WIRESCRIPT1 WIRESCRIPT Web Interactive REview of Scientific Culture, Research, Innovation Policy and Technology

WIRESCRIPT2 Introduction  WIRESCRIPT: Web Interactive REview of Scientific Culture, Research, Innovation Policy and Technology  Started in 1998  Content acquisition and management by a team of volunteers in academy, industry and research  Web design, development and maintenance done at no cost by CYEN Technologies SRL, Spain  Web site hosted by World Wide Mart, Florida  URL:

WIRESCRIPT3 Objectives (1/2)  WIRESCRIPT is a Web information service on scientific culture, emerging technologies and innovation processes in Europe. Our goal is to combine the quality approach of printed journals with the unique possibilities offered by Internet delivery  WIRESCRIPT is not a reference for specialists in a given technical domain but a cross-disciplinary scientific popularization tool also aimed at exploring synergies between scientific research, technology and economy in Europe. When appropriate, WIRESCRIPT offers also objective analyses of policy-related issues relevant to its main focus

WIRESCRIPT4 Objectives (2/2)  WIRESCRIPT is meant as a timely, accurate, well researched and well packaged source of information written by researchers for researchers on different scientific disciplines as well as on pure and applied research, technology and funding sources  Our goal is to continue offering free access to readers, and to recover costs only through sponsorships and advertising revenue

WIRESCRIPT5 Design goals  Easy navigation in the Web site  Easy but high interactivity  Reasonable page download times  Easy reading of material on screen  Easy reading of printed articles  Efficient maintenance of the Web site

WIRESCRIPT6 Organization  Magazine  Education  Science and Technology  Information and Communication Technology  History and Philosophy of Science  Forum  Letters, News, Talk  Forum areas for all Magazine sections and individual articles  Mailing lists  Currently used only for announcements  Resources  Web directory  Yellow Pages with entries contributed by readers

WIRESCRIPT7 Technology  HTML  Generated from author’s sources, usually in MS Word  Conversion tools work poorly  Significant manual re-coding required  PDF  Not currently used  Planned to distribute printable version of archives  XML  Under study  Server-side PERL scripts  HyperNews: Comments and Forum areas  Yellow Pages

WIRESCRIPT8 HyperNews  HyperNews is an advanced public domain “groupware” system  Current release written in PERL 5, future releases planned in Java  URL:  Each article in the Magazine is wrapped in a HyperNews script that permits readers to post their comments  Features:  annotating material with comments  using either the Web or to receive and post messages  creating nested Forums areas  subscribing to individual Forum areas to receive new material by , e.g. authors subscribe to own articles to receive comments

WIRESCRIPT9 Magazine Sections:  Education  Science and Technology  Information and Communication Technology  History and Philosophy of Science

WIRESCRIPT10 Articles Content:  Formatted text  Graphics  Hyperlinks  Multimedia

WIRESCRIPT11 Comments (1/4) Comments may be attached to:  Main sections  Articles  Other comments Every page is the starting point of a dedicated Forum area

WIRESCRIPT12 Comments (2/4) Comments may include:  Formatted text (plain or HTML)  Graphics  Hyperlinks

WIRESCRIPT13 Comments (3/4) Example: readers post comments to articles

WIRESCRIPT14 Comments (4/4) Example: authors reply to readers’ comments

WIRESCRIPT15 Forum Forum areas for Letters, Talk, News Readers are invited to spontaneously contribute articles

WIRESCRIPT16 Search Full text search in Magazine articles Public domain search script in PERL 5, suitably modified

WIRESCRIPT17 Yellow Pages New links are proposed by readers and approved by editors Directory functions:  Browse  Search  Add

WIRESCRIPT18 Promotion  USENET Newsgroups:  New articles are advertised in relevant newsgroups  Direct bulk mail:  Most recipients find this annoying  Against “netiquette”  Discontinued after disappointing results  Link exchange

WIRESCRIPT19 Issues  Converting source material to HTML can be time consuming  No automatic format converter gives really good results  A good result requires significant manual work  Mathematical formulas are especially difficult to convert  Currently converted to inline graphics  The eXtensible Modelling Language (XML) may provide good answers to most technical issues

WIRESCRIPT20 Issues  Chicken and egg problem:  A popular magazine attracts good articles but...  … good articles are needed to make a magazine popular  Slow bootstrap without capital  Peer review:  Referees ensure quality articles but …  … may slow down publishing times  Does an article on WIRESCRIPT count as a peer-reviewed paper?  Advertising:  Advertisers only interested in bulk numbers in the range of 10k page views/day  Sponsorship appears a better option