OJS goes mobile – An investigation of how to adapt OJS to meet the needs of mobile users

Above: Lawrence Poon (left) and Shubhash Wasti are working on OJS mobile friendliness.

Shubhash Wasti (Athabasca University, Library Services, Alberta, Canada)
Lawrence Poon (Athabasca University, Library Services, Alberta, Canada)

Presented on: July 13, 2007 at 11am in SFUHC Sauder Industries Policy Room

~Click for abstract~

~Blogger’s Commentary~

Thanks and more thanks to modern technology, the various means of accessing knowledge grow exponentially.

“Mobile OJS” sounds very hi-tech and is certainly in tune with the increasing popularity of mobile technologies. Although Shubhash Wasti points out that the usefulness of a mobile-friendly OJS for authors, editors, etc. is “arguable”, we cannot possibly argue its advantages for users wishing to read journal articles on their mobile device. At this point, there are many technical issues to be resolved, but the idea of a mobile-friendly OJS serves the interests of both public and commercial spheres. There can be economic incentives for companies to improve their mobile devices to allow better support of OJS. Scholars and seekers of knowledge nowadays no longer spend hours crouched over a desk at the library, but are moving towards finding a variety of ways to access that knowledge through modern technologies. In this sense, the commercial sector is also contributing to increasing access to knowledge.

As for the public sphere and the effort to increase openness of knowledge, a mobile-friendly OJS can certainly contribute to wider circulation of academic material for the community and allow more people to participate in the Open Access movement. By combining developing technologies with the aims of Open Access, both areas can see major advancements. As we seek new ways to increase access to knowledge through technology, improvements to modern technologies must also be made. Indeed, while the advancement of knowledge access is contributing to the advancement of technologies, these technologies in turn are opening wonderful possibilities for the public to exercise their right to knowledge.

Perhaps in the future, we will not think only of open access to knowledge, but also of “mobile open knowledge” that is available wherever we go.

~Summary of Presentation~
Motivation
- “Face of the web” annual report by Ipsos Insight found that 28% of mobile phone users worldwide access the web on their handset
- less than 0.1% of the OJS users access via their mobile device
- this study is to see how OJS can be made more mobile-friendly
- there is a trade-off between features and mobility: for example, using Flash on the website
- in terms of practicality: readers would be the ones to benefit greatly by a mobile-friendly OJS, but the usefulness of it to authors, reviewers and editors is arguable

Most important limitations of mobile devices

- screen size, resolution (some web browsers in mobile devices attempt to fit content on the small screens but often these optimizations can distort the pages)

- navigation: often having to use virtual keyboards or difficult to use buttons

- memory limitations may make them unable to handle large files

- lack of support for certain formats (e.g. some devices cannot read Word or PDF)

- limited or no support for certain web features (e.g. Javascript, Java, Flash, Frames, Auto refresh, pop-up windows etc.)

Mobile devices used in the testing:
Palm TX (browser: Blazer)
Dell Axim X30 (browser: Pocket Internet Explorer)
Sony MYLO (browser: Opera)

Potential Problems in view of W3C recommendations


What works and what does not

Intermediary Approaches (Proxies)
- can be used as a “service”
- burden of mobile friendliness is shifted from the software/web developer to a third party
- examples:
Google – http://www.google.com/gwt/n
Skweezer – http://www.skweezer.net
- but these are not perfect and not all problems can be solved this way

A possible approach using plug-in architecture
- “One Web” - different views
- requires a clear separation of presentation and application layers
- having mobile plug-ins for using OJS

Future studies
- study involving real users to find out impract of mobile friendlyiness in the use of mobile devices in accessing articles in OJS
- where is balance between features and mobile friendliness

Conclusions and suggestions
- strong separation of program logic from the presentation
- plug-in developers can develop plug-ins to detect mobile devices and serve pages optimized for mobile devices
- we cannot rely on the end users’ device to handle the page optimization
- provide support team for mobile OJS users
- OJS in its current form is near the unfriendly side on the spectrum of mobile friendliness

