Welcome to a New Kind of Communication Media for Research!
There are two traditional ways of communicating research results:
through articles in scientific journals, and by a presentation
at a scientific conference. In the Electronic Colloquium
for History of Public Health, we have created a third way of
communication which is geared to the opportunities and the pace of
modern information technology, including of course the Internet.
The following are the characteristic features of the present
Electronic Colloquium:
The written research article is at the center of
attention in the colloquium, just like in journals and
conferences.
Research articles are published and refereed using the
Electronic Transactions
on History of Public Health (ETHPH).
The on-line discussion about research articles is
done within the Colloquium. Please visit this
example
of the interaction page for an article.
To see the menue of all currently discussed articles,
please click "received articles" in the color bar above,
and then click "[interactions]" for any of those articles.
We can offer very rapid communication. Received
articles are posted at once; questions and answers in the
discussion about an article also become visible very rapidly.
All interactions are reported using the
Newsletter that is distributed by
E-mail to subscribers.
Besides discussions about received articles, we also feature
panel
discussions -- much like panels at a conference,
but here they appear in writing; they are available for
everyone, and they are kept for posterity. All
contributions are citable
since they are retained on-line in a persistent fashion.
Our catalogue section
contains a structured bibliography
of the literature in the area, with a possibility to attach
discussion also to other articles, not only those submitted
to the ETAI. (Please click "discussion sessions" to see which
articles are presently being debated). It also contains
calendarium information: a list of forthcoming conferences;
links to homepages for researchers and research groups in
the area, and so on.
This Colloquium is an integral part of the
ETAI publication
scheme, since the discussion about submitted articles
is done here.