An open-source scholarly authoring and publishing platform based on WordPress

New models of scholarly communication

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PLoS Currents: Key features

• Registration: Articles are date-stamped and citable• Certification: Reviewed by expert researchers• Dissemination: All content is open access• Preservation: Archived at PubMed Central

“The key goal of PLoS: Currents is to accelerate scientific discovery by allowing researchers to share their latest findings and ideas immediately with the world's scientific and medical communities.” – Harold Varmis (http://blogs.plos.org/plos/2009/08/a-new-website-for-the-rapid-sharing-of-influenza-research/)

PLoS: Currents on knol.google.com

PLoS:Currents – review workflow

1. Editor selects reviewers 2. Reviewers enter comments

3. Approved content published to Knol and PubMed Central

PLoS:Currents limitations

• DTD/Structural conformance has been a challenge• Manual fixes to markup

• No import of existing content (compilations, re-use)

• Single-source hosting – features, workflow, etc. cannot be brought in-house or modified

• Limited output/formatting options

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Annotum v1.0 Objective

• Develop a simple, robust, easy-to-use authoring system to create and edit scholarly articles using JATS*

*Actually, Kipling, a subset of the NLM Journal publishing DTD version 3.0, http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/ncbi/kipling/

• Out of scope: • Replace all other print/online journals, tools, systems• Solve all issues with XML / JATS conformance

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Annotum: goals for v1.0

• Produce peer-reviewed journals online• Collaboratively create content in the NLM DTD• Address key limitations of the Knol toolset:

• DTD conformance (enforcement) and XML import/export• Support for rich designs and additional output formats

• Provide flexible hosting options via open source code• Publications should be inexpensive (or free) to host/export• System should require minimal technical skills to install,

configure, operate, and maintain.

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Annotum: Project Approach

• Based on WordPress• Rich network of designers, developers, and add-on services• Simple to self-install and administer• Stable, scalable, wide adoption – many millions of blogs• Alternatives: too expensive, too proprietary, too limited or too

complex (OJS, eXtyles, Drupal)

• Authoring tools: tables, equations, citations, figures• Simple review workflow with pre- and post-review comments (public and non-public)

• Robust presentation options: web, pdf, JATS XML

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Timeline (original)Task Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-11 Apr-11 May-11 Jun-11 Jul-11 Aug-11 Sep-11

Task 1: Setup

Task 2: Requirements

Task 3: Implementation(2-week sprints)

Task 4: Launch

Task 5: Support

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Kickoff

Detailed Requirements Complete

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

BetaVIP

Migration

Ongoing

Walk-throughs

Mid-project Review

Wrap-up

Timeline (current) - Challenges

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Sprints 7 and 8:Editor and XML Output

Annotum 1.0: Q4 2011Launch

• Free hosted theme on WordPress.com• Open-source theme for self-hosted sites• Stand-alone local version

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Demo

Use case – local collaboration

A group of collaborators use a local installation to author and collaborate on a series of articles, which are then published on the web or printed (PDF) for distribution to their friends and colleagues

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Use case – online journal

• Submissions via XML import or authored on-site• Approved articles published or exported

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Annotum vision: a “knowledge ecosystem”

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Thank you!

Annotum is a product of Solvitor LLC with heavy lifting by Crowd Favorite, with special thanks to Google, NIH/NLM/NCBI, WordPress.com, and PLoS.

Annotum is free.Info: http://annotum.wordpress.comDownload: https://github.com/Annotum/Annotum/downloadsTwitter: @annotum

Carl Leubsdorf, Jr.http://solvitor.com

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