About DAOL

• Aims of the Journal
• Background
• Frequency of Publication
• Open Peer Review Process
• Further Reading on Electronic Scholarly Publishing

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Aims of the Journal

Discourse Analysis On-Line launched in the autumn of 2002. Its aims are:

• To foster an intellectually rigorous multi- and inter-disciplinary debate on the practical and theoretical aspects of discourse analytic research
• To provide an innovative forum to support the development of interdisciplinary interaction and collaboration in the area of discourse analysis
• To publish leading international research on theories, practices and experiences in the field
• To enable discussion of the theoretical, practical and methodological issues faced by discourse analysts
• To use digital media to provide new opportunities for the publication of data, interpretations and research outcomes
• To be an action research project that explores the changing nature of journals, and more broadly, scholarly practice in the age of digital publishing and communication

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Background

DAOL is dedicated to the publication of research in all areas of discourse analytic work. DAOL makes maximum use of the digital text by giving writers the opportunity to include text, audio, still and video images and hypertext links in their published articles. DAOL also uses technologies that support an interactive and discursive review process.

DAOL seeks papers in all disciplines conducting discourse analytic work such as:

Conversation Analysis, Cultural Studies, Discursive psychology, Foucauldian Analysis, Interactional and Socio-linguistics, Critical linguistics, Critical discourse analysis, Discourse processes research, Feminist discourse analysis, Discourse and new media

DAOL is based on the technologies and methods developed for the award winning Journal of Interactive Media in Education. The D3E technology used to build and manage the DAOL and JIME WWW site is freely available. Please contact the D3E team for further information. Also see the Further Reading section for papers describing the technology and project.

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Frequency of publication

DAOL does not have a chronological concept of "issue". Issues are an economic artifact of paper-based publishing. As a digital interactive journal, DAOL posts articles onto a private interactive peer review website as they are received. Once reviewed they are openly published on the website as preprints. Revised preprints of papers are then published as final versions.

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Open Peer Review Process

DAOL's innovative review environment makes the journal review process more open, responsive and dynamic.

The review process for DAOL submissions is described below. (You may also find it helpful to read the Reviewer's Guide, which outlines the process from the reviewer's perspective).

There are three stages of a submission to DAOL:

1. Submission under private, interactive peer review
2. Preprint under public, open peer review
3. Publication of revised version with ongoing discussion

These are explained below.

Submission

Articles submitted to DAOL are first reviewed by three reviewers who are named, and acknowledged for their contribution to a review. They post their reviews as threaded comments to a private site. Reviewers have the option of posting anonymously, but usually reviewers are happy to be named, and in DAOL's conversational review model, it helps to know to whom you are talking, and hence, how better to interpret comments. Authors are encouraged to respond to these comments, and reviewers in turn (who may not necessarily agree with each other) may comment again. This takes place during an agreed period when authors and reviewers are able to respond in a timely manner. We have found that this promotes more lively, productive discussions.

Preprint

On the basis of this discussion, if the editor assigned to the submission judges it to be of sufficient quality -- that is, broadly acceptable, pending changes based on the review discussion -- the submission will then be published as a preprint for public open peer review, and announced to relevant communities to invite their participation. The author-reviewer discussion provides the 'seed' for this second phase of online review debate. This phase of open review will be closed after one month.
The editor will post to the discussion an editorial report summarising the most significant issues, and specifying change requirements for the authors.

Reviewing papers at DAOL is therefore open, responsive and dynamic because:

• Authors have the right of reply
• Reviewers are named and accountable for their comments, and their contribution acknowledged
• The wider research community has the chance to shape a submission before publication

Publication

In conventional journals, the point of publication is the beginning of scholarly debate. DAOL brings this point forward by making submitted preprints accessible, but of course continues to support discussion about the revised, published article. In addition, the most interesting review comments and exchanges are published with the final version, giving readers an insight into the issues that arose during review, and enabling them to build on those discussions.

Thus, authors can post links to publications to point to subsequent work. Readers can post comments and links to point to work which has not been referenced, or did not exist when the article was written. Authors, reviewers and anyone else who has subscribed to the article will receive email alerts to new postings to its disussion forum.

The final publication will be freely accessible on the DAOL site.

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Further Reading

Publications about on-line journals

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