Scientific publishing at the crossroads - a case study of the impact of the internet on the construction IT and construction management research communities

Electronic communication is changing the ways of scientific information exchange. We all witness it and practise it by using the Web, communicating over email and videoconferencing, however, what the implications of these change ares, how they quantify in scientific research, is not known. A survey in the fields of construction IT (2/3 of respondents) and management (1/5 of respondents) was conducted in February 2000, that sheds some light one these questions. The questions dealt with how researchers find, access and read different sources, how much and what they read, how often and which conferences they travel to, how much they publish, how they choose where to publish. Questions dealt with traditional and electronic publishing with one final section dedicated to opinions about electronic publishing. The shift that the web is achieving seems to be towards the "just in time" reading of literature. Also, users of the Web rely less on scientific publications and tend to read fewer articles. If readily available, journals are preferred, if not, the articles should be on the Web. People don't want to go into trouble of subscribing or even going to the library to fetch a paper - they go to the Web.The situation does not look good for new paper based journals. In these circumstances, the role of paper based journals published by established publishers is shifting from the core "information exchange" to the building of authors prestige. To be read, the author should build up his reputation by publishing in journals and relevant conferences, but then make his work freely available on the Web.