Further, the Archive is now more detailed, making it a more useful resource. Externally, we are registering SCRIPT-ed on the Social Science Research Network, the Berkley Electronic Press, and Lexis/Nexis, all of which should provide greater exposure for contributors and greater access for users. In addition, we will be the first journal whose content will be searchable in BAILII! A final element of this programme is the amendment of SCRIPT-ed’s copyright and licensing policy. Where the previous default licensing option was to use an in-house open access license called SCRIPT-ed Open License, we are now using as the default option a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No-Derivatives License. As noted elsewhere on this site, we believe strongly in open access and open content, and as Creative Commons has become the license of choice for a large number of journals, we have decided to join this trend as a means of enhancing content interoperability.
We do not wish to leave the reader with the impression that these reforms have been undertaken because the existing Editorial Board is dissatisfied with the SCRIPT-ed’s past accomplishments. On the contrary, we are confident that SCRIPT-ed can stand with any journal in the world, and we are convinced that contributors have offered insightful, and eminently qualified and quotable pieces of critical legal and social thought, and we hope to continue to meet the high standards set and to push the journal forward.
Indeed, in celebration of our proud history and in furtherance of our future goals, we are now preparing for the SCRIPT-ed conference, “Governance of New Technologies: The Transformation of Medicine, Information Technology and Intellectual Property”. This conference, to be held March 29-31, 2009, at the University of Edinburgh, will serve as a celebration of SCRIPT-ed’s 5th year; and in keeping with SCRIPT-ed’s origins (and strengths), it will be an international interdisciplinary conference with an emphasis on the work of post-graduate and early-career-researchers. For more information about the conference and to register, go to Conference page on the SCRIPT-ed website.