Extending the scope of STI-Studies

During a very short period of time, the internet has changed the way of doing things in many areas of society. Nowadays we are accustomed to communicate, to order goods or do business via the World Wide Web. Only a decade after these processes took off, one can hardly imagine a world without computers and net-works everywhere. Three articles in this volume of STI-Studies explore these developments. Frank Kleeman, Gunter Vos, and Kerstin Rieder analyze a new phenomenon named “crowdsourcing”, which has altered the roles of producers and consumers in inter-net-based businesses. Niels Taubert’s article deals with decision-making processes in open-source projects – a new mode of voluntary distant cooperation that only came about by the novel opportunities of the internet. Jorg Potthast asks for the new quality of digital media in controlling complex systems. In the fourth contribu-tion Joscha Wullweber presents an analysis of nanotechnology-discourses, drawing our attention to another strand of technological innovation, which might revolu-tionize our lives as well. STI-Studies is a product of the internet age, too. By utilizing the new opportunities of online publication we launched the “first internationally oriented, reviewed online journal for the German speaking STI community” – a description we have been using up to now as a kind of subtitle of the journal, indicating that a kind of self-imposed ‘provincialism’ could be helpful to get things started and to assist the German speaking STI community to get better access to the international scene. However, the responses we received during the last years indicate that STI-Studies meanwhile has become a ‘normal’ journal which – thanks to the internet – gener-ates requests (and article submissions) from all over the world. This is why we are now going to change our editorial policy, opening the journal tentatively for contributions from authors outside the German speaking STI com-munity. The next issues will show if we can balance these different objectives: maintaining and expanding an international orientation, guaranteeing high quality standards and – still important – providing a platform for a community that is on its way to get across the borders.