WALS and eLanguage (Leipzig)

From Publishing to Communication eLanguage, WALS and digital linguistics Cornelius Puschmann University of Düsseldorf [email_address] Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 5 November 2007

Contents of this presentation
eLanguage: concept & organization
The technology
Where we are
eLanguage and WALS: a comparison
More than “putting things on the Web”
Open access, open data – what are the implications?

eLanguage: concept and organization

What is eLanguage?
an aggregator for peer-reviewed content from open access journals
a platform for publishing scientific articles on-line
a source of meta-information on academic linguistics (book reviews, department news etc)
an academic community on the Web

Project Partners

From Language to eLanguage
Language started in 1924
roughly 7,000 individual and institutional subscribers
issues since 2001 available via Project MUSE
narrow focus due to space limitations
slow publication cycle
high production and dissemination costs
the goal was to widen the focus
while reducing costs
and facilitating access ...an open access approach was the ideal solution

eLanguage organizational structure
the eLanguage Editorial Board reviews co-journal proposals
the Editor in Chief is responsible for the management of the platform
co-journals are independent once they have been approved
Editor in Chief Editorial Board

Co-journal accreditation process forms an editorial board and submits a proposal reviews proposal and approves or asks for revisions is admitted as an eLanguage co-journal eLanguage Editorial Board

Expanded organizational structure content IT services

The technology

A mashup of tools OJS 2.1.1 + Wordpress 2.2

Data from OJS and WP aggregated on the main page blog section content (WP) co-journal content (OJS) master feed

Open Source Reliability
all first-level products (OJS, WP) are based on second-level FOSS technologies and protocols such as PHP, MySQL, Apache and RSS/Atom
mature, well-supported and well-documented products
90% of software development is outsourced - advantage : we can focus on the content and on making it accessible

Using external tools for added services
Google Domain Tools (admin)
Google Custom Search (search)
Google Mail (email)
Google Groups (mailing lists)
Google Analytics (web statistics)
Technorati (blog management)
Feedburner (feed diagnostics)

Three goals for maximum accessibility
to make all eLanguage content accessible via search
to make everything published in eLanguage accessible both via library catalogs and commercial search engines
to make access to our content independent from access to our website by using feeds (everything but the full text of articles is available via feeds)

Benefits of the platform
Benefits for...
readers : content is free and easily accessible
authors : no costs, greater impact, faster publication, ownership of article, precise metrics
editors : full control over their publication, less or no headaches about technical issues, no volumes of specialized knowledge necessary
Linguistic Society of America : "what's good for the discipline is good for the association", great visibility
HBZ/DIPP : strategic value / experience

Where we are

eLanguage Beta

Semantics & Pragmatics

Recent developments
as of November 2007, four journals have been accredited:
Constructions
Anette Rosenbach (University of Paderborn, Germany),
Alexander Bergs (University of Osnabruck, Gemany)
Journal of Mesoamerican Languages and Linguistics (JMLL)
David Mora-Marín (University of North Carolina, USA)
Linguistic Issues in Language Technology (LiLT)
Annie Zaenen (PARC Inc / Stanford University, USA),
Bonnie Webber (University of Edinburgh, UK),
Martha Palmer (University of Colorado, USA)
Semantics & Pragmatics (S&P)
Kai von Fintel (Massachusetts of Technology, USA)
David Beaver (University of Texas, USA)
a blog has been launched to keep people informed
launch in Spring 2008, possibly BNs will be launched earlier

Issues
producing content takes time
many researchers have a “wait and see” approach to digital publishing
communication must be managed well when working in a geographically dispersed team
for our needs, OJS could be simpler in terms of its UI, even if that meant less functions

What could we do better?
Once the platform has successfully launched we will look into...
unified citation database
preprint repository
more "reader" involvement (blog comments? link external sources?)

eLanguage and WALS: a comparison

From print to digital
eLanguage
paper journal - platform for scholarly communication
narrow focus - diversity
slow publication cycle - faster and more flexible publication
limited access - open access
WALS Online
atlas - interactive research tool
“completed” - continually updated
read-only access – read-write access
limited access - open access

More than “putting things on the Web”

Useful but problematic metaphors
an “electronic journal” can be designed to look like a print product
but the digital form makes entirely new uses possible
storage “just happens”
publishing = conserving knowledge for posterity
communication = exchanging information more rapidly

Practical implications
we will increasingly not just publish “completed” papers on the Web, but conduct ongoing discussions and debates there
collaborative research on the Web (with something like WALS Online) is the next logical step
tools for data visualization, modeling etc are likely to become ubiquitous
Research will increasingly “happen” on the Web

Open access, open data – what are the implications?

Implications
natural language data is available on an unprecedented scale
tools for processing and analysis of this data are increasingly available
a virtual space for discussing and interpreting the results of such analyses is also available (your research blog or wiki, eLanguage, WALS...)
Most importantly, all of these levels are open and accessible to everyone!

How we can benefit
collaborative language documentation (endangered languages, typology)
more salient corpus-based investigations (syntax, semantics, pragmatics, ...)
better intradisciplinary connectivity (what are my colleagues doing?)
better interdisciplinary communication (too many related fields to name!)

Thanks for listening!

WALS and eLanguage (Leipzig)

by Cornelius Puschmann on Nov 16, 2007

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WALS and eLanguage (Leipzig) — Presentation Transcript