~ About the Presenters~
Shubhash Wasti
Lawrence Poon’s CV (personal website)

~Related Links~
W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0: Basic Guidelines
Smartphone - Wikipedia
Personal digital assistants (PDAs) - Wikipedia

OJS – MP3 Article Usage: A pilot study

Main Presenter:

Kathy Killoh

(Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada)

Other memebers of the team:
Paula Smith (Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada) - Absent
Shubhash Wasti (Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada)

Presented on: July 13, 2007 at 11am in SFUHC Sauder Industries Policy Room

~Click for abstract~

~Blogger’s Commentary~

The pilot study on MP3 articles conducted at Athabasca University demonstrates what the meaning of “innovation” is. The idea behind this study is to allow access to academic articles in a format different from traditional formats (HTML or PDF), while using an audio format widely used in today’s society. MP3 articles provide a brand-new way of using academic material, and allow scholars to temporarily rest their tired eyes and work their ears a bit instead.

Kathy Killoh points out that much research still needs to be done on this topic, but this pilot study is certainly one of its kind and carries great implications in the larger scope of things. MP3 articles present a new possibility for accessing knowledge and thus help widen the circle of people who can take advantage of this possibility. For example, MP3 articles can be helpful for people with reading disabilities. Users of mobile technology can also easily listen to MP3 articles on the run. In short, MP3 articles exploit modern technology and open up new accessibility avenues. After all, and at the risk of sounding redundant, we must remind ourselves that accessibility makes up a major part of the spirit of Open Access.

We have been used to the idea of audio-books for quite some time now, and MP3 articles might also someday become as popular as PDF files when it comes to accessing academic journal articles. These days, almost everyone is listening to MP3s on the bus or subway, but perhaps next time when you ask your friends what they are listening to, instead of “some popular music artist”, the answer might be “I’m listening to John Willinsky’s newest article on open access.”

~Summary of Presentation~
- A team of researchers from Athabasca University conducted a study on the use of MP3 as a format for academic articles available for download
- MP3 articles are available for download on the IRRODL web site

-IRRODL is an open access, peer reviewed e-journal that has been online since 2000
-IRRODL adopted OJS in 2005
-IRRODL’s editorial scope is international, and the vision is to narrow the digital divide by providing rigorously peer reviewed ODL (Open and Distance Learning) literature using a variety of technologies
-since June 2006, IRRODL content has been available also in MP3 format
-this pilot study is to collect some data on how, when, where and why readers are using MP3 articles

Selection of software: NeoSpeech Voice Text software
- issue of cost: for desktop use or for creating files to publish on the internet, this can create a big difference in pricing
- time it takes for conversion to MP3: 2 – 2.5 hours for 16 – 20 pg. articles
- editing for conversion:

Remove: references, citations, end notes, tables, graphs, figures, charts, etc.

Include: Front Matter, Coding for Heading pauses, table, image, chart descriptions

Code in extra pauses to indicate a new paragraph

- conversion challenges:

Symbols (e.g. >, *, etc.) are not always recognized by the software

Word tenses e.g. “red” to substitute past tense “read”

Brackets are ignored, need to code in a pause or a change in pitch

Acronyms: software would sometimes spell it out or read it as one word)

An online survey was also conducted by the MP3 research team, and selected portions of the results are included below:

Top 3 Geographic Origins of MP3 Downloads: 1) United States 2) Canada 3) United Kingdom

50% of respondents said they listened to MP3 articles on the PC/laptop, 41% on MP3 players

As for reasons why they listened to MP3 articles, responses ranged from "professional development", "education/study", "curiosity", "research", and others.

24% of respondents said they listened at home, 22% in the office, and 21% while commuting.

65% of respondents said they downloaded and listened to 1-2 articles.

