Publishing Editions in the Digital Age

Publishing can take many forms, from a hard-copy book publication to a website. Regardless of the method, the goal of publishing is to make your work accessible to the members of your intended target audience. By introducing the idea that editorial workflow should also be designed with publication in mind, this course emphasizes the importance of understanding the benefits that different data formats offer for publishing and maintaining an edition. This course also provides an overview of the current publishing landscape for historical editions (both in print and in digital formats). It covers how the industry arrived at the current digital workflow for all publications and the effect that such digital publication workflows may have on publication methods. All editors need to engage in a variety of computational methods for creating their work. To that end, editors should now be aware of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) and CARE principles (collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, and ethics). There is no “free lunch” when publishing an edition; that is, whether you choose a print or digital format, you’ll need to consider the availability of resources as well as the cost of production and maintenance. In this course, you’ll explore (a) the resources you may require, (b) procedures for drafting your statement of publication standards, and (c) how to identify publication methods that many funding agencies now require. This course concludes with an activity to help you brainstorm, develop, and execute a sustainable publishing plan. 

1. To describe the current print and digital publishing landscape as well as the evolution of digital publishing.
2. To describe a computational pipeline relevant to your workflow.
3. To articulate the implications of a minimalist and a maximalist computing approach.
4. To outline the resources and publication methods you’ll use for your project.