MTT Transactions and Letters On-line
John P. Wendler
Raytheon ADC
Andover, MA
MTT has joined a number of IEEE societies in the IEEE On-line Periodicals and Research Area (OPeRA, formerly known as JOLLY). As a result, the current volumes of MTT transactions and letters are now available on-line to MTT Society member print product subscribers. New issues become available electronically on the same day as the paper versions are published, thus permitting researchers with long delivery lags to become current electronically. OPeRA retains issues for one year; older articles must be obtained through the bibliographic methods described in this article.
The on-line journals are identical in content and layout to the published paper journals. Members with access to a 600 dpi laser printer most likely will find a downloaded hardcopy version to be far superior to a photocopy made from the paper journal. Direct on-line viewing of articles is possible if the browser used for viewing supports Adobe Acrobat Reader® plug-ins, but the result is not as clear on the screen as it is in the subsequent hardcopy.
On-line Bibliographic Searching
The IEEE has made bibliographic searching available on-line for IEEE periodicals, conferences and standards produced since 1994. IEEE bibliographies on-line, located on the main IEEE Web site under technical societies and IEEE publications, provides searching capabilities for all conventional publication criteria (author names, title terms or subject keywords) through either Boolean or free-form search interfaces. Using either interface, the search returns a list of article citations; clicking on a citation yields the article abstract and a link to ASK*IEEE, the IEEE’s official document delivery service. Bibliographic searching on-line is a free service available to all IEEE members. Nonmembers can access similar commercial search services for a fee.
Even though IEEE member subscribers have on-line access to a growing number of articles (via OPeRA), nonmembers or those seeking older articles may require the use of ASK*IEEE. Prices for obtaining full documents vary according to membership, delivery location and delivery speed. A price list is available from the ASK*IEEE home page.
Requirements for Use
To utilize OPeRA, the user must be an IEEE Society member and/or member subscriber of that particular publication to gain access to that journal’s articles. For more information regarding access requirements for journals on-line, the OPeRA site should be viewed. Searching bibliographies on-line is available to all IEEE members.
Since both services are an IEEE membership benefit, IEEE members are required to register before being authorized to view articles or use the search system. Registration and membership validation are completed on-line and access authorization is immediate. As part of the registration process, the user will be issued a user number. This number should be stored safely since it is required for subsequent visits. A password, which is simply the user’s member number, also is required. Registration only is required initially; the same registration information is used for both bibliographic searching and OPeRA.
The user also will need Internet access, a Web browser such as Netscape Navigator® or Microsoft Internet Explorer® and Adobe Acrobat Reader software. Acrobat Reader is available free of charge from Adobe’s Web site, which is accessible from the OPeRA/bibliographies on-line registration Web page. In addition, Acrobat Reader is required to view OPeRA’s full-text articles, which have been stored using Adobe’s PDF distilled Postscript image file format.
Once Acrobat Reader is obtained, it must be configured for use with the Web browser. Alternatively, the article PDF file can be downloaded and viewed separately with Acrobat Reader. The IEEE provides a free demonstration of OPeRA from the main OPeRA Web site. Membership and registration are not required to exercise this demonstration in order to allow nonmembers to gauge the quality of the product and benefits of membership.
Copyright and Reprint Permissions
A society member is permitted to download and print articles indefinitely for personal use. The following official copyright statement for each article is posted on OPeRA: "Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. For permission to reprint/republish material write to: Copyrights and Permissions Department, IEEE Publications Administration, 445 Hoes Lane, P.O. Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331."