Future development of electronic journals: a Delphi survey

This paper presents the results of an international and interdisciplinary Delphi survey on the future development of electronic journals. The expert panel comprised 45 scientists, publishers, librarians, journal agents and consultants. The survey covered five areas of interest regarding e‐journals: future role of scholarly journal literature; scenarios for the journal of the future; serials crisis; archiving of e‐journals; and new pricing and access models. The Delphi survey studied changes expected within the next five to ten years. The results are discussed and indicate that, throughout their 300‐year history, journals have never been faced with as many changes as we are experiencing now, or expect to see within the next five to ten years.