Back to the Beginning — The Journal is Dead, Long Live Science

This paper synthesises literature on the evolution of the academic journal, showing that the weaknesses of the journal strategy of science information dissemination are nothing new in the history of science. The paper avers that information technology has provided a solution to the age-long constraints associated with the journal. It is shown that by expanding the public's participation in science, and by enabling research results to be presented to the public in various formats, the rapid development in electronic technologies has touched the essential structure and functions of the journal. Formal and informal means of science dissemination and communication have emerged to blur the boundaries between journals, articles and ideas. Most significantly, the journal as an information product has been dismembered into different new and legitimate forms of the research effort, formerly packaged as a single product.