Editing papers for LRRD
On Line Formats for LRRD
E-mail addresses of the Publishers and Editors of LRRD
Tropical Feeds
Tropical animal feeding: A manual for research workers
The Ecological Farm On-line
The University of Tropical Agriculture Foundation
LRRD on CD-ROM
Rene Sansoucy will become assistant editor with specific responsibilities to share with the Chief Editor (T R Preston) in:
(i) the initial screening, pre-editing and formatting of papers prior to their restricted distribution to the members of the editorial committee who will comment only if they consider the paper unsuitable for publication in LRRD.
(ii) communication with authors regarding proposed changes to papers in the light of editors' comments.
(iii) the final editing of papers when each issue of the journal is closed and the definitive versions in "pdf" and "html" formats are prepared.
An editorial committee is formed whose responsibility will be:
(i) to receive (restricted circulation during one week to members of editorial committee) and assess all submitted papers to LRRD and to report within one week if they consider a paper to be unsuitable.
(ii) to review papers for technical content and to send their comments and suggestions to the other members of the editorial committee (a list-server for the editors has been established to facilitate this task) regarding technical content of papers and ways in which the interpretation and presentation of the data might be improved. The members of this committee are:
- T R Preston, Vietnam (tpreston@hcm.vnn.vn)
- Rene Sansoucy, France (rene_sansoucy@compuserve.com)
- Enrique Murgueitio, Colombia (enriquem@cipav.org.co)
- Andrew Speedy, UK (andrew.speedy@plant-sciences.oxford.ac.uk)
- Jorge Combellas, Venezuela (jcombell@telcel.net.ve)
- Frands Dolberg, Denmark (frands@po.ia.dk)
- Christophe Dalibard, France (email not yet available)
- Steven Lukefahr, USA (s-lukefahr@taiu.edu)
- Joergen Madsen, Denmark (joergen.madsen@ihh.kvl.dk)
Readers of the journal and authors are also invited to comment on the pre-publication articles as these are posted on the Home Page of LRRD on the Internet, on the CIPAV server in Cali, Colombia.
The editing procedure thus consists of four stages:
- Receipt of paper by Chief and Assistant Editors and initial editing and formatting in HTML.
- The papers are posted on the WWW but access is restricted to members of the editorial committee. The editorial committee have one week during which they give their opinion on acceptance (or otherwise) of the paper for publication in LRRD.
- Papers approved by the editorial committee are made available for widespread access (linkages are made from the LRRD Home Page). Editors and readers send comments which the Chief Editor (or Assistant Editor) convey to authors according to relevance.
- When 10 papers have been received and posted on the Internet, and a reasonable time has elapsed for comments to be received (2-3 weeks), the definitive version of each issue is finalized and published on the LRRD Home Page in both Acrobat ("pdf") and HTML formats.
In this way the basic information in the articles is immediately available to interested readers who can enter into an interactive dialogue with authors, for exchange of information, and to the editors for any proposed amendments to the paper. It is believed that this "transparency" is an improvement on the traditional system of using "anonymous" referees who are not always completely objective and impartial, especially when the research emanates from developing countries.
Responsibility for posting the pre-publication papers, in HTML format, on the Internet Home Page of LRRD and later the edited final PDF and HTML versions, is with CIPAV (contacts: Nick Waltham and Hector Osorio)
An advisory committee will be formed from interested collaborators. This committee could meet once yearly by "tele-conferencing" to discuss general strategy. It is also expected that members will assist in promoting the journal in their respective spheres of influence.
HTML ('HyperText Markup Language') is the native language for publishing documents on the World Wide Web and is understood by all Web browsing software. The journal, as the principal means of publication of developing world sustainable agriculture, needs to be easily available to the widest possible audience of interested people. Using HTML as the on online publishing format has three principal advantages. The first is that everybody who finds the journal will be able to read it with their Internet browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape are amongst the most common). Secondly, the Internet search engines such as Alta Vista, Infoseek and others will index the pages. Thirdly, articles can be posted on the WWW as a form of pre-publication as soon as they are formatted in HTML, thus increasing tremendously the speed of communication of information.
A counter has been installed on the LRRD Homepage to record the numbers of visitors. The trend over the 8 months since records were kept is shown in the figure. On average some 10 persons have been visiting the Home Page daily during the past two months, up from 6 persons per day in the first 6 months. It is intended to put a counter on individual papers which will provide valuable feedback as to which articles are attracting most attention.
All previous issues of the journal have now been converted to HTML format (thanks to CIPAV staff in Colombia), thus there is available on the Internet through the CIPAV web pages a library of nearly 10 years of research in the field of developing world sustainable agriculture.
To speed access for readers in Europe the LRRD Home page will be mirrored to the pages on the server at the Oxford Forestry Institute, UK and for readers in Asia it is hoped it will eventually be available on the UTA Home pages on a server in Vietnam.
The HTML version of LRRD is available on the WWW at:
http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrdhome.html
The MS-DOS and the Windows Help format are now discontinued. Undoubtedly, there are readers of LRRD who do not yet have access to Windows 3.1 or 95 nor to Acrobat readers or the Internet browsers. However, it is apparent that access to these more powerful programs is rapidly increasing in most developing countries. Preparation of the MS-DOS format is time consuming and it is not possible to incorporate graphs. The Windows Help format permits incorporation of graphs and linkages within and between documents, but it is also time-consuming to prepare.
We feel it is more important to dedicate efforts to the HTML and ACROBAT formats as both these versions are relatively easy to prepare.
Comments from readers and authors regarding these procedures are welcomed.
The earlier LRRD volumes (up to 8.1) will be maintained on the UNELLEZ server and can be downloaded by "FTP" from:
ftp://saman.unellez.edu.ve/pub/revistas/LRRD
The Chief Editor in Vietnam
There is now an electronic edition of the book `Tropical Feeds', originally written by Dr Bo Göhl, and published by FAO in 1971. The database (program prepared by Dr A W Speedy and Nick Waltham) is available on diskette from: The Senior Officer (Feed Resources), Animal Production and Health Division, FAO, Via della terme di Caracalla, 00100-Rome, Italy. An updated version (December 1997) has been prepared and is now available.
This new edition of the Manual for Tropical Feed Researchers, prepared for FAO by Dr T R Preston, has been restructured to reflect the changing role of livestock in a world committed to sustainable use of renewable natural resources.
Copies can be obtained from: The Senior Officer, Feed Resources Group, AGA, FAO, 00100 Rome Italy
The Ecological Farm, also known as 'Finca Ecologica', now has a presence on the World Wide Web. The aim of the site is to give a digestible overview of the technologies that are in use on the Ecological Farm. We hope to develop the site further, adding facts and figures, research abstracts and links to relevant papers, for those readers who want to follow up the subject more deeply. The URL for the site is:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ecofarm
The first MSc course, executed by UTA and funded by the Danish embassy in Hanoi, is in progress. It was designed as a 'learning by doing' experience which encompassed the development of practical skills in natural resource management through to the use of modern computer technology replacing the teacher and the classroom with a dynamic global source of information. The use of computers and email allowed each of the students to achieve their full potential through access to the most experienced scientists throughout the world, most of who have access to email. Students participating in the first of these courses are now actively engaged in their research projects.
Details are available on:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/utaf
A fully searchable version of all issues of LRRD are now available in HTML format on CD-ROM. Enquiries about pricing and forms of payment should be sent to: