Publishing Patterns in Journals

[nicole schadewitz]

Hello everyone,

What is your experience of publishing patterns in journals?

I am a bit in a conflict. A reviewer asked me to discuss all patterns
of a collection in a journal article. The reviewer was interested in
relations among patterns and a discussion about why and how the
patterns could be used. However, this is impossible due to article
length restrictions.

I wonder if I take some essential parts of all pattern and compose a
short format, but this might cause problems in understanding the
nuances of a pattern.

Alternatively, I could choose a related smaller set of patterns. i.e.
3 instead of 11

I am absolutely unsure which of those alternatives might be the better
solution.

Any suggestions or experiences are welcome.

Many thanks
Nicole

[Davinia Hernández-Leo]

Hello Nicole,
Some jounals allow hybrid articles with online materials linked to the
printed articles. In any event, you can also upload the patterns to
your institutional servers and include the links to the papers. I've
done this for a chapter of a book that will appear soon
(Technology-enhanced learning: design patterns and pattern languages,
co-edited by P. Goodyear and S. Retalis).
Hope it helps...
All the best,
Davinia

[Yishay Mor]

We took a similar approach in several papers. Including even one pattern in full often breaks your word limit. On the other hand, some of the details in the pattern might be technical or formalistic and not interesting for the journal readers. A good summery and some diagrams, along with a link to the the full version on the web should be fine. If you report on a collection of patterns, it may be useful to add a map of their relations.

Having the patterns in a good repository helps, as it is something you can reference. I would also argue that the patterns in the repository includes unprintable elements, and so it it justified to send readers to the web.

___________________________
 Yishay Mor, Researcher, London Knowledge Lab
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2008/9/24 Davinia Hernández-Leo <davin...@gmail.com>