Conclusions
- MP3 audio files are at the beginning of the “diffusion” curve (based on Everett Rogers’ Theory of Diffusion of Innovations)
- further research needs to be done

~About the Team~
Kathy Killoh
Paula Smith
Shubhash Wasti

~Related Links~
IRRODL – International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

A Case Study of Online Publishing at CJC-Online: Experiences, Insights, and Considerations for Adoption

Presenters:

Michael Felczak (School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Rowland Lorimer (Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Richard Smith (School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Canada)

Presented on: July 13, 2007 at 9:40am in SFUHC Sauder Industries Policy Room

~Click for abstract~

~Blogger’s commentary~

The CJC (Canadian Journal of Communications) experience is certainly worthy of note, in terms of its contribution of valuable insights into various issues related to scholarly online publishing.

First of all, in describing the motivation and early stages in moving CJC online, Richard Smith touches on the economics involved in scholarly publishing and sees online publishing as a way to deal with increasingly high prices of periodicals. Although we understand the incentive behind the publishers’ intent to protect their own economic interests, when journal costs become less and less affordable, educational institutions must seek alternatives to protect their own scholarly interests as well as the public’s intellectual rights to access knowledge. The CJC example contributes to increasing that accessibility to knowledge for every one of us, and perhaps also to decreasing just a little bit of that monopoly granted to publishers through copyright law.

Michael Felczak then relates the happy tale of moving all the CJC issues online, as well as the challenge of writing a custom code within the OJS framework. Fortunately, through collaborative efforts, both tasks were accomplished. Currently, everyone with an internet connection can access all of CJC’s issues, and their custom code is in itself a commendable contribution to the Open Access movement, since their code can also be of use to other journals requiring similar functionalities for the system.

Finally, Rowland Lorimer mentions the possibility of cooperation between the commercial sector and the public sphere. These two can attempt to balance the interests of each sphere by working together, so that the tragedy of the commons as well as that of the anti-commons can be avoided. Rowland Lorimer also recognizes the importance of looking at access models and market realities in publishing today. Various access models are out there today, whether it be delayed open access or partial open access, and this diversity only means that the innovation or creativity element is significant in the expansion of Open Access. As we cannot ignore the realities of the publishing industry, the non-profit or academic sector must find innovative solutions to achieve the aim of making knowledge public, while finding workable ways around the legal, economic, moral and epistemological issues.

~Summary of Presentation~

1) Motivation, First Steps, Early Challenges (Richard Smith)
- interested in online publishing because of curiosity, desire to find an alternative (to continually rising serials pricing), extendability (i.e. new options for delivery) and possibility
- DIY online publishing: first steps involved converting SGML to HTML but this was not a sustainable method because it required a lot of manual work, and conversion routes were never reliable
- the team found a community alternative in PKP/OJS

2) Transition to and Participation with OJS (Michael Felczak)
- moved to OJS in February 2004
- at time of import, 12 volumes online (1993-2003), with 3-4 issues in each volume
- OJS import tool requires XML description of volumes/issues/articles: fortunately this info was already in the database, making it so much easier to export data into XML format and begin using OJS
- within a year, back issues vol. 1-15 (1974-1990) were scanned, with help from SFU library (scanning into PDF format)
- today, all back issues are online and open access (currently Vol 31)
- some functionalities were missing at the time, but custom code was later written within the OJS framework. These functionalities included:
a) enter individual or institutional online subscriptions;
b) post announcements to keep in touch with readership;
c) allow graduate students to submit thesis abstracts
- custom code can also benefit community/journals with similar needs

3) From Production to Publishing (Rowland Lorimer)
- production is not the same as publishing; production is the foundation for publishing
- non-profit publishing model: emphasis on the scholarly record, with peer review as essential element

Example: Nature
- has an editorial identity, an existence beyond simply the summation of its articles
- has a publishing vision: how the journal is presented to the world, such as what is presented on the cover, giving it a “planned public face”
- important to look at market realities, which is another word for your “readership”, so it is essential to think about the market and how you present yourself to your readers

Issues to consider in Online Journal Publishing
- human resources: cannot depend only on one person to ensure things run smoothly
- infrastructure: server farms are more reliable than one single server
- enriched production: once the journal is online, it is possible to add other forms of media (such as sound, video, etc.)
- looking at access models & publishing realities

We can also consider strategic cooperatives for online knowledge dissemination through the libraries, editors, and even through commercial sectors where they are people interested in cooperating with the non-profit sector.

