It is growing rapidly. Growth can be estimated by performing an INSPEC search on the term "haptic". See [Chart] (updated August 2001). Although the publication rate seems to be tapering off in the last year, keep in mind that there is a delay before material gets included in the INSPEC database. Bottom line, at least 200 papers are published per year which mention haptics in the title or abstract!

Since Haptics-e is a brand new journal, it's reputation is not yet established either way. Promotion committees are made up of people from outside one's own discipline, so they will not in general be impressed by the composition of the Governing Board and Editorial Board. Our endorsement by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (in the form of "Technical Co-sponsorship") should help somewhat, but publication counting for the purpose of university promotion is still a very conservative business.

On the other hand, there is evidence that online publication increases the citation impact of your work. [ Report by Steve Lawrence of NEC research ] (Nature, Volume 411, Number 6837, p. 521, 2001.)

The bottom line is that if you are seeking critical academic appointments and promotions at the beginning of your career, and you have only a handful of journal publications on your record, Haptics-e may be too risky. On the other hand, if you are established (i.e. have tenure), or are in industry, or heading for industry, the benefits of fast publication should outweigh the newness of the journal. In the long term, I believe that prestige is assured for the following reasons:

• We have such a distinguished board
• IEEE R&A endorsement
• We are resisting the temptation to publish weak papers just to get started sooner.
• We are the first and so-far only journal devoted primarily or exclusively to Haptics research and technology.

One of the few advantages of paper journals is that they last a very long time and that their "format" does not go out of date in the sense that they are guaranteed compatible with the human eye for all future generations of people for the foreseeable future.

Electronic publications have three potential vulnerabilities with respect to archival retention. First, electronic distribution via the internet could fail. As internet business continues to grow however, a permanent global failure of the internet seems less and less likely (although transient failures may be a problem). Second, the Haptics-e server may go down and loose data. We have a robust network and backup system in place. We are now seeking a "mirror" site. We also have engaged a network of research libraries to regularly print out copies of all papers in haptics-e on acid-free paper and file them in case of an unforseen event which would cause haptics-e to go permanently offline.

Finally, and most significantly, as time goes on, the .pdf file format will become obsolete, and somehow we will have to up-convert to whatever is new.

This last one is the stickiest, however -- especially for multimedia content. There is a lot of research going on world wide on electronic document archiving. However we recognize that it is still an open issue. Our Constitution contains the following statement with regard to archiving:

Haptics-e is dedicated to universal access, and thus, will capitalize on electronic information technologies in all possible aspects of its operation. Thus, textual information, graphical information (static or dynamic), data sets, processing techniques embodied as computer code, as well as composite electronic documents may all be publishable in Haptics-e.

At the same time, the Journal recognizes that technological constraints will necessarily limit access by certain users or at certain times (e.g., due to network congestion). Therefore, for the foreseeable future, the primary mode of communication in Haptics-e will include written English text and the language of mathematics with supporting graphics (henceforth, to be collectively referred to as "text"). Other modes such as videos, sound, and haptic simulations, will be included as supplemental enhancements to text. The Journal's intent is that the text must stand alone for evaluation and use without the supplemental enhancements. Haptics-e will maintain the text component of all current and formerly published papers in one or more up-to-date electronic formats. In selecting these formats, priority will be given to the formats that give access to the greatest number of potential interested readers. As a "worst-case scenario, printing and rescanning will be performed.

In the event that the GB determines that Haptics-e should cease publication of new material, the GB will endeavor to make sure that the existing papers are available for at least 5 years free-of-charge on-line, using up-to-date electronic distribution methods. After that time, a method of "passive" permanent archiving will be found, such as transfer to a permanent internet archive maintained by a stable institution, publication of a CD-ROM, or publication in the form of a bound paper book. As an ultimate back-up, the Journal will print a small number of copies of each paper (text portion) on high-quality paper, for storage by a small number of highly reliable research libraries throughout the world.

Finally, we have established a network of Librarians at research universities who are volunteering to help us with archiving issues. Here are some thoughts from Glorianna St. Clair, a Librarian at CMU who is coordinating our Archiving Network:

[...]
 Roberta [Klatzky]
 
      [ ... ]
  I was pleased to hear that you are on the editorial board of a new
 electronic journal.  I know that many are concerned about the permanence of
 such journals, but I know that they can be migrated from computer system to
 computer system and continue to be available to faculty in the years to
 come.
 
      The best way to make that happen is to select a few university
 libraries as official archivers of the journal.  Our track record on
 preserving knowledge is good, and we will assure that the journal continues
 to be available. Carnegie Mellon would be pleased to do this for your
 journal through the partnership between the Universal Library Project of the
 School of Computer Science and the University Libraries.   The Project's
 home page is at www.ulib.org.    
 You can also reach it through the
 Libraries' home page (www.library.cmu.edu/) under full-text books.
 
      I applaud your decision to get involved with electronic publishing.  It
 is the way of the future.  Any suggestions you have about research that
 could be done to reduce the barriers to full acceptance by promotion and
 tenure committees of the work published in electronic journals would be
 greatly appreciated.  
 
                                             Gloriana St. Clair

Nobody owns Haptics-e. It is simply a scholarly discussion among researchers. For this reason, authors do not assign copyright to Haptics-e, instead, they grant permission to Haptics-e to publish their work. See the Intellectual Property Policy.

As soon as we have a dozen or so papers published, we will approach the indices for inclusion. In the mean time of course, titles, authors, abstracts and possibly fulltext (if supplied in plain text form by authors) will be searchable through standard WWW search engines as well as a special search engine local to the Haptics-e site.

We will define volume numbers (starting with V1 of course) and each paper will be its own number. Thus, one would cite a hypothetical Haptics-e paper as follows:

Jones, T., Smith, J., Takanaka, H., "New Algorithm for Fast and Stable Haptic Simulation of Organ Tissue Surfaces," Haptics-e, The Electronic Journal of Haptics Research (www.haptics-e.org), Vol. 1, No. 3, September 14, 1999.