I'll end this section with a brief discussion of the history of electronic publication in Rhetoric/Composition and Communication, as it helps to have a broader sense of what other venues were being established and taking shape at the same time that Kairos was beginning. We are not the only peer-reviewed electronic journal in our field, nor are we the first. We are, however, the longest continuously running online journal (others have had shorter runs or gaps in production) and, I would suggest, currently the most independent -- as we are not directly affiliated with a print journal or with a department or research project. (While the English Department of Texas Tech University provided the server space and access for Kairos, the journal is not a Texas Tech journal or project; The Writing in Digital Environments Research Center at Michigan State University is also providing server space and access for the re-designed journal and special Kairos Projects, but we are also not a WIDE Center project.)

Arguably the first online journal in composition/rhetoric was Eric Crump's groundbreaking and innovative RhetNet, which began as an email list in 1994 and became a web-based journal in 1996. (The first electronic journal in the humanities in general is PostModern Culture, an email-only peer-reviewed journal established in 1991). The first web-only online peer-reviewed journal in composition and communication,CWRL: The Electronic Journal for Computer Writing, Rhetoric and Literature, appeared in 1994, that same year (1994) saw the establishment of John December's non-peer-reviewed Computer Mediated Communication Magazine (former Kairos editorial staff members Jason Teague, Amelia DeLoach, and Mick Doherty also served as editors of CMC). The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication was established in 1995. More...