Introduction
Welcome to internet based education system in this century! People may hear something about the internet, the World Wide Web (www), e-mail, and internet-television from radio, television, newspaper, or magazines. In the 1960s, the first communication via computers was implemented with electronic mail on time-sharing computers. In 1969, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was developed as a U.S. government experiment in multi-site packet switching (dedicated telephone lines for data communication), initially to link researchers with remote computer centers for sharing hardware and software resources, such as computer disk space, processing power, databases, and computers. After that, e-mail was on this system in 1970. The capacity of ARPANET was not enough for military and universities to do research. For this reason, other companies developed The Computer Science Network in the early 1980s for universities. The user of internet increased after these years because of communicating easily. In 1986, the American NSFNet (National Science Foundation Network) was launched to help researchers to communicate. In 1995, MCInet and Sprintlink systems were established for internet. Today, the capacity of the Internet is developing very fast. For example, millions of people from different parts of the world can communicate face to face, and exchange audio, video, and text.
What is the Internet? The internet is a network of networks that connects
computers across the world into one gigantic global communication system
that allows all the computers on the network to share and exchange data.
People can send information from one computer to many other computers
at the same time via this network. Also, information can be received from
other computers.
Why Online
With the development of Internet, people began to talk
about electronic publishing which is a non-print digitally distributed
material across the network. TOJET is a result of this development of
electronic publishing. With this rapid development, Internet is accepted
as the fourth mass media. By the end of September 2002 there are 605.6
million Internet users througout the world (http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online).
Traditionally the means of communications have been Newsprint, Radio,
or Television. The World Wide Web is now considered as the fourth mass
media. The Web has all ingredients to be included with the other three
media. The social, technical and the economic features of the Web make
this an area to achieve importance. The mass audiance has never had any
significant input or control over the content of mass communication. With
the Internet these characteristics of communication have changed. One
copy serves too many, distance is not a barrier any more and availabilty
are some reasons that why TOJET is established as an online journal. TOJET
is planning to extent its readers by reaching every part of the world;
this can only be achieved by benefiting from the opportunities provided
by this global network.
TOJET and its goals
The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology
(TOJET) is an electronic academic journal founded by the corporation of
Sakarya University, Turkey and Iowa State University, USA in October 2002.
TOJET is ERIC cited since January 2003 and it is electronically published
quarterly. The important point that has to be mentioned is that the access
to TOJET online journal is free of charge. TOJET believes that education
is for everyone. As it is known, The Educational Resources Information
Center (ERIC) is an information system designed to provide ready access
to an extensive body of education-related literature. Established in 1966,
ERIC is supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational
Research and Improvement and is administered by the National Library of
Education (NLE). The mission of the ERIC system is to improve education
by increasing and facilitating the use of educational research and information
to improve practice in learning, teaching, educational decision making,
and research, wherever and whenever these activities take place. At the
heart of ERIC is the largest education database in the world-containing
more than 1 million records of journal articles, research reports, curriculum
and teaching guides, conference papers, and books. The ERIC system, through
its 16 subject-specific clearinghouses, associated adjunct clearinghouses,
and support components, provides a variety of services and products that
can help you stay up to date on a broad range of education-related issues.
Products and services include research syntheses, electronic journals,
online directories, reference and referral services, and document delivery
(http://www.eric.ed.gov/about/about.html).
Be in such a worldwide database add positive values to the TOJET.
Its address is: http://www.tojet.sakarya.edu.tr.
TOJET’s editorial board members are from Turkey and foreign countries
(USA, Europe, and others). These members have experts on educational technology
fields.
The journal (TOJET) is published in two languages Turkish
and English accepting papers in both languages. It is peer reviewed international
journal. TOJET is planning to extent its readers by reaching every part
of the world.
TOJET carry on its publication life via sponsorship of Sakarya University
and Iowa State University. Its ISSN is 1303 – 6521.
Higher education institutions, educators, education administrators, education
planners, knowledge administrators, strategists, educational communication
experts, private education institutions, instructors, designers, education
students can be interest in TOJET.
Mission statement of TOJET and its publishing values
Mission statement of TOJET is “Diffuse and share new developments on educational technology into international educational societies around the world” along with the mission statement, it is important to list the values, which TOJET holds as an important philosophy of Online Journal Publishing.
Publishing values of TOJET are below:
Readers: TOJET always pays
attention on its readers and their needs to develop their academic life.
Articles: one of most important issues of
TOJET is to provide the highest possible quality papers and articles to
satisfy the needs and expectations of all TOJET readers.
Journal members: TOJET is very selective
in adding journal expertise of high quality members, thus, aiming to provide
high quality publishing journal educational articles and researches.
Information Shared: one of TOJET’s
main goals is to share high quality information with the international
community and to develop search practices as to develop better and well-educated
societies.
TOJET’s Interested Fields
TOJET is interested in educational technology related theory, research, and practices as:
• Distance education,
• Educational technology,
• Instructional design,
• Learning theories
Indexing of TOJET
TOJET is ERIC cited and tries to be an indexed journal by carrying contact with:
PsycINFO (American Psychological Association)
Thomson ISI (International Statistical Institute)
SCI (Social Citation Index)
Evaluation publishing activities of TOJET
Totally more than 120 articles have been submitted to TOJET to get published online since October 2002. Each submitted three members of editorial board have reviewed article. After their academic peered revision, TOJET made decisions on the acceptance of online publication. In addition many educational technology activities have been done by TOJET up to now. These activities are as listed below:
• 3 issues were published in 2 Volume (April 2003).
• 31 articles were published in TOJET’s 3 issue.
• 1 online Distance Education book was published in TOJET.
• 1 international interview was done in TOJET.
• 2 international educational technology conferences were advertised in TOJET.
• TOJET and others held 1 international educational technology conference
Evaluation TOJET’s visitors’ Profile
Many people around the world have visited TOJET. Their profiles are as below:
• TOJET was by visited more than 13,300 visitors up to December 2003 since October 2002
• Average visitors per day is 30-35.
• TOJET’s visitors are mostly foreigners (70% foreign, 30% Turkish)
• TOJET has been visited up to the latest issue by people from countries such as; Australia, Europe, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Arabic countries, Africa, China, USA, Mexico, Russian Federation, and Turkey.
• The last 2 issues of TOJET indicates that average visiting of TOJET was around 3000-3500 per issue during the six-month period (from October 2002 to April 2003).
Conclusion
TOJET has been visited by approximately 13,300 visitors from all over the world. It shows that TOJET has succeeded to diffuse new developments on educational technology in educational societies around the world.
The Turkish Online Journal of Education Technology (TOJET) is an online academic journal which is published by Sakarya University, Turkey, and Iowa State University, USA since October 2002. Published articles arrived from Turkey, USA, Malaysia, and Europe. This means that TOJET’s readers are increasing as compared with the biannually issues.
References
Demiray, Ugur. (April 2003). “ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING AND ACADEMIC DIALOGUE BETWEEN ACADEMICIANS VIA ONLINE JOURNALS IN THE NEW MILLENIUM: A CASE OF TOJDE”. TOJET, Volume 2, Issue 2.
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