Online Public Knowledge Infrastructure
- authors and journal producers and publishers
- journal repositories and provisioners: library systems and library acquisitions
- aggregation and metacontent: tools and marketing e.g. Synergies)
- emergent: a Public Knowledge Infrastructure
- coda: from patents to copyright, as there is much valuble intellectual property that we want to keep in the public domain through public sector cooperatives

~Info on the Presenters~
Profile: Michael Felczak, Rowland Lorimer, Richard Smith
ACT Lab » Michael Felczak
studies in technology & society – Richard Smith

~Related Links~
Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC)
School of Communication, Simon Fraser University
Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, Simon Fraser University

A content management strategy – implementing OJS and OCS at Swinburne University library

Teula Morgan, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia

Presented on: July 12, 2007, at 1:45pm in SFUHC Fletcher Challenge Theatre

~Click for Abstract~

~Blogger’s Commentary~

From theory to practice there can often be big gaps, when we suddenly find ourselves face to face with unexpected obstacles and unforeseen delays. It is therefore very comforting when others can share their experience and insights to provide inspiration for the rest of the world. In this case, the experience of Swinburne University in their implementation of OJS and OCS may be one in many, but in terms of the bigger picture, once again, we are presented with the immense potential and endless possibilities of open access. Once again we find ourselves wondering, “If this university is doing it and doing well, why is the rest of the world not doing it too?”

Swinburne’s approach of having a practical, visible, adaptable and usable content management strategy can easily be adopted by any university library wishing to join the Open Access movement. The strategy is practical in the sense that instead of wasting time trying to define things or hoping to solve every single problem, Swinburne simply jumps into action by identifying what is missing in the current system and then deciding how these issues can be resolved given presently available resources. In both examples that Teula Morgan discussed about the implementation of OJS and OCS, the motivation stemmed from the fact that something was wrong with the current picture: researchers had legitimate needs but appropriate publication venues or conference management was unavailable. From Teula Morgan’s presentation, it is apparent that Swinburne realizes the importance of making trade-offs – not only in terms of balancing user needs with feasibility, but also being able to make choices in favour of maximizing benefits for as many people as possible. Swinburne clearly sees the advantages of Open Access, and not solely for the university’s own reputation. By being one of the numerous universities now using OJS, Swinburne is making a great contribution to increasing the openness and quality of knowledge in today’s information-driven society by successfully exploiting new technologies (such as open-source software like the OJS). Moreover, Swinburne’s project strengthens global and academic connectivity – not only are scholars of similar interests more connected, but knowledge is also linked more closely from one place of the world to another.

Swinburne University’s participation in the Open Access movement is undoubtedly a source of inspiration for the rest of us. Certainly, educational institutions have a moral responsibility to assert, on behalf of individuals, the right to knowledge. Swinburne’s project is a declaration against privatization of knowledge, and with all things considered, Swinburne has adopted a very optimistic approach towards seeking a balance between the commons and the anti-commons.

~Summary of Presentation~

Teula Morgan discusses the Why’s and How’s in the implementation of Swinburne Online Journals and Swinburne Online Conferences.

Why? – Supporting open access (OA)
-partners in ARROW project to support digital repositories
-promoting OA publishing & OA research repositories

Why? – Promoting Swinburne research
-increase recognition and prestige of Swinburne
-enhance exposure and discoverability of content
-making content more visible through OA
-RQF (Research Quality Framework) impact factor

Why? – Supporting content management
-library playing a role

How? – Content Management Strategy
-distinguish between data management and content management
-distinguish between storage and publishing
-adopt a ‘use’ perspective rather than management or compliance perspective

Swinburne’s approach – ensuring that the strategy is:
1) practical
-no definition discussions
-acknowledge that resources are limited
-not tackling the impossible
-developing a Swinburne university-wide content management strategy by starting to do it (the library being a leader in managing information content, as it always has been)

