Integrating digital technology in a field as traditional and historic as academia has had mixed consequences. Yes, the research is more widespread and readily available, but it also often becomes taken for granted. Methods of preserving knowledge become less important as the publication of e-journals, academic blogs and other mediums multiply exponentially.

In fact, recent studies show that less than 20 percent of e-journals are being regularly preserved, partly due to the confusion and ambiguity around who is responsible for ensuring these sources of knowledge are properly archived and kept accessible.

The Trend of E-Journals in Research Publication

Academic publications are currently divided into two main categories: the Print Era and the Digital Era. Prior to the Digital Era, there wasn’t a reliable method of archiving all of the publications that were produced on a regular basis around the world. However, each publication ensured that there were methods in place to preserve the knowledge by sending their work to academic research libraries and keeping their own copies stored and safe on hand. A source of information, once released through publishing as a book, might, therefore, never be seen again in the future unless the publishing company was rigorous about the methods they used to preserve the information, and this was tentative at best.

The advent of e-journals as the current and future trend in research publication takes this problem and magnifies it. There is no consistent, reliable tool that is used to archive and preserve every e-journal published on the internet today. Preservation, therefore, is left to the research libraries, particularly the higher-ranking academic research libraries.

With the Digital Era making storage almost unlimited, many of these libraries pay for the privilege of having online access to a publisher’s academic e-journals instead of buying hard copies and being responsible for storing, archiving, and preserving those books.

The Benefits of E-Journals

When libraries use e-journals instead of dedicating funds to subscriptions of hard copies of journals, they can spread the wealth amongst many subjects rather than paying for expensive publications with limited scopes. Online access also means that thousands of students on the campus can access the same work, at the same time, over and over, if it were necessary. Students can work any time of day or night on their research, and libraries can offer a broader topic range of information.

But there’s no guarantee that, without a tool to consistently preserve e-journals, the same work you used on your last research project will still be available when you need it again.

Preserving E-Journals

It’s a widely accepted fact that there are so many types of e-journal publications that it may be difficult for one method of preservation to work for all of them. Factors such as e-journal licenses, terms of agreement working with publishers, and technology and resources that would be required, including human power, to get the job done are all considerations that must be dealt with before a consistent method of preservation is framed. But with all of those challenges out of the way, promotion the preservation of e-journals is possible through strategies such as:

●      Determining which e-journal content is qualitative and quantitatively important and also likely to disappear if it’s not preserved timely enough

●      Categorizing titles into the most highly prioritized areas to ensure those strategies of preservation are taken care of first

●      Framing a guideline of methodologies, including developing tools to use, to preserve these titles

●      Ensuring all findings are shared universally for everyone to be able to access the e-journals continually

●      Promoting the methods used to preserve e-journals around the world to encourage libraries, researchers, and publishers to work towards employing these methods actively and consistently

●      Creating opportunities for those involved in the preservation process to discuss and share ideas of what works and doesn’t to continually enhance and improve the preservation strategies, particularly as the advent of the Digital Era continues to change and evolve

By including all of these processes in the push for better preservation of e-journals, the problem can be approached and addressed on a global level, particularly when more people are made aware of the problem.

Impactio Stores Your E-Journals For You

Not every program you use to compile your journals and articles stores your work on their secure drive, but Impactio does. When you complete your research and compile your findings through Impactio’s all-in-one platform, the work you’re saving is there for you.

Impactio takes researchers from start to finish of the publishing process, as you put your text together and create your charts, tables, and graphs from citation and publication data, all the way through until you’re ready to turn your completed work into professional PDF documents and web pages ready for publishing.

Whether you’re sending your work to a print publisher or adding it to an e-journal, use Impactio to turn your important research into professional profiles and a place to store all your research work.