Papers describing IMEJ:

The State of the Art in Interactive Multimedia Journals for Academia, by Jennifer Burg, Yue-Ling Wong, Ching-Wan Yip, and Anne Boyle.  ED-MEDIA 2000, AACE, June 2000, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Publishing an imej Journal for Computer-Enhanced Learning, by Jennifer Burg, Yue-Ling Wong, Dan Pfeifer, Anne Boyle, and Ching-Wan Yip.  ED-MEDIA '99, AACE, June 1999, Seattle WA.

The IMEJ of Future Scholarship: A Prototype for an Interactive Multimedia Electronic Journal by J. Burg, Y.-L. Wong, and A. Boyle, ED-MEDIA & EDTELECOM '98, AACE, June 1998, Freiburg, Germany.  (Published in ED-MEDIA/ED-TELECOM Proceedings, Vol. 1, pp. 180-185.) 

IMEJ is a prototype for an interactive multimedia electronic journal edited and produced at Wake Forest University. 

The goals of IMEJ are

  • to provide a peer-reviewed forum for innovations in computer-enhanced learning, 
  • to serve as a model and testbed for an electronic journal with a high level of multimedia and interactivity, and
  • to advance the acceptance of electronic publication as a legitimate and valuable form of academic discourse.
As a leader in computer-enhanced learning, Wake Forest University is an ideal setting for the production of IMEJ. In the fall of 1996, Wake Forest's Project 2000 set in motion a new computer initiative which places a personal laptop computer into the hands of every student and faculty member. Dorms, offices, and classrooms have been wired with network connections. The challenge before us now is to live and learn with technology. We see our leadership role as carrying with it a certain responsibility to use the computer for the right reasons in education -- not simply because it is there, not simply because technology is "in" in these turn-of-the-millennium years -- but because the computer can sometimes, in some applications, truly enhance the learning environment. What is needed is careful objectivity and intellectual honesty about our supposed teaching innovations, imposed through a description and presentation of our new approaches, informed and tempered by peer-review. Our intention is that IMEJ help move us in this direction.

Computer-enhanced learning is an ideal subject for IMEJ. The articles in IMEJ will be about effective uses of technology in any and all disciplines within higher education. Authors will describe how they use computers in their teaching, making a computer-based presentation natural and direct. With the topic of computer-enhanced learning as its base, IMEJ can then serve as a model and testbed for the kind of journal which must inevitably take its place in the new world of publication -- an electronic journal in which articles are dynamic, engage the reader interactively with simulations and experimentation, allow communication with the author, and offer sound and motion along with traditional text. In designing and creating IMEJ, we hope to bring to light the unique or difficult issues that must be dealt with in the production of a journal such as this, sharing our solutions and conclusions.

There is no doubt that journals are going on-line, and that the intellectual rigor of carefully-crafted writing elucidated with images, sound, interactivity, and non-linear hyperlinked organization can lead us to a new and rich kind of communication. Electronic journals will eventually be legitimized in the academic world, but not until they combine proper peer review with technical expertise in production. By holding ourselves to high editorial and production standards, we would like to advance the acceptance of IMEJ-type publications as a valuable form of academic discourse.

We welcome your ideas and contributions.

Jennifer J. Burg
Founding Editor
burg@mthcsc.wfu.edu