DPub S - Features

Features

After two years of development, DPubS was released in November 2006, also with thanks to a grant of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Its user interface utilizes XML (Extensible Markup Language) and XSLT (eXtensible Style Sheet Language Transformations) which enable a high-level of adjustment for the design of the Web appearance for publications supported by DPubS. Additionally, it has the following features: “scalable, single platform for electronic publishing,” allowing for the publication of several formats from one place; “rich presentation features,” due to the inclusion of XML; “multiple business models,” allowing both publications that are open access and those that are fee-based to utilize the software; “greater exposure and visibility of publications,” due to the use of OAI-MHP 2.0 (Open Access Initiative Metadata Harvesting Protocol) to allow metadata to be harvested from the content supported by DPubS and shared with users through services such as Google Scholar; “administrative management tools for non-technical staff”; “interoperability with institutional repositories” such as Fedora and DSpace (the latter forthcoming as of April 2007); “flexible and extensible handling of file and metadata formats,” allowing the easy use of PDFs, HTML, Microsoft Word files, PowerPoint presentations, etc.; and a “modular architecture allowing easy extension and customization. Cornell and Penn State seem to have been largely successful in addressing most of the goals stated by Ehling, particularly in its customizability. As intended, the software used to develop Project Euclid has been expanded in order to encompass non-journal publications such as books and conference proceedings. Furthermore, the DpubS software can be adapted in order to be used with other formats. This aspect of DpubS results from it being open source, meaning that the software’s coding has been made available, enabling programmers to develop additions and modifications of the software for their own and others purposes. While the administrative tools have been included, the editorial management services will wait for “future releases.”

Toward the goal of further development, Cornell University Library and The Pennsylvania State University Libraries has partnered with several institutions that will be using DPubS and providing feedback. As of April 2007, these partners were: Australian National University, Bielefeld University – Germany, University of Kansas, University of Utah, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Vanderbilt University. Along with Pennsylvania History mentioned above, other journals being supported by DPubS include: Medieval Philosophy and Theology, “a semi-annual, peer-reviewed journal . . . of medieval philosophy, including logic and natural science, and in medieval theology, including Christian, Jewish, and Islamic”; Indonesia, “a semi-annual journal published by the Cornell Southeast Asia Program . . . of Indonesia’s culture, history, government, economy, and society from 1966 to the present”; and Cornell Technical Reports and Papers, “a collection of publications from the Cornell Theory Center, the Cornell Computer Science Department, and other departments and units."

DPubS has been designed with the opinion that “libraries should get involved in publishing." As mentioned above, the traditional model of journal publication and the dissemination of scholarly information has been through those titles published by commercial publishers. Over time, the reputations of scholars have become strongly linked with the appearance of their work in these journals to the exception of publications outside of the commercial realm; some groups of scholars initially reacted to Project Euclid in a “skittish” manner due to concerns over the unfamiliar nature of its model. The creators of DPubs believe that libraries are uniquely positioned to play an important role in alternating this status quo. Efforts such as Project Muse, Project Euclid, arXiv, DPubS and other endeavors represent the kind of efforts that can be made by libraries and university presses to combat the challenges rising journal prices have presented to their budgets. Furthermore, due to issues of profitability, an increasing amount of scholarship does not get printed.

DPubS’ potential to contain the “cycle of knowledge creation and dissemination . . . within the academy and its close collaborators” could have a significant impact on academic publishing. DPubS positions itself to “encourage” libraries to take upon a new role with new responsibilities in order to alter some of the regrettable developments in the accessibility of scholarship over the past several decades. The hope is that it will help to increase access through electronic publishing by offering for free software that could easily cost six figures “for the initial licensing."