Forward from the Editor

Esteemed Coleagues, Przewodniczšcy Rady Programowej Jerzy Sobota

    It is with great pleasure that we are able to present to you an electronic, scientific journal of the Polish agricultural universities.

    The history of its foundation was written last year and the idea of establishing it originated, at the end of 1996 during the discussions with young people at the Faculty of Land Reclamation and Environmental Engineering of the Agricultural University in Wroc³aw. This group of enthusiasts of electronic forms of communication trust that this media will be the future of communication in the scientific community. I must admit that at the very beginning I was not convinced about the bright future of this way of communication. However, moments of reflextion on the near future led to the conclusion that very soon, it will be inevitable that a computer monitor will persistently accompany us both at work and home and it will be difficult to live without it, and there will be the main source of information about the life of universities and research centres scattered around the world.

    A proposal to initiate a nation-wide electronic journal, presented by Prof. Tadeusz Szulc, Rector of the Agricultural University of Wroc³aw, to the Rectors of Polish agricultural universities gained their support. The idea was also supported by the academic community in a questionaire distributed within it. The initiative received the backing of the Ministry of Education and I should add that the support was expressed in a material form.

Further important events in the history of the journal include: signing of a letter of intent to found a scientific journal on the Internet by Vice-Rectors and heads of the Publishers representing seven agricultural universities in Bydgoszcz, Cracow, Lublin, Poznań, Siedlce, Szczecin and Wroc³aw in June 1997, and signing of the foundation act of the Electronic Journal of Polish Universities by signatories of the letter of intent in December 1997.

    As a result of the advancement of the idea, you are and will be the witnesses, and we do hope the co-authors as well, of the first issue of the journal. Your feedback, comments, suggestions will be welcome as we are not certain as to the end and the shape the journal should take.

    Issue 1 of the journal will be developed under your scrutiny since we are going to publish articles successively up to April 15. Articles to appear in the journal will be approved by a joint decision of the editorial bodies of the Publishers of the universities, signatories of the foundation act after being reviewed by at least one reviewer.

    Issue 2 of the Journal will be completed by the Editorial Boards of the Series and will appear on the Internet from July 1 to December 31, 1998. We anticipate that in 1999 EJPAU will be published four times a year, at three months intervals.

    You will be able to subscribe to Volume 1998 of the journal in print of CD-ROM. We would like to send a CD-ROM containing all the articles published in the Journal to all the subscribers in February 1999.

    At present, according to the decision of the founders, Editorial Boards of the Series, the names of which are given by Prof. Józef Szlachta in his Honorary Editorial, are being appointed.

    Faculty Councils, having the right to confer scientific degrees in the disciplines related to the name of the series, will be represented on a relevant Editorial Board. The other part of the Board will be filled with foreign members.

    I would like to express hope that an opportunity provided to the academics of the Polish agricultural universities to instantly present their scientific achievements and output on international forum will be used by them effectively and to their advantage. It is also the hope of the devotees of the Internet.
Podpis

Prof. Jerzy Sobota
Chariman of the Editorial Management Board
Electronic Journal of Polish Agricultural Universities
Editor-in-Chief
Publishers, Agricultural University of Wroc³aw
Wroc³aw, 31.12.1997