Workshop offered in collaboration with Dulip Withanage at OAI9 in Geneva about the capabilities and challenges with OMP version 1.1.1 from an editorial and technological point of view.

1. 1
OMP – Publishing Open Access Books.
Andrea Hacker and Dulip Withanage
Heidelberg University

2. 2
1. Conversation: Your interest in OMP and Open Access book publishing
2. OMP – An Overview (A. Hacker/D. Withanage)
3. Case studies of OMP in use (A. Hacker)
4. OMP in Heidelberg:
a) The project (A. Hacker)
b) The technology (D. Withanage)
5. Conversation: The need for cooperation
6. Hands-on work in working groups
a) Editorial (A. Hacker)
b) Technical (D. Withanage)
Battleplan

3. 3
1. Conversation: Your interest in OMP
and Open Access book publishing
OMP Test-site “OAI9 Press”
https://lnticebiblio1.unige.ch/omp/index.php/oai9-openedition/dashboard

4. 4
2. OMP – an overview
• Out of the box
- Open-source book production platform from manuscript
submission to sale
- Modelled on PKP's OJS system
- Currently available version: 1.1.1-1
- Example: Smithsonian:
http://opensi.si.edu/index.php/smithsonian
• Limitations
- Some bugs and gaps in the workflow
• Solution
- Collaborative projects
- Information and exchange on development and bugs

5. 5
3. Case studies of OMP in use
• Institutions
http://www.libros.uchile.cl/index.php/sisib
http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/
• Projects
http://langsci-press.org/
• Companies
http://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/
http://www.humanities-map.net/
• Upcoming
- Open Library of the Humanities (via Ubiquity)
- Luminosoa/University of California Open Press (via Ubiquity)
- Heidelberg University Publishing

6. 6
• Pilot Project supported by the German Research Foundation:
- Goal: to develop a business model for OA books
- Experiment: developing a new book series called
Heidelberg Studies in Transculturality
• Technical infrastructure: OMP – expand front end, create XML-based
single source layout process, offer POD/innovative output
4. OMP in Heidelberg

7. 7
Investment so far:
• Institutional: founding of Heidelberg University Publishing
• Editorial: e.g. manuscript solicitation, founding of editorial board,
workflow design, editorial policy
• Technical: e.g. modular workflow design, hosting issues, plug-in
development
• Legal and financial: Contract development, copyright issues,
sustainability, external funding, pricing, vendor negotiation
• Marketing: e.g. development of corporate design, marketing strategy
4. OMP in Heidelberg (ctd.)

8. 8
4. OMP in Heidelberg – Editing
What does OMP do (out of the box)?
• Manuscript development
- Submission process
- Peer-review
- Manuscript development (copy-edit, proofs)
• Production & Distribution
- Many roles available (designer, marketing, layout editor,
indexing)
- Distribution with indexing functions and limited payment
settings (e.g. paypal)

9. 9
4. OMP in Heidelberg – Editing
Problems and gaps:
• Workflows are not always intuitive (particularly towards the end
of the publishing process)
• Production of the product takes place outside the platform →
InDesgin
• Multi-lingual settings available but buggy
• Little room for creativity, rigid front-end
• Html viewer is missing
• Some steps in the manuscript development are missing (e.g.
book-proposal submission)
• Dependency on tech-savvy staff for work-arounds

10. 10
4. OMP in Heidelberg – technology
• Server – Infrastructure
- Operation System: Linux, Ubuntu
- Database: MySQL
- Programming language: php
• Other (optional) tools
- Frameworks: Python web2y
- Bootsrap CSS Framework
• Angular JS – Javascript Framework
• License
- GNU General Public License v2

11. 11
4. OMP in Heidelberg – technology (ctd.)
• OMP Installation
- Easy Deployment
- Knowledge level needed: System administrator level
- Programming skills: Not essential, unless you want to write
extensions
• OMP Usage
- No technical skills required other than understanding basic
editorial workflows
• Documentation
- User: wiki based, step-by step
- API Documentation: automatically generated
• Code
- well-structured
- modular

12. 12
4. OMP in Heidelberg – technology (ctd.)
• Front-end
- Customizable, but limited to css style sheets and widget
placement on left and right side
- Web 2.0, with jquery
• Back-end
- Cleanly structured
- Step-by-step workflows
- But: some details hidden
• UI Development
- centrally managed by ui exports
• Responsive layout
- No: in default css style-sheet
- css extenstion: limited

13. 13
4. OMP in Heidelberg – technology (ctd.)
• Plugins
- Export and import Plugin:
Import and export books in OMP's native XML format
- Users Plugin:
Imports and exports users
- ONIX Export Plugin:
Exports monograph metadata in the ONIX 3.0 format
- Static pages Plugin
• Statistics Plugin
- Generates csv reports about usage (series, country, city, day,
month)
• Security
- Allows both SHA1 and MD5 Algorithms
- HTTPS for management channel

14. 14
4. OMP in Heidelberg - Approach
Solution to technical challenges and developmental progress:
• Collaboration
• Collaboration
• Collaboration
PKP; Open Library of the Humanities; OATA; Ubiquity; LangSci

15. 15
• What is the purpose and scale of your OMP/Open Access idea or
undertaking: what would you expect from an open source platform?
• What are your resources: Administration, hosting, editorial and programming
expertise?
• What approach is most reasonable for our purposes?
5. Discussion

16. 16
Thank you!
hacker@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de @ahacker
withanage@ub.uni-heidelberg.de