(Extracted from an article to be published by Learned Publishing, Vol. 10, No. 2, April 1997; ©1997 Richard Charkin)

(Issue 3; posted March 6, 1997; archived April 18, 1997)

"Communities" has become a buzzword in the strategy departments of publishing companies - and I suspect elsewhere in the information industry. The business for which I work is involved in the creation and maintenance of BioMedNet, ChemWeb, LawCity and some other clubs on the World Wide Web. The word has been adopted by the information industry to mean whatever the user wishes. The latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1989) has no mention (naturally) of the Internet use of the term, but the meanings it does cite are interesting. Paraphrased below are eight definitions; my apologies to the Editors of OED if I have introduced distortions:

1. Joint or common ownership, tenure, liability etc;
2. Common character, agreement, identity etc;
3. Fellowship, communion;
4. Society, the social state;
5. Commonness, ordinary occurrence;
6. Body of individuals having equal rights or rank, as distinguished from the privileged classes;
7. Body of people organised into a political, municipal or social unity;
8. A body of persons living together and practising community of goods.

How far do the present-day electronic communities match these definitions and what will they offer to the world of scholarship?

1. The tradition of a community being owned jointly by its members dates back at least to the foundation of the Royal Society and probably further. The World Wide Web allows all scientific and scholarly societies to participate in the ownership of their community - and yet few have grasped the opportunities to date. They surely will.
   
   
2. Communities need a common identity. We thought when we launched BioMedNet that biomedical scientists would have much in common with each other. It rapidly became clear that within BioMedNet there are hundreds of subcommunities - by nationality, by discipline, by age, by research interest, etc. - and that only the very small communities have a genuinely common identity.
   
   
3. Fellowship is certainly a significant part of traditional learned societies. Much as we?d like to be able to report that the members of our clubs are forming friendships through the Web, we have absolutely no evidence that this is happening. And so conferences and travel and dinners will, I suspect, continue to be the main deliverers of community spirit - thank goodness.
   
   
4. The social state refers to the need for a community to have rules and etiquette. It is extraordinary how readily members have accepted the need for regulation and self-regulation. As Internet clubs develop there is a need to ensure that members do not infringe the rights of other members. For instance, the best security technology in the world will prevent copyright theft for only a limited period. We have found no evidence of illegal reproduction of information from the libraries within BioMedNet or ChemWeb. We cannot prove this, of course, but we believe that the communities we serve are essentially law-abiding and understand the need for copyright legislation and compliance.
   
   
5. For an electronic community to become really successful we believe it should become a commonplace part of life. We have to make the scientist?s electronic club the first entrance into the computer every morning. To that end we have invested substantially in alerting services, entertainment features, career development facilities, chat bars and the like. For an example look at HMS Beagle, the webzine of BioMedNet; it is an attempt to bring our members together in an everyday environment.
   
   
6. Electronic communities must be inclusive. Some societies aim to be exclusive - and for very good reasons - but the Web is by its nature democratic. Our clubs attempt to be welcoming to all members of the community. For instance, around 10 per cent of our membership describes itself as undergraduate - and a further 10 per cent as recently graduated. This is both the club?s future - and of course the future of science. Indeed, if there is exclusivity it is the self-imposed exclusivity of some distinguished scientists who have yet to realise that understanding of the Internet comes only through its use - a characteristic shared incidentally by far too many scholarly publishers and information providers.
   
   
7. Within the chemistry community, for instance, there are many political associations. It is vital as the new information world develops that these associations are part of the developing communities but do not sideline themselves by wishing to own their community exclusively. Another characteristic of political associations is typically the desire for their own continuance. It is not at all clear that all existing associations have a role or a need to continue in the new electronic environment. For instance the growth of international societies requires national societies to review what benefits they bring to their members.
   
   
8. I suppose definition 8 refers to hippie communities where goods are traded at no cost. Some of this will apply to electronic communities - for instance, all members of our clubs can see abstracts of journal articles free of charge - and they can advertise their availability for employment at no cost to themselves or their potential employers - but electronic communities cannot exist without commerce. We view our clubs as the forums where our members can trade with each other, where suppliers can find potential buyers and where scientists can purchase the supplies they need to do their jobs. Right now, two-thirds of our income derives from advertising, one-third from electronic commerce. We believe these proportions will reverse over the next two years.

It is clear - and becoming clearer - that the Internet is not merely a potential information delivery route but a vehicle for bringing together communities. One of the problems, however, is that much of the scholarly activity on the Web is driven by people with traditional information delivery roles - writers, publishers booksellers, subscription agents and librarians. While these functions remain important and legitimate on the Web, community creation requires additional skills that are frequently closer to caterers or advertising agencies or hoteliers. For the community we are creating at BioMedNet, some of these skills include soliciting and fielding constant feedback, establishing databases that encourage member-to-member communication, property development and landlord skills in setting up the shopping mall, headhunting expertise for the scientific employment agency, development of secure areas for financial transactions and meeting rooms, and automating linking technologies to ensure that members can navigate across related bits of information that reside in diverse sources - the library, discussion groups, member profiles and meeting rooms. In the area of advertising, a skillful sales force must be relied upon to both understand Web technologies and bring in funds that will initially be the primary means of keeping this community afloat. Marketing professionals must find new members, show them why they need new services, and ultimately convince them to spend money. Finally, some very great challenges are presented in publisher-to-publisher communication with regard to exchanging and indexing extensive data for optimal searching, contracting for the use, display, and payment of this information, and, in the case of BioMedNet?s HMS Beagle, developing a collaborative atmosphere in order to provide readers with a sampling of top information from diverse sources.

These have been the challenges to present the most basic tools for establishing an electronic community. But development continues as we grasp at ever more sophisticated Internet technologies. We are working on a system whereby a robot monitors member behaviour so that it can inform members proactively of new research relevant to them. We are developing systems to allow members to bill non-electronic purchases to their club account. Audio will be available in our meeting rooms from early next year - video soon after. We want to offer a Ph.D. publishing service for new members. Conference booking is growing - we wish to enable members to extend this to travel and hotel reservation systems, all through a single account and at the very best prices.

The future

Time will tell how electronic communities will develop. Will they be owned wholly or partly by learned societies? Do traditional publishers have a role - or should they focus on their core business of adding editorial value? Is there profit to be extracted or will communities replicate traditional societies where all surpluses are deployed directly to the benefit of members? Whatever happens it is clear that the world of scholarly publishing is going to change beyond recognition in the next decade - and most of that change is for the better.

Richard Charkin is CEO of the Current Science Group. He was formerly Chief Executive at Reed International Books and Managing Director at Oxford University Press.