Open Monograph Press 1.0 (Beta)
FollowThe 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