Re: scientific publishing process (was Re: Cost and access)

Hello,

My apologies if this is a repost (errors were encountered and my last post
bounced from the listserv)...

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 1:19 PM, Luca Matteis <lmatteis@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 4:34 PM, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:
> > The real problem is still the missing tooling. Authors, even if
> technically savy like this community, want to do what they set up to do:
> write their papers as quickly as possible. They do not want to spend their
> time going through some esoteric CSS massaging, for example. Let us face
> it: we are not yet there. The tools for authoring are still very poor.
>
> But are they still very poor? I mean, I think there are more tools for
> rendering HTML than there are for rendering Latex. In fact there are
> probably more tools for rendering HTML than anything else out there,
> because HTML is used more than anything else. Because HTML powers the
> Web!
>
> You can write in Word, and export in HTML. You can write in Markdown
> and export in HTML. You can probably write in Latex and export in HTML
> as well :)
>
> The tools are not the problem. The problem to me is the printing
> afterwords. Conferences/workshops need to print the publications.
> Printing consistent Latex/PDF templates is a lot easier than printing
> inconsistent (layout wise) HTML pages.
>
> Best,
> Luca
>
>
There are tools, for example, theres already a bit of work to provide a
plugin for semantic markup in Microsoft Word (
https://ucsdbiolit.codeplex.com/) and similar efforts on the Latex side (
https://trac.kwarc.info/sTeX/)

But, this is not a question of technology available to authors, but of
requirements defined by publishers. If authors are too busy for this
effort, then publishers facilitate that added value when it is in their
best interest.

For example, PLoS has a published format guidelines using Work and Latex (
http://www.plosone.org/static/guidelines), a workflow for semantically
structuring their resulting output and their final output is well
structured and available in XML based on a known standard (
http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd), PDF and the
published HTML on their website (
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011233).

This results In semantically meaningful XML that is transformed to HTML

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObjectAttachment.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011233&representation=XML

Clearly the publication process can support solutions and when its in the
best interest of the publisher. They will adopt and drive their own markup
processes to meet external demand.

Providing tools that both the publisher and the author may use
independently could simplify such an effort, but is not a main driver in
achieving that final result you see in PLoS. This is especially the case
given that both file formats and efforts to produce the "ideal solution"
are inherently localized, competitive and diverse, not collaborative in
nature. For PLoS, the solution that is currently successful is the one that
worked to solve todays immediate local need with todays tools, not the one
that was perfectly designed to meet all tomorrows hypothetical requirements.

Cheers,
Mark Diggory

p.s. Finally, on the reference of moving repositories such as EPrints and
DSpace towards supporting semantic markup of their contents. Being somewhat
of a participant in LoD on the DSpace side, I note that these efforts are
inherently just "Repository Centric", describing the the structure of the
repository (IE collections of files), not the semantic structure contained
within those files (ideas, citations, formulas, data tables, figures). In
both cases, these capabilities are in their infancy and without any strict
format and content driven publication workflow, and lacking any rendering
other than to offer the file for download, they ultimately suffer from the
same need for a common Semantic Document format that can be leveraged for
rendering, referencing and indexing.

-- 
[image: @mire Inc.]
*Mark Diggory*
*2888 Loker Avenue East, Suite 315, Carlsbad, CA. 92010*
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