Note: for copies of this article or derivative works based on all or part of this article, the GNU Free Documentation License applies. Offline copies of this article and any offline derived works must include copies of the wiki history information associated with this article. Online copies of this article and online derivative works should either include the wiki history information associated with this article or a direct hypertext link back to this web page: http://academia.wikicities.com/wiki/Flexibility_in_wiki_publishing:_author_desires,_peer_review_and_citation
First Author: John Schmidt
Additional authors: If you have suggestions, please place them on the discussion page. If you want to be a co-author of this article, feel free to request that I designate you as a co-author.
Note: I intend to quickly slap this article together so that it can be used as an example for peer review.
Abstract. This article is concerned with anticipating the practical issues that will arise within the new field of wiki academic publishing. This article is intended to serve as an example for testing the practical problems that will arise during the wiki publishing process. The major issue addressed in this article is the desirability for flexibility in wiki publishing. Historically, authors have been forced to conform to restrictions imposed by printed media and conventional electronic journals. Wiki publishing offers opportunities for shaping the publishing process to the needs of authors. The value of flexibility will be discussed in the context of the different types of publications that arise within academic sub disciplines, in particular primary research articles, topical reviews, and peer reviews. A secondary topic of this article is flexibility to accommodate the needs of reviewers who are conducting peer review. In wiki publishing, new incentives are needed to encourage peer review. Peer review can have two phases during the wiki publishing process, an initial phase equivalent to traditional peer review and a second phase that continues indefinitely, even after formal publication. Finally, this article concludes with discussion of the need for a user-friendly and universal system for citations to articles published in wiki format.
Tools and Utilities
While there are advantages to constructing articles in a wiki environment, wiki interfaces such as Mediawiki currently have many limitations such as the lack of spelling and grammar checking and non-intuitive text and image formatting. Until such deficiencies in the wiki interface are removed, many authors will want to continue using conventional software such as word processors for the construction of articles. It is important that there we readily available and efficient utilities for converting documents such as word processor documents into wiki format.