AN UNUSED FEATURE OF JRP'S PUBLISHING SYSTEM

One of the features of the Open Journal System (OJS) on which JRP is
based is the possibility of responding to journal articles by adding
comments. This feature has not been used at all thus far by the
community of JRP authors and readers. I have recently ventured to try
and see whether I could update my review paper in JRP 1(1) with some
relevant new information, and have found the feature less than
intuitively clear and easy to use, yet (in the end) useful. I would
therefore like to draw some attention to its pros and cons and explain
how you can use it.


PROS AND CONS

(+) The "Add Comment" feature might help us in making the journal
become more alive, as it allows readers to step out of their passive
role and take part actively in shaping the journal's content.

(+) It allows everyone to respond to articles, so that the journal
may (occasionally) become a pluralistic forum of exchanges.

(+) It allows authors to update or correct papers subsequent to
publication. This is of interest because the OJS--for good
reasons--does not allow modifications of papers once they have been
published. This is so because it is desirable (e.g., for purposes of
quoting and referencing) that both the contents and the URLs of web
publications are stable. Adding a comment resolves this dilemma, as it
does not modify the paper itself but rather generates an independent
short publication that will be placed immediately following the paper.

(+) It conforms and gives additional meaning to the spirit of
open-access publishing, in that not only reading but also contributing
becomes open to everyone interested.

(-) It may raise some issues of quality control that have not been
considered thus far. Are there limits to the content and language of
acceptable comments (e.g., regarding principles of fairness, political
correctness, and so on?)

(-) It raises editorial issues. Like ordinary papers, comments cannot
be edited once they have been published; but unlike ordinary papers,
authors can publish comments without any previous review and copy editing.

(-) It might thus tempt some contributors to get round the regular
review and editing procedure, which clearly is not the idea of the
feature.

(-) There might be some additional issues of abuse, in that the
feature might be used by people to post messages that have little or
nothing to do with the specific papers to which the comments are
added, and/or with the aims of the journal in general.

(-) Finally, there are some technical limitations which risk making
the "Add Comment" feature partly unattractive, and apparently have had
this effect in the past. Its formatting options and requirements are
limited, and the OJS gives no hints as to what these limitations are
and how to handle them. A "preview" option before saving (i.e. adding)
a comment is missing, and there is no possibility of editing a comment
after saving it, not even to correct typos or other formatting errors.

Regarding the last-mentioned point, I understand that the publisher of
JRP, AU Press at Athabasca University, is currently considering
options to support the "Add Comment" feature of the OJS with
additional functionality. However, as far as I know no decisions have
been taken as yet, and in any case such modifications have to be
implemented in ways that are compatible with all the on-line journals
supported by the OJS, that is, they demand care and time to be
implemented. Meanwhile, I would like to support and encourage JRP
readers and authors who wish to use the feature, by offering a few
hints that have resulted from a modest attempt of mine to use the
"Comment" feature for the purpose of updating my own review article in
JRP 1(1), and from some correspondence with the publisher prompted by
this attempt.


HOW TO USE THE COMMENT FEATURE

There are basically three options for entering formatted text into the
input mask of the "Add Comment" feature:

Option 1: You can write unformatted (pure) text directly into the
input mask and leave the (minimal) formatting to the OJS. That is,
just type your text into the input mask and ignore the entire
formatting issue. The only formats you will use in this case are line
breaks (just begin a new line) and capital letters. Thus, to highlight
titles, capitalize them instead of using bold type face (as I am doing
it in this posting).

Option 2: If desired, you may format your text directly in the input
mask by means of some basic HTML tags.

Option 3: Alternatively, prepare your text with a HTML editor and then
copy and paste the resulting HTML code into the input mask.

A few hints on the three options may be helpful:


OPTION 1: For longer texts, you may prefer to prepare pure text by
using a pure text editor such as "Wordpad" or "Editor" in Windows XP
and then copying the text into the input mask of the "Add Comment"
feature. Given that the input mask is rather small, this makes it
easier to overlook and edit your text before saving (adding) it as a
comment.


OPTION 2: To format your text either in the input mask or in the pure
text editor, consider the following hints.

a. There are two separate input masks for the title and the text of
your comment. The title will be formatted automatically and for this
reason should be pure text; do not insert any HTML tags or try to
format it in any other way. The text body, by contrast, will NOT be
formatted automatically but you may insert some HTML tags to this end,
as specified in the next point.

b. Use no HTML tags to format your text except from the following list
of allowed tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl>
<dt> <dd> <b> <i> <u> <img> <sup> <sub> <br> <p>.

(For explanation of these and other HTML tags, see, for example,
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp or
http://www.htmldog.com/reference/htmltags/).

c. Every use of one of these tags must be followed by a corresponding
end code that marks the end of the text to be formatted, according to
the rule: <TAG> is followed by the text to be formatted and by
subsequent </TAG>. For example, bold text is started by <b> and ended
by </b>. There is one exception though: the <br> tag, which generates
a line break, requires no end tag, as it is a one-shot occurrence
without continuing formatting effect.

d. Line breaks can be inserted by starting a new line as well as by
inserting a <br> tag, as the OJS automatically replaces normal line
breaks with <br> tags.


OPTION 3: If you prefer using a web editor to format the text body of
your comment, consider the following hints.

a. Use any web editor (other than FrontPage) that allows you switching
between WYSIWYG and HTML code. FrontPage is not recommended as it
tends to generate HTML code that is incompatible with the OJS.

b. Always copy and paste from the "HTML" view of your editor, rather
than from the WYSIWYG or editing views.

c. Of the HTML code generated by your web editor, only copy and
paste the part that is between <body> and </body>.

d. Do not use an email client software (such as MS Outlook) or a word
processor (such as MS Word) for writing your text, as they will
generate a lot of formatting tags that are not part of the allowed
HTML code.


Three final recommendations:

a. If you are unsure about any of the above hints, simply do not
format your text at all but limit yourself to using line breaks and
capital letters as your only means of formatting (as suggested under
Option 1 above).

b. Before saving your text and thereby publishing your comment, be
sure to check your text for editorial errors and to correct
them--there is no second chance to do so.

c. Keep your comments short. If you need more space, consider the
option of submitting your comment as a normal paper. The comment
feature is not intended as a way to avoid the journal's normal review
process. While not quite as fast, responding through a reviewed paper
will still get you published reasonably fast--one of the advantages of
an on-line journal such as JRP--and in addition you will benefit of
the journal's editorial support, which is apt to enhance the quality
and academic respectability of your contribution.

Thank you for considering these hints and recommendations.

Werner Ulrich
(Associate editor, JRP)