Online Publishing

A general model of publication

Although the medium and the material may differ vastly, essentially the same common process is always involved in publication (Fig. 1). For on-line publications this model makes it possible to automate many of the steps involved (see module on Automated document processing).

Figure 1. A model for the publication process. The same general pattern of steps occurs whatever the publication and whatever the type of material involved.

This model encompasses all the stages described earlier, but in a somewhat more formalized form. We can summarize the steps as follows:

Submission

The author submits material to the editor.

Acquisition

The publisher acquires material. Here we take this to include permissions. Details of the submission are recorded and an acknowledgment is sent to the author.

Quality assurance

The material is checked. Errors are referred back to the author for correction.

Production

The material is prepared for publication. This stage includes copy-editing, design, typesetting, printing and binding. Proofs are checked both by the author and editor and any typesetting errors are corrected. For books, an ISBN number is obtained.

Distribution

The publication is shipped to stores etc for sale. It is publicized so that people know that it is available.

The Internet offers advantages for publications of all-kinds. These include:

ÐŽP instant world-wide availability;

ÐŽP publication features of the World-Wide Web;

ÐŽP eliminating distribution costs;

ÐŽP reducing production costs - no need to print "hard copy";

ÐŽP potential world-wide audience; and

ÐŽP "niche"/special interest publishing becomes viable.

The World Wide Web expands the traditional notion of a publication in several ways:

ÐŽP it is possible to include multimedia elements;

ÐŽP it is possible to include hyperlinks to information anywhere;

ÐŽP it is possible to draw together information from many different sources;

ÐŽP hypermedia books are not limited to the traditional "linear" structure of printed books. They can, for instance, provide several alternative paths through a set of documents, or allow readers to pursue material to whatever depth they wish; and

ÐŽP it diminishes the distinction between tradtitional text-oriented publications and other products, such as databases and on-line software.

Legal issues

Legal issues abound in the publishing business. Although legal issues are not dealt with in detail here the editor should make every effort to keep up to date with issues and changes. Each publication should be carefully checked to ensure that legal risks are minimized. Some of the legal matters involved in publishing include:

ÐŽP Contracts

Publishers always need to ensure the legal status of material that they publish. For instance, there is normally some form of contract with the author that spells out the terms and conditions under which the material is published.

ÐŽP Copyright and permissions

Ensuring permission to reproduce material belonging to others is one of the most regular and time-consuming legal issues that editors have to face.

ÐŽP Defamation and libel

Publishers often bear the legal burden for offensive or damaging remarks made by an author.

ÐŽP Liability

Authors, editors amd publishers can all be held liable for damages caused by a publication. An example would be a reference of textbook in which erroneous facts and figures led (say) to errors in a building or circuitry and consequently to severe financial loss.

ÐŽP Plagiarism

Writers sometimes borrow ideas, words or material from other writers. Whenever they do so, authors should clearly acknowledge the source using references, footnotes or other appropriate device. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism. The easiest type of plagiarism to prove is where an author reproduces whole slabs of text from another author without acknowledgement. Copying another's ideas can be much harder to prove.

The nature of on-line publishing has several implications for the way documents are prepared for publication:

o Distribute the effort

When an author writes an article, it is not much extra effort for she/he to format the material as well. Every extra job the editor does has to be multiplied by the number of authors.

o Automation

Wherever possible the computer should carry out operations instead of the editor. Any process that can be automated saves valuable time. For example, correcting a single URL in 100 documents could take an editor all day; an editing program could complete the entire job in seconds.

o Need for flexible markup

It is important to prepare documents in a way that allows elements (e.g. references) to be extracted for other purposes or inserted from other sources.

o Need for standards

The above issues all require that information is always structured and processed in a standard way. For instance references should be structured in a consistent way. For many purposes on-line forms provide a convenient way of standardizing the content and format of data entry.

o Permissions

The potential volume and speed of on-line publishing demands a different approach to obtaining copyright permissions. One approach that is being rapidly adopted is to centralize permissions through a central agency. Rather than request that permission be given, the use of material is simply registered and issues such as acknowledgement and royalties