2) visible
-to consider: why this content? who will be interested?
-supporting the creation and dissemination of quality Swinburne content, improving the impact and profile of Swinburne outputs

3) adaptable
-not attempting to solve everything at once & not waiting for the ultimate solution
-be prepared to respond to the community & change if necessary

4) usable
-adopting a multi-software approach to managing content
-emphasizing what is practical

Project identification
-go for projects that will give maximum benefits
-examples for implementing OJS & OCS:

Example: Journals
-Research groups interested in dissemination of their work identified gaps in current publication avenues or a gap in audience. OJS was seen as an appropriate and accessible place to publish.
-OJS was beneficial for promoting Swinburne research, contributing to the institutional repository and providing effective research tools.
-The first journal title went live in 2005. The journal is still going, and this sustainability means minimal continuing work. This enables researchers to manage their own content.

Example: Conference papers
-Conference papers were hard to be found. Copyright & peer reviewing status were unclear. Researchers were wasting time and no support was provided to manage conferences.
-OCS provided benefits for promoting & disseminating Swinburne research, supporting real needs of the community, enabling researchers to manage their own information, and dealing with OA material with clear copyright & self-archiving instructions.
-Swinburne is currently doing community consultations to identify needs.
-OCS was selected and implementation is in process.
-Swinburne is also planning the roll out of the 1^st conference with a pilot group.
*sustainability: OCS ties in with OJS work, and minimal additional work is expected once service is established.

Lessons learned
-important to engage with users: why are we doing this?
-be adaptable: priorities and activities change as we find out and understand more
-be flexible: prepared to understand differences and work in different ways
-maximise content visibility

Q&A Period
-There is a need for automatic extraction of metadata.
-Discussions about the Swinburne library’s search interfaces are currently going on. There probably will not be one place to search for everything, as there are different subject areas for different users.

~About the Presenter: ~
Teula Morgan is the Manager of Online Services Projects at Swinburne University library.

~Related Links~
Swinburne University of Technology, library website
Swinburne Online Journals
ARROW at Swinburne
ARROW – Australian Research Repositories Online to the World

"DiPP – An Open Access Initiative for Scholarly Communication"

PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference 2007 July 11 - 13, 2007



Blogs will be done live and initially posted errors and all. Please return after the conference dates to view edited discussions of the presentation.

Presentators:

Cordula Nötzelmann, Hochschulbibliothekszentrum, NRW, DiPPPeter Reimer, Hochschulbibliothekszentrum NRW, DiPP

See the Digital Peer Publishing -- DiPP NRW homepage. The about section of the site gives the vision, goals and approach of the organization. The organization gives support and guidance for digital information sharing in different disciplines.

Abstract

Cordula Notzelmann introduced the organizational structure of the open access system developed at Hochschulbibliothekszentrum (HBZ) located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)

The initiative: introduction
HBZ is a public service provider for academic libraries. Their proximate goal is to support the start-up and pick-up of Ejournals with the long-term aspiration of fostering innovative forms of web-based media.

The project started in 2004, sending out a call for projects leading to the start up of 8 journals. since that time they now have 13 active projects in various disciplines, many humanities, resulting in 600 reviewed publications. They are now looking into further development such as eBooks. They submissions are diligently edited with a high rejection rate in order to establish the desired quality of product.

Organization
The journals follow the standard journal organization with an editor and chief, editorial office and typical positions. The HBZ publishing service structure includes three phases; the technical program, the support needed to develop the program an author toolbox An example of one of the products produced is Constructions which is now part of international eLanguage project (see …blog). They continue as a group to tackle innovative forms including eJournals and repositories as well as open reviews. Authors are requesting open review rather than peer review.

Peter Reimer presented the technical framework of the project. Including the layout of the journals formats than can be produced. They had interesting extension into the sciences being able to support the expression of formulas.

