The scientific journal, a role for mediation of information between researchers: what future in the digital environment?

Abstract

The arrival of journals in the seventeenth century followed a long period of informal exchanges of letters between researchers (letters of Père Mersenne, 1617-1637). They were tasked to gather scholars for research in common but also to control all scientific activity. Journals already had both the expertise and role of arbitration. Role for scientific diffusion allowing greater visibility of research, they become a practice of science (PRICE, 1961) and the scientific article the main form of scholarly communication. In the 1990s, the whole system of diffusion of science is affected by the use of the Internet at different levels depending on the discipline. Electronic publishing seems to have found its audience and readership particularly in science, technology, and medicine (STM) and seems to change the practices of reading and consultation. But these new uses they upset the conditions and challenges of diffusion of results? To answer this question we conducted an investigation with a population of researchers from a school of engineering in chemical and technological arts (ENSIACET).