OKFN Australia Group re-launching again

Editorial Board — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:16:43 +0000

The Open Knowledge Foundation is dedicated to promoting the creation, sharing and application of Open Knowledge in the Digital Age.

Yesterday, a working group at OKFN Australia gathered data geeks from around the country. The opening the Australian chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation happened via a Google hang-out. The group includes internet public servants, data scientists, data visualisation specialists, data journalists, and others dedicated to the idea that, when it comes to knowledge and information, open is better.

OKFN Au is a community initiative to create a bridge between the many and varied open knowledge communities in Australia, including hackers, data journalists, scientists, Gov 2.0 and open data peeps, knowledge and change management enthusiasts and civil society.

OKFN Au is part of the global OKFN community, established originally in the UK. It brings together people interested and active in opening up and using data to create and share knowledge.

The goal of OKFN Au is to support, promote and bring together the active and diverse open knowledge communities in Australia. Member communities come from a variety of backgrounds where open knowledge is already being practically applied. Australia has some well established tech communities, research groups, open government communities, emerging data journo communities and loads more that could all benefit through being connected to each other, even if just peripherally. It makes it easier to understand the breadth and skills of our community which, in turn, makes it easier to connect with each other and collaborate on common goals or projects.

Check out the OKFN Au site for more information.

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Open Monograph Press 1.0 (Beta)

Editorial Board — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 00:27:39 +0000

The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is very pleased to announce the 1.0 (Beta) release of Open Monograph Press (OMP). OMP is an open source software platform for managing the editorial workflow required to see monographs, edited volumes, and scholarly editions through internal and external review, editing, cataloguing, production, and publication. OMP will operate, as well, as a press website with catalog, distribution, and sales capacities.

OMP has been developed to support a format that remains critical to the advancement of learning. John Willinsky, Khosla Family Professor of Education at Stanford University, Distinguished Scholar in Residence at SFU Library and Professor (Limited Term) in Publishing Studies at Simon Fraser University, and founding Director of PKP, stated, “We have worked hard to create a virtual publishing-house-in-a-box, which, in the hands of publishers and scholars, will give life to a new generation of learned books.”

OMP is designed to assist university presses, learned societies, and scholar-publishers interested in publishing scholarly books in print-on-demand and multiple electronic formats, whether on an open access or purchase basis. OMP is intended to:

Handle edited volumes, with different authors for each chapter;
Involve editors, authors, reviewers, designers, indexers, and others in book production;
See submission through multiple rounds of both internal and external reviews;
Utilize industry standard ONIX for bookseller metadata requirements (e.g., Amazon);
Create document libraries for submissions, recording contracts, permissions, etc.;
Handle thumbnail covers in Catalog, as well as Spotlight features; and
Enable Series Editors to see books through review to publication.

OMP is a completely new software module from the Public Knowledge Project. It has been developed from the ground up to take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies. It will also provide the framework for the redevelopment of OJS — now used by more journals than any other software in the world — and other PKP software to a more contemporary software architecture based on a common PKP Web Application Library. Alec Smecher, PKP’s Lead Developer, noted: “With OCS and OJS, we developed workflow tools to facilitate publishing of short- and medium-form content with academic rigor. With OMP, we have broadened these tools to support monograph-length content and written a cutting-edge user interface to manage it. By doing so with code shared by all applications via the Web Application Library, we ensure that all of our applications will benefit rapidly from this work.”

As part of OMP’s release strategy, PKP will be working closely with several early adopters who will use OMP in a production environment. They will provide feedback in the coming months on OMP in the following areas:

Taking a production-destined publication through the entire workflow
Utilization of ONIX support and other new functional areas
User interface and usability review
Translating and using the software in a multilingual context

OMP’s early adopters represent a variety of use cases including an established university press; a scholarly publishing group; an academic department; and an academic library providing hosting services.

OMP was designed in consultation with and support from Athabasca University Press, which has kindly permitted us to use their books and content to populate a presentation site of OMP. OMP has been built with support from the Simon Fraser University Library, SFU Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Stanford University. Moving forward, it is anticipated that OMP will continue to be enhanced with a particular focus on pre- and post-publication support.

As with all PKP software, OMP can be downloaded for free and installed on a local webserver or it can be hosted by PKP Publishing Services. More information about OMP, including links to documentation, can be found on the PKP website at http://pkp.sfu.ca/omp

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knowledge – Australian Science

OKFN Australia Group re-launching again

Open Monograph Press 1.0 (Beta)