Dipp provides a variety of services such as; Hosting and Archiving, Powerful and secure hardware and software, Persistent identifiers: URN, DOI, Open archival format: docBook XML and long-term archiving. It also has a number of useful features or benefits; an individualized layout, multilingual features, WYSIWIG and simple editing, Automatic article conversion from RTF/LaTeX to XML to HTML/PDF, as well as creating messaging-lists/RSS-Feeds. They also provide increased distribution, indexing in search engines and databases, automatic notification of metadata and articles via Open Access, disciplinary forms for metadata, tools and scripts for exact and clean usage statistics (AWstats, Custom), workflow systems, and many other pertinent features.

The Core components of DiPP are based mainly on open source software
• ZOPE plone: webapplicationserver and CMS
• Fedora: repository
• Apache: webserver with virtual host
• LDAP: authentication
• UpCast: documentation transformation
• Awstats: usage stats

Dipp is able to customize code in order to create plugins, editorial toolbox, workflow, and metadata forms, PloneFedora store and edit Data in the Fedora repository and themes. DiPP continues to develop features that both improve the appearance and make its use easier like documentation transformation from MSword templates,styles for paragraphs and characters, separation of structure and layout and DocBook XML.

This was a specialized presentation on the development of open sources programs to facilitate access to scholarly publication for open access to scholarly journal articles. P. Reimer presented the technical aspects of the program as well as the step involved in the operations workflow. To fully reflect the depth and expertise represented in the presentation a background understanding of the process of developing a publishing model program would allow a more compressive interaction with the material presented. My background is limited in this field and I was not able to capture all the details involved. For a more developed representation of the technological material please read the material attached to the PKP webpage and or contact the presenters.

DiPP was developed to enable online journals to access open source programs to create the desired layout for the journal graphic interface. The technical coding involved in designing publishing online required programs in many area such as webapplicationserver and CMS, a
repository, webserver with virtual host, authentication, documentation transformation as well as statistical applications. These aspects were driven by a desire to see access opened up in many disciplines.

Traditional publication models had lead to high cost journals which reduced the dissemination of journal articles as libraries became burdened with balancing budgets, apparent usage and needs of many disciplines served by them. Methods sought to compensate for this resulted in reduced access or at least delayed access in many areas. Further, developing countries became excluded from scholarly inner circle as their libraries could not afford these journals, and they themselves could not afford to publish their research in a global sphere. As a result an the scholarly community began to search for other modes of communication.

The online journal became a vision that required the technical skill and expertise of scholarly programmers interested in developing this form of communication. The power of greater access due to the development of these open source programs allows for the publication of material faster and with reduced cost. As these programs continue to respond to the needs voiced by scholarly authors, the modes of communication will continue to expand and perhaps be revolutionary. Not only will there be open access, search power, increased citation index, but perhaps there will be more crowd sourcing, inclusion of amateurs in the disciplinary fields, formats that are not as tied historically to the original manuscripts or book formats, and more equity in knowledge between countries. All of these aspirations hinge on the technical expertise of information technologies to explore, create and design.

Papers:

Konträre Auffassungen von jüdischer Identität in der zeitgenössischen jüdisch-amerikanischen Literatur am Beispiel ausgewählter Werke Cynthia Ozicks und Bernard Malamuds von Cordula Nötzelmann

1998 - 111 Bl. Diplom/Doktorarbeit Köln, Univ., Magisterarb., 1998

BUNTMETALLWIRTSCHAFT IN DER BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND : DIE BUNTMETALLWIRTSCHAFT IN DER BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND / VON PETER REIMER. 1976. 251 S. KOELN, UNIV., WIRTSCHAFTS- U. SOZIALWISS. FAK., DISS., 1976.von Peter Reimer

Klinische MR-Bildgebung : eine praktische AnleitungP. Reimer ... (Hrsg.)

2000 - XVI, 558 S. : Ill., graph. Darst.Sprache: DeutschBuch
Themen: NMR-Tomographie ; Aufsatzsammlung
Inhaltsverzeichnis / Abstract / Zusätze

Repository Networking and Development in Germany by Cordula Notzelmann


hbz-University Library Center of the State of Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany
http://www.hbz-nrw.de/