[SciPy-dev] Online SciPy Journal

[Robert Kern]

[Brian Granger:]
>>> Another thing that might be important is to have a rolling publication
>>> model like that of the physics arxiv or boost - rather than a
>>> traditional model of having issues/volumes published at regular
>>> intervals.

[Travis Oliphant:]
>> I'm not sure what the difference is between the arxiv "rolling" model
>> and the traditional model modified only to the point that you publish
>> each submission as it gets "accepted" as an issue.   I haven't studied
>> the arxiv model though.

[Brian Granger:]
> The main difference I was referring to is that in a rolling model,
> each article is published on a web site immediately upon being
> accepted/edited without waiting for the next "volume" of the journal
> to be published.  I guess the rolling model is more like a continuous
> stream of article, whereas the traditional model (of print journals
> for instance) is bunches of article packages as a monthly or
> bi-monthly "volume"  The arxiv is different in other ways, but I
> didn't have those in mind.

You two are talking about the same thing using different words.  :-)

Travis's "modified traditional" model is that of JStatSoft's: as soon as an 
article is accepted, it is immediately published on the web as it's own "issue". 
A "volume" is simply a fairly arbitrary number of consecutive "issues". In the 
"really traditional" model, maybe a dozen or so articles are published every n 
months in an "issue" and a "volume" is simply a year's worth of "issues".

The "modified traditional" model is just as much a rolling model as the arxiv's, 
it just (ab)uses the traditional "volume/issue" terminology to make the 
citations look more acceptable.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco