The Exchange, December 2008

Issue 15(4), December 2008

In this issue:

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Using Open Journal Systems to publish an online scholarly journal

by Molly Ives Brower (mjibrower@gmail.com)

During the years I worked in educational technology, I received a number of requests from faculty. “Can you help us stream the images from our telescope on the Web in real time? ” was one of my favorites. So was “Do you want to come up on the roof and see what's going on with the satellite dish?” But one of the questions I got surprisingly often was “How can I use the Web to publish collaboratively with colleagues who are in another location?”

Back in 2003, I set up faculty with Movable Type (which was free back then) and helped them configure the sharing options so that they could trade papers and discuss them in private, without using e-mail. In 2005, I helped another group coordinate three student programmers to create a publishing system from scratch; their contributors translated literature from all over the world, and each translation needed approval from at least two reviewers, working in multiple locations, languages, and alphabets, before it could be published online.

Then my husband decided to start an academic journal. He and a colleague at the University at Buffalo were both fans of the open-access model of scholarly publishing and of open-source software. They wanted their journal to have a complete peer review process, and they wanted to maintain an electronic trail of every article from submission through review to editing, copyediting, proofreading, layout, and publication. And they wanted to produce a journal that met professional publishing standards.

By the time they called me in, they had already narrowed the field to three options, including the two I had used previously: traditional content management systems (in this case, Drupal, which has a journal publishing module, and WordPress, which is highly customizable, but would need someone with more time and PHP experience than either of them had); a custom system built by students; and Open Journal Systems (OJS), a content management system specifically designed to publish online scholarly journals. Although there are several other open-source journal management systems now, at that time OJS was just about the only one, and it was certainly the most fully developed.

It only took a brief evaluation to see that OJS was exactly what they were looking for. Developed by the Public Knowledge Project (in conjunction with Simon Fraser University, Stanford University, and the University of British Columbia), OJS takes care of the complete editorial process, from article submission to peer review to copyediting to layout to publication. It makes it possible for reviewers to download and review articles remotely, then upload them for editorial review, copyediting, and proofreading. Its 10 user roles (journal managers, subscription managers, editors, section editors, layout editors, reviewers, copyeditors, proofreaders, authors, and readers) provide opportunities for anyone who wants to be involved in the journal publishing effort to participate.

Installation

In order to install OJS, you need to have a Web server (UNIX or UNIX-like servers are preferred, but Windows servers are supported as of version 2.0.2) running PHP 4.2 or higher and either MySQL or PostgreSQL. You also need an account with appropriate permissions to upload files, change permissions on files and directories, and create a database. These days, most commercial Web hosts use the cpanel application to manage and edit files and databases. That's perfectly adequate for installing OJS, although you will need to extract all the OJS files and upload them first. If you have access to a UNIX server and are comfortable installing software from the command line, it should be even quicker and easier. The download file is compressed using the tar and gzip utilities, so you'll also need to have a way to unpack a .tar.gz file—something that many Windows file compression utilities don't do by default.

Setup

Once you've created a database and installed OJS, you can go to the Web page in the home directory and configure your setup, create an administrative account, and do some other administrative duties, and then the editors can take over. If you don’t have access to a server, or would just prefer not to host OJS yourself, the Public Knowledge Project offers OJS hosting and support for a fee. For more information, visit PKP hosting (http://software.lib.sfu.ca/support.html).

Management

For our journal, Communications in Information Literacy, both editors are also site managers. They created the journal in the Journal Management area of OJS (each OJS installation can support multiple journals) and added users. They were able to set out the journal's policies; customize the e-mails that go out to reviewers, authors, and editors; and even modify the look a little, although at the time we set up the journal, with the version of OJS we were using, most of that modification could not be done using the OJS user interface. Instead, I changed the CSS and PHP files to make the journal look like we wanted it to, including moving some elements to different places on the page (or deleting them entirely), making the layout more fluid, and changing the color palette and some other visual elements.

The most current version of OJS uses themes to standardize the visual presentation, and comes with a small gallery of themes to choose from. It also allows site managers to move elements around on the page. For example, the default placement of the link to the journal's Help pages is in the upper right-hand corner; it's easy to move it to another location using the tools in the Journal Management area, similar to the way you can customize a home page in iGoogle or My Yahoo! Although many of the current themes are not very different from the original OJS theme, the developers encourage members of the OJS community to contribute new ones.

The editorial process

All users: Anyone can set up a user account, which allows them to read and comment on articles (if commenting is permitted by the journal’s owners). Users may sign up as authors, and may also volunteer as reviewers, copyeditors, layout editors, or proofreaders.

Authors: In order to submit articles, authors must first register with the journal. They set up a user account as an author, and then submit the article and metadata (for indexing). They receive an automated e-mail response, and the editors receive an automated notice that an article has been submitted.

Editors: The journal editors decide who will take charge of the article. Sometimes that's decided by topic; sometimes it just depends on who logs in first to assign reviewers. Sometimes they flip a coin to decide. Each manuscript is assigned a senior reviewer and two junior reviewers, based partly on their self-identified reviewing interests, and partly on their previous work for the journal. The editors select the reviewers and send an e-mail notification within the system.

Reviewers: Reviewers are given a choice to accept or decline the article. If they accept, they can post their reviews and their recommendation (Accept, Revisions Required, Resubmit for Review, Resubmit Elsewhere, Decline Submission, or See Comments) directly to the site. They can also upload the manuscript with comments; the text of the review can be addressed to the author and the editor, or to the editor only.

Editing and layout: After the article has been reviewed, the editors decide whether to accept it, accept it on condition of revision, or reject it. In some cases, it might be resubmitted for review. Once it's accepted, and after any required revisions, it gets a light first edit by one of the editors, and then goes on to the copyeditor (me). I copyedit the article and send it on for layout, which is done by one of the editors in Microsoft Publisher and exported to PDF. After it's laid out, the author gets to look at it again and suggest changes.

Publishing

Once the final version has been accepted by everyone, the article is added to the current issue. OJS has two different ways of publishing an issue: you can publish each article as soon as it's ready, but we publish the entire issue at once, when all the articles are done. We produce a PDF version and an HTML version, which is coded by hand (again, by one of the editors). Note that OJS does not have the capability to actually format and lay out a journal—the developers intended it that way. In the article “Open Journal Systems: An Example of Open Source Software for Journal Management and Publishing,” John Willinsky, the founder of the Public Knowledge Project, says (Willinsky 2005):

“The careful formatting and layout of these articles is not something... that OJS has automated. The preparation of the galleys in one or more publishing formats must be done by someone who has the appropriate skills and access to the software (e.g., Adobe Acrobat). As with copyediting and proofreading, there are no shortcuts for these steps when it comes to producing quality copy for the journal.”

We offer bound copies of each volume through lulu.com. All sales go into the Communications in Information Literacy coffers and are used to pay for things like Web hosting and lulu.com charges.

Pros and cons

Some of the things I like most about OJS are the ease of setup, the ability to ignore any role or step in the editorial process if that role does not fit your needs, and the professional look of the finished site. I've installed it on two different UNIX servers at different times. On one, I unpacked and installed it in UNIX; I had high-level admin rights, but never needed to use them. On another (a commercial provider), I mostly used the functions in cpanel to complete and configure the install.

The documentation is very good. “OJS in an Hour” is especially helpful, and should be sufficient to get most OJS journals up and running. The full technical documentation was helpful for some of the more complex tweaks as well.

Some of the features that our users seem to appreciate are the RSS feed subscription button (which allows readers to add the journal's table of contents to an RSS aggregator, such as the one provided by many Web browsers, or content syndication services) and the automatic acknowledgment of their submissions. An option that allows users to comment on articles is popular in other journals, but we have not implemented it for Communications in Information Literacy. The Reader Tools, which allow readers to capture citation data, view metadata, and search for related articles online—all from within the OJS interface—are quite valuable, but seem to go undiscovered by many of our readers.

OJS may be too complex for groups that aren't familiar with the workflow of journal publishing and don't have anyone to handle the technical side of the process. The roles and the order in which the work is done could be a little confusing for a novice, as could the installation. I actually see that as a positive thing, because I think that this could encourage potential users—mostly university faculty—to work with their institutions' IT departments to get OJS up and running, but many faculty are hesitant to do that (sometimes with good reason). The default user interface can be a little confusing; some of the labels are not as descriptive as they might be, and there are far too many unnecessary links by default. Fortunately, the new Journal Management area gives journal creators more flexibility in removing some of the links or changing their labels. Overall, OJS is an excellent way to set up and publish a peer-reviewed scholarly journal online, and after using it for more than two years, I still recommend it.

Links

Communications in Information Literacy: http://www.comminfolit.org

OJS links:

WordPress: http://wordpress.com/

Drupal: http://drupal.org/

References

Willinsky, J. 2005. Open Journal Systems: An example of open source software for journal management and publishing. Library Hi-Tech 23(4):504-519. <http://pkp.sfu.ca/files/Library_Hi_Tech_DRAFT.pdf>

Molly Ives Brower (mjibrower@gmail.com) has worked in editing, librarianship, Web development, and educational technology.

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Editorial: When metaphors become myths

by Geoff Hart (ghart@videotron.ca)

We all know that metaphors can mislead, a phenomenon with its own name: "overextending a metaphor". The problem is that metaphors depend on certain assumptions, and when we no longer examine the assumptions, or perhaps no longer remember them, we're entering risky ground. My favorite example is the metaphor behind the trash can icon that appears on most modern computer desktops: In the original Macintosh computer, files placed in the trash were automatically deleted ("the trash was emptied") at the end of the day, which made perfect sense to corporate employees who had janitors do this for them every night. It made far less sense for home Macintosh users, whose trash got emptied only when they chose to empty it, usually when there was no more room for it to contain anything else. Because of the many files lost by home users who didn't share the designer's assumptions, the modern Macintosh and Windows trash cans are no longer automatically emptied. Examining the assumptions underlying the original metaphor revealed problems with the metaphor, and the designer subsequently developed a solution to protect those who didn't share those assumptions.

Because metaphors are an important tool for understanding and communicating science, it behooves us to understand their limitations. When we extend metaphors beyond their usefulness, they become myths—attempts to explain reality that no longer have any significant relationship to the truth they were once intended to convey.

From a scientific perspective, economics provides a useful example of metaphors gone bad—assuming you're willing to grant, for the sake of argument, the assumption that economics is a science. Consider the metaphor of economic growth. On the one hand, we have historically seen the enormous rise in prosperity that accompanies economic growth. On the other hand, we recognize (apparently unlike most economists) that resources are limited. (See, for instance, my previous editorial, Everything has limits.) No matter how efficient we get, the Earth is only so large, and we can never increase the volume of our planet. So what are the assumptions that underlie the metaphor that economic growth equals prosperity and what are their limitations? The biggest limitations is that most economists choose to ignore externalities (things that are considered side-effects because they are difficult or inconvenient to include in economic models) such as pollution and resource depletion. If we accept the assumption that both are externalities and can be safely ignored, the metaphor works well. But it biases our thinking in unfortunate ways. Consider, for example, that the antonym of growth is stagnation (a very pejorative term), not stability or equilibrium.

Ecologists have gradually begun persuading economists to turn this metaphor on its head by invoking the modern metaphor of sustainability. In this metaphor, we see a clear recognition of the limits on growth that are imposed by the capacity of nature to provide the necessary resources. The notion of sustainability is that growth is acceptable up to a point, but that subsequently, the system that is growing must reach an equilibrium, with the limits to growth defined by the ecosystem's carrying capacity. Forests, for example, grow rapidly until they reach a certain maximum size that is determined by the available resources (space, nutrients, light, etc.), but then become largely stable thereafter, though metastable is actually a better description. The problem this poses for growth is clear if we start to see the trees despite the forest: the ecosystem as a whole remains stable, which is a good thing, but because no further growth is possible without somehow increasing the available resources, this means that either no new trees can be recruited (an ecologically unrealistic condition) or that any new trees that arise must either replace existing trees or subsist on inadequate resources, remaining stunted and impoverished compared to the dominant trees. This raises an uncomfortable question: If we replace trees with humans, does sustainable growth remain an acceptable metaphor?

Please note that I have introduced these examples to illustrate the problems with both a metaphor and its counter-metaphor, not to propose explicit solutions. As the differences in the two metaphors show, reality is complex and not easily described in a way that prevents the metaphor from being overextended. Nonetheless, by comparing the assumptions of the two economic models (growth unconstrained by limitations on the available resources, and sustainability defined by eliminating growth), it may be possible for us to seek an appropriate middle ground: growth sufficient to match the needs of the growing human population, but constrained by a realistic assessment of how much growth the ecosystem can sustain without irreversible damage.

The importance of this essay to scientific communicators is that whenever we choose metaphor as a communication tool, we must carefully define our assumptions, identify the limitations of those assumptions, and communicate those limits to our audience. This is both ethical, and a necessary component of clear and successful communication. If we fail to perform this task, we transform something as useful as a metaphor into a myth that may mislead more than it informs.

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Book review: Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in the Global Age

[St.Amant, K. ed. 2007. Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in the Global Age. Information Science Reference, Hershey, PA. 337 p., including index. ISBN 978-1-59904-213-8. $165.00 USD.]

by Deborah C. Andrews (dandrews@english.udel.edu)

Previously published in Technical Communication 55(1):70-71, February 2008.

Kirk St.Amant has assembled a large group of contributors (33, including the editor) for this hefty reference volume. They represent varied interests and professional levels, from MA and PhD students to distinguished professors. While most are affiliated with U.S. or Canadian educational institutions, many come from countries other than the U.S. or Canada, and some work within organizations in Australia, Germany, the U.K., and Italy, thus enhancing the book’s international perspective. In his preface, St. Amant raises what he considers the two central questions concerning international online interactions (IOIs): one is how “factors of culture (and related aspects of law)” will affect such interactions, and the second is “what steps can individuals and organizations take to address such cultural factors effectively” to interact successfully (p. xvii).

The 18 chapters (plus foreword and editor’s preface) in this volume address these questions, and an annotated table of contents helps clear a path into specific issues of interest. The range of subjects and of research methodologies is broad; each chapter also ends with extensive references to interdisciplinary and international sources in the literature. All chapters adhere to a consistent form of presentation, including an abstract, background discussion, analysis, conclusions, and, where applicable, implications for future research. While each chapter rightly stands on its own as a separate discussion, that approach leads to redundancy in background information and definitions from chapter to chapter. Some chapters take a lot of space saying the obvious (for example, “Several technological developments have altered our world in the last half century” [p. 143]) or exulting in a “gee whiz” way over expansion of the Internet and the global possibilities it opens up. I found the quality of prose highly uneven, with some chapters enticing and others rather difficult to trudge through, and I found the physical quality of the book unappealing. The typeface is clear, but the two-column design, 81/2´11-inch trim size, and infrequency and low resolution of visuals contribute to highly dense black and white pages. The title, too, is somewhat jumbled; all the key words are mere modifiers of that very overused and ambiguous, if currently popular, term “issues”.

That said, the book does indeed address both the linguistic and the cultural dimensions of online communication, especially in a business or technical setting and in education. As a self-defined “premier reference source”, this volume seems to be intended mainly for libraries, both academic and corporate. A single reader might well not be interested in all of these topics, especially not in the specificity of detail in some chapters. In addition, the publisher provides an electronic version for libraries that purchase a hardcover text, a real aid to researchers who can thus search the collection electronically for items of interest. The chapters are gathered into five sections: “Language, culture, and cyberspace”; “Global virtual communities and international online collaboration”; “Aspects of online design in international environments”; “Governance and legal factors in global cyberspace”; and “International aspects of online education”.

A sample of chapter titles within those sections may suggest the specific “issues” discussed in the collection: “Machine translation as the future of international online communication”, “Intercultural computer-mediated communication between Chinese and U.S. college students”, “The language of leaders: Identifying emergent leaders in global virtual teams”, “Researching online intercultural dialog in business: Using established methods to create new tools”, “Web site analysis across cultures: An inquiry into intercultural values and Web site design”, “Global Internet usage, Web site design, and cultural communication preferences: Contributions from cross-cultural marketing and advertising research”, “Global governance and the local Internet”, “A frame analysis of privacy regulation in an international arena: Understanding interdependency in a globalized world”, “Teaching, learning, negotiating: The World Wide Web as a model for successful cross-cultural communication”, and “E-learning and the global workforce: Social and cultural implications for workplace adult education and training.”

While most of the authors are academics rather than practitioners, the discussions are relatively free of academic jargon, and most terms that might be unfamiliar to an audience of technical writers are explained (sometimes with definitions from Wikipedia). Many chapters report original empirical research: one example is an interesting study by Simeon J. Simoff and Fay Sudweeks. The authors have developed an approach they term complementary explorative data analysis to examine online communication behaviors. They applied this methodology to data from two different virtual team projects to determine whether the “number, length, and content of messages are sufficient criteria to identify emergent leaders in both synchronous and asynchronous environments” (p. 94). Another chapter that I found particularly engaging (and well written) examines legal issues concerning privacy in Europe. The authors, Vinita Agarwal and Charles J. Stewart, aimed “to discover, through a framing analysis of the subcommittee hearings on the EU [1998 Data Protection and Privacy] Directive, how Americans and Europeans perceive privacy, and how these perceptions may lead to disagreements and potential problems in commerce between the EU and the U.S.” (p. 218).

Corporate trainers as well as educators will want to read the several discussions concerning how the transformed workplace in the 21st century impacts adult education, especially the chapter by Karim A. Remtulla. Remtulla notes, convincingly, that “Whereas work is becoming more homogenized and normalized, the workforce is becoming more socially and culturally disparate. Yet existing traditions of adult education and training in the workplace are more universal in outlook, and favor European and Western paradigms of education and training. These practices won’t be effective with “non-European, non-Western workers who will come to constitute more and more of the global workforce” (p. 277).

Deborah C. Andrews (dandrews@english.udel.edu) coordinates the business and technical writing program at the University of Delaware, where she is professor of English. Author of many articles and book chapters about technical communication, particularly visual communication and international dimensions, she recently published Management Communication: A Guide. She is an STC associate fellow.

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Book review: Punctuation Matters: Advice on Punctuation for Scientific and Technical Writing

Kirkman, J. 2007. Punctuation Matters: Advice on Punctuation for Scientific and Technical Writing. 4th ed. Routledge, London, U.K. [ISBN 978-0-415- 39982-1. 145 p., including index. $17.95 USD (softcover).]

by Karen Lane (klane@klane.com)

Previously published in Technical Communication55(1):72-73, February 2008.

As technical communicators, we know that audience is key, and this maxim is especially true for users of John Kirkman’s punctuation guide. Written primarily for a British audience, it sets out in readable and clear prose all the basics and many of the subtleties of punctuation that science and technical writers need to know.

The book contains a “Policy” section that sets out the author’s philosophy about punctuation, an alphabetically arranged “Guidelines” section that lays out the rules of correct use of various punctuation symbols, three appendixes (“Paragraphing”, “Word-division” [hyphenation], and “Differences in American English and British English”), a bibliography, and an index. The appendix on differences between American and British punctuation style is succinct and clear, guiding the British writer in the requirements of American publishing.

Writers and editors grapple with punctuation issues every day, and a handbook such as this one is useful for looking up specifics. However, American practitioners should realize that some of Kirkman’s advice contradicts style guides widely used in the United States.

A case in point is the use of colons when introducing a series or list. The most common American convention does not allow colons to separate verbs or prepositions from their objects. The Chicago Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press, 2003; reviewed in the November 2004 issue of Technical Communication) says, “A colon is not . . . used before a series introduced by a verb or a preposition” (p. 258). Carolyn Rude says, “Do not use a colon between a preposition and its object nor between a verb and its complement or object. . . . Punctuation should not separate necessary parts of sentences” (p. 190). Kirkman mentions Chicago’s stance in the American usage appendix almost in passing, but he does not give it any standing when he allows contradictory examples from various American publishers and company publications. A guide such as this one should provide examples that follow convention, not examples that flout it.

The index contains a few oddities. Leading prepositions—for, in, to—at the beginning of subentries are included in the sort, contrary to common practice. And it’s a shame that the author did not provide more cross-references between British and American terms. For example: the American reader who does not know that the British term for a period is “full stop” will not find a helpful cross-reference in the index.

Nonetheless, there is much to like in this book. It provides a handy reference to instruct the reader on a wide range of punctuation issues, as it is accessible, concise, and very easy to understand. As the author acknowledges, some punctuation decisions can be handled in more than one way, but the important thing is to develop a house style in those situations and apply it consistently. Punctuation Matters helps the reader do just that.

Karen Lane (klane@klane.com) is a freelance technical editor and indexer. She has coauthored a textbook, Technical Communication: Strategies for College and the Workplace, and has edited and indexed a wide variety of technical and academic materials. She holds a master’s degree in technical communication and is an associate fellow of STC.

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Parting thoughts

"I don't know about you, but I am dead certain that the sun rises in the morning, moves across the sky, and then sets at night. Five hundred years after Copernicus swatted the Earth out of the center of the cosmos, I still live in a Ptolemaic univerrse, at least when I'm just looking out my window. If I had to launch a mission to Mars or figure out the time of the next eclipse, I would, of course, become (or at least hire) a Copernican."—Gary Greenberg, A mind of its own

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"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."—Umberto Eco

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"Electricity originates inside clouds. There, it forms into lightning, which is attracted to the Earth by golfers. After entering the ground, the electricity hardens into coal, which, when dug up by power companies and burned in big ovens called 'generators', turns back into electricity... where it is transformed by TV sets into commercials for beer, which passes through the consumers and back into the ground, thus completing what is known as a 'circuit.' "—Dave Barry

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"In the 21st century, we need new and better stories, new concepts, and new vocabularies and grammar based not on the past but on the dangerous, exciting, and unexplored present, with the understanding that each is, at best, a provisional reading of reality, a single phenomenological profile that one day is likely to be revised, if not completely overturned. These will be narratives that do not claim to be absolute truth, but instead more humbly present themselves as a very tentative thesis that must be tested every day in the depths of our own experience and by all the reliable evidence we have available, as limited as that might be."—Charles Johnson, The End of the Black American Narrative

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“A machine is a Man turned inside-out, because it can describe all the details of a process, which a Man cannot, but it cannot experience that process itself as a Man can.”—Roger Zelazny, For a breath I tarry

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“All scientific knowledge is provisional. Everything that science ‘knows’, even the most mundane facts and long-established theories, is subject to reexamination as new information comes in. The latest ideas and data are the most provisional of all. Some recantations will be unavoidable. This is not a weakness of science; this is its glory. No endeavor rivals science in its incremental progress toward a more complete understanding of the observable world.”—Anonymous (Dec. 2002 editorial in Scientific American)

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"We have learned that we do not see directly, but mediately, and that we have no means of correcting these colored and distorting lenses which we are or of computing the amount of their errors. Perhaps these subject-lenses have a creative power: perhaps there are no objects."—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience

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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."—Philip K. Dick

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“A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.”—Anonymous

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"To cross a road, Zeno argues, we must first go halfway across. To do this, however, requires that we first go one-quarter of the way across, which requires that we first go one-eight of the way across, and so on forever. We can't cross the road without completing all these infinitely many acts. But since traversing each of these distances takes some time, traversing an infinity of them must take an infinite amount of time. (This brings to mind a Zenonian variant of an old chestnut: Why didn't the chicken cross the road?)"—John Allen Paulos, review of the book Everything and more: a compact history of infinity

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“Nature, like liberty, is but restrained/by the same Laws which first herself ordained.”—Alexander Pope

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