Re: Publication of scientific research

Thanks Sarven,
Yes, clearly we have a common pain here - seeing CFPs that aren't easily LOD compatible.
As others are saying, I think it boiled sown to the tools - if people (as organisers) aren't comfortable asking for stuff to be LOD-like because the authors won't stomach it, we should ask why, and how we can fix it.
Very best
Hugh

On 25 Apr 2013, at 14:15, Sarven Capadisli <info@csarven.ca>
 wrote:

> On 04/24/2013 08:01 PM, Hugh Glaser wrote:
>> Thanks Sarven, Trying to make sure I understand: So you are saying
>> that conferences should say that it will accept (only?) HTML. And so
>> the process for paper production for me is to save/export from
>> Microsoft Word as HTML, instead of doing a "print" to PDF, which is
>> what I usually do? Or do you have some other HTML production system
>> in mind?
> 
> Hi Hugh. Yes, I think HTML(+RDFa) would be ideal as far as data and structure is concerned. For presentation, naturally we use CSS, and if behaviour is needed we have JavaScript. So, one can style their papers in ACM or LNCS or XYZ. I wrote these stylesheets already! For everything else in between, we have other SVG, MathML to cover majority of the things that goes into papers these days.
> 
> As far as how people end up with HTML, I don't know. There are a number of ways I suppose. People use Word or WYSIWYG editors, or simply type it out. LaTeX, or anything else for that matter can still be transformed to HTML.
> 
> As PDF is still the dominant format, what I've done in the past is "print to PDF" the HTML+RDFa page (given that it used ACM, LNCS, or a thesis style). Needless to say, this doesn't get too far at the moment, in majority of the cases since the source LaTeX needs to be provided sooner or later.
> 
> I'm not proposing some fixed rules - this or nothing. If conferences want to accept PDF as a secondary format (even though I personally don't like this idea), it might still be reasonable for the remaining hardcore PDF fans. They can figure that part out. I'm only trying to emphasize on the need for us to get our priorities in order.
> 
> What I'm also saying is that we i.e., organizers, authors, and funders, all have an equal responsibility and need to contribute their own share.
> 
> Seeing major Semantic Web / Linked Data conferences announcing the events in these lists, meanwhile requesting the works to be submitted in *everything but* what they are trying to accomplish is rather contradictory!
> 
>> I hate PDF with a passion, by the way, but in the socio thingy of
>> being an editor of a proceedings, it can be an enormous pain when
>> people submit HTML that has local links to images, etc., even from MS
>> Word documents.
> 
> Just as conferences recommend template X to be used, it is no different for HTML. We can prepare these templates and stylesheets. But you are right, the potential issue with things like that is definitely there. There is probably no sure way of avoiding that. They need to fix their bugs eventually I suppose. I don't know. It'd be great if authors simply published their work at their URL and just "submit" or notify the reviewers of its location. Reviewers can save the document (at review time) to their local disk. With that, they get a snapshot for review. If authors want to continue to improve their work for the rest of society at that URL, they can go nuts. Reviewer need not be concerned. Oh, and how about an open comment system? Did we just accidentally, or indirectly improve the broken *closed* peer review system?
> 
> Again, I don't see a problem with the technologies nor our ability to put them to use. If one can type /paragraph, I'm sure they can manage <p>, if they don't know it already. For sure, WYSIWYG type of tools are still very important. If the conferences make the call, people might actually follow. But, I'd love to see everyone involved step up to the plate.
> 
> -Sarven
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 25 April 2013 16:05:18 UTC