A Digital Publication Service
Background and Justification
Returning narrative to digital publications. For too long, digital publications have separated narrative text from datasets, or have presented datasets alone as digital publications. Databases and spreadsheets cannot replace scholarly communication. Researchers shold not be forced to choose between narrative text and datasets. OPS publications are characterized by extensive narrative passages where needed and integrated with links to raw datasets, detailed data, analysis, visualization, or any other meaningfully explanatory information.
More than traditional volumes. In addition to expanding the restrictive model of the printed book, the OPS also publishes non-traditional types of works, including media, games, and code sets, providing a solution to domain areas that previously may have been left out of the publication world.
Putting research and original work back in the spotlight. The OPS provides technical and software support to researchers, removing the technical hurdle, and freeing the researcher to concentrate on writing their narrative and curating their data sets. Choosing and implementing a DBMS requires time and expertise. Selecting a webhost or trying to start your own is expensive and precarious. The OPS manages the technical aspects of the digital publication process, freeing the researcher to concentrate on their research.
Leveraging a common framework. DH publications have been communicated through a wide variety of tools: databases, apps, websites, etc. There has been little to no agreement on common tools or libraries. This has led to various difficulties in interoperability and maintenance. The OPS leverages a common framework, from data capture through to publication and archiving to make digital projects more sustainable and usable. See more on the
technology page.
Digital Peer Review and Academic Credit
Why perform peer review of digital publications?
We in academia are at an inflection point in the history of scholarly communication. Will we continue to enshrine the printed book as the sole mechanism for communicating scholarly research? If as seems inevitable, digital publications will play some role in the future of scholarly communication, what will those publications look like and how will academic gatekeepers come to accept these digital publications as valid?
What would it take for academia to accept digital publications for academic promotion?
Printed volumes serve as vehicles of distinction for various reasons: tradition, citability, stability, discoverability, durability, and evaluability.
Much has been written about why academia loves its physical books. Even if the future of print is in doubt, the social lattices we have created around the printed book will still exist; and they will need to be adapted to digital publications. Digital publications may innovate in some ways, but it is unrealistic to expect academia to credit published works that lack a few basic qualities. Over the years, the press has played a central role in vouching for certain aspects of a publication, then also in making those publications available widely. We have to respect concepts like attribution, certification, durability, and dissemination if we expect digital publications to be taken seriously for academic credit. (See AHA Guidelines for the Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship by Historians.)
To review or not to review?
The OPS will implement a traditional peer review system, while remaining aware of the deficiencies and inherent problems in some implementations of the system. As a publication service, we will work within the traditional peer review model but also allow for high quality publications that do not require editorial and third-party blind review. So, if a progressive institution is open to accepting a quality digital product that wasn’t produced within the traditional peer review model, the OPS is ready to support that new model.
The following concepts are influenced by van der Weel and Praal in Edmond (2020).
The process of registering an author as the creator of an original work. It seems trivial to concern ourselves with this idea, but it is a core source of skepticism in digital publications. How can one know that a digital product contains original work? There is an inherent skepticism that digital works are the result of copy and paste. If digital publications are going to count for academic and professional credit, then those academic boards that grant professional credit must have a way of knowing that the work has been registered as original to the author. Until some massive sea change arrives, that process occurs through a reliable publisher.
Registering the quality and distinction of a work. In addition to a work being registered as original, its quality must be certified. Currently digital publications in the humanities do not carry the same authority as print. This may be due in part to a lack of traditional peer review. Various attempts have been made to dismantle the traditional peer review system. While certain implementations of peer review may be flawed, the system remains as the primary acknowledged mechanism for certifying publications. Should alternative approaches become widely accepted by academic gatekeepers, the OPS will implement them. In the meantime, it is more critical in our view to establish a precedent wherein digital publications are accepted for academic promotion.
Making publications available for the life of the institution. Volumes published by the OPS will be made durable by a commitment from the publication service and through a partnership agreement with the University of Chicago Library system. Of course, this is another in the list of common criticisms of digital publications, the graveyard of dead links. The OPS provides a solution this problem, paving a way for digital publications to be accepted for academic credit and promotion.