DSCN 9655 Fauchié
DSCN 9655 Fauchié
“The
Importance of Single Source Publishing in Scientific
Publishing,” in “DH Unbound 2022, Selected
Papers,” ed. Barbara Bordalejo, Roopika Risam, and
Emmanuel Château-Dutier, special issue. Digital
Studies/Le champ numérique 13(3): 1–16. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.16995/dscn.9655.
Academic publishing currently raises several issues, such as the production of multiple artifacts from
a single source. The expression “single source publishing” refers to generating several formats from a
single source. A single document can be used to produce various formats, without having to switch
from one process to another, whether it is a PDF format for printing, an XML export for a digital
platform, or a digital version in HTML format. This editorial challenge brings up both theoretical and
technical questions, such as the legitimization of content, the evolution of publishing practices, and
the creation of adequate tools. At the intersection of media studies, publishing studies, and literature,
the concepts of hybridity (McLuhan, 1968), hybridization (Ludovico, 2012), or editorialization (Vitali-
Rosati, 2016) allow us to question the principles of this editorial design.
Actuellement, les publications académiques soulèvent plusieurs questions, telles que la production
d’artefacts multiples à partir d’une source unique. L’expression « publication à source unique » fait
référence à la production de plusieurs formats à partir d’une seule source. Un même document peut
être utilisé pour produire différents formats, sans devoir passer d’un processus à l’autre, qu’il s’agisse
d’un format PDF pour l’impression, d’un export XML pour une plateforme numérique, ou d’une
version numérique au format HTML. Ce défi éditorial soulève des questions à la fois théoriques et
techniques, telles que la légitimation des contenus, l’évolution des pratiques éditoriales et la création
d’outils adéquats. Au croisement des études médiatiques, des études éditoriales et de la littérature,
les concepts d’hybridité (McLuhan, 1968), d’hybridation (Ludovico, 2012) ou d’éditorialisation (Vitali-
Rosati, 2016) permettent d’interroger les principes de cette conception éditoriale.
Digital Studies/Le champ numérique is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the Open Library of Humanities.
© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
OPEN ACCESS
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This article is the result of a collective work that started with the creation of a poster with
Margot Mellet (Université de Montréal) and Marcello Vitali-Rosati (Université de Montréal)
in the context of the DH Unbound 2022 conference (Fauchié, Mellet, and Vitali-Rosati 2022).
Current academic publishing practices raise several issues, such as content diffusion
on different platforms, accessibility with Open Access, and sustainable archiving
challenges. Another issue, the production of the reading documents, did catch
our attention as it expresses a singular question, which we aim to answer: how to
organize multiplicity and interoperability in the life of a document? Today, academic
publishers have to generate several formats of their articles, journal issues, and books
according to the needs of different distribution platforms (in addition to a printed
version when it exists). Hence, the publishing academic workflow has to produce
many different artifacts (for instance, XML, HTML, or PDF). How can we do so without
over-complexifying the task of authors, editors, and publishers? The expression single
source publishing refers to the generation of several formats from a single source, and
it is a possible answer to our question. With single source publishing, a single file or
set of files can be used to produce various formats without having to switch from one
process to another, whether it is a PDF format for printing, an XML export for a digital
platform, or a digital version in HTML format. This editorial challenge brings up both
theoretical and technical issues, such as the legitimization of content, the evolution of
publishing practices, and the creation of adequate tools. The answer to such questions
exceeds pragmatic and practical concerns, especially when considering the editorial
and publication chains. At the intersection of media studies, publishing studies, and
literary studies, the concepts of hybridity (McLuhan [1965] 1994), hybridization
(Ludovico and Cramer 2012), and editorialization (Vitali-Rosati 2016) allow us to
question the principles of this editorial design. With this conceptual framework, we
may take a theoretical step back to study the technical principles that make single
source publishing possible.
In parallel to these conceptual concerns, the implementation of single source
publishing also represents a major challenge for publishers and distributors of scientific
publications. However, the benefits are many: creation of a common space for all those
involved in the publishing chain; clarification of actions on content; merging of needs
between the various output formats; mutualization of efforts for the various exports to
be produced (PDF, HTML/web, XML, EPUB, etc.); and the simplification of archiving
and maintaining by having that single source. Setting up publishing chains with single
source publishing is complex: several initiatives have been trying to meet this challenge
since the early days of computing. Software that implements the principles of single
source publishing does exist, but in the present article, we focus on chains, which are
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A brief definition
Mainly, single source publishing proposes to produce multiple outputs from one,
single source. As we already said, with this approach, it’s possible to produce a PDF
format for printing, an XML export for a digital platform, or a digital version in
HTML format, from one source file. Single source publishing requires a highly flexible
source, which usually consists of a set of texts, some metadata and bibliographical
data, and some images or other media. Some students or researchers already use the
principles of single source publishing; however, it is long and tedious with a classic
text processor, which lacks flexibility; it is complex and just a little more flexible
with LaTeX, and it is both expensive and difficult with XML. Since the beginning of
the 2000s, a few alternatives emerged based on (1) lightweight markup languages, (2)
structured bibliographies, and (3) open-source convertors; our case study (Stylo) uses
Markdown, BibTex, and Pandoc. Markdown is a markup language used in blogging,
README files, Jupyter/R Notebooks, and forums; it is easy to learn and to read for both
humans and machines. BibTex is a reference management software that structures
references and produces bibliographies according to a given style (such as MLA, APA,
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Chicago, etc.). Pandoc—known as the Swiss Army knife of publishing (Dominici 2014)—
is a powerful alternative for producing academic artifacts from one single source. This
library allows the user to convert files from one format to another, allowing for one
source to be converted into one of many possible outputs. In this section, we explore
what it means and what implications it has for scientific publishing.
The second group of complexities is the academic workflow (Figure 1), or more
precisely, the path of the text through the stages of submission, peer reviews, corrections,
and publication. The authors, the editors, the publishers, and the distributors all
require specific file formats through its circulation and validation, and even in a given
format, multiple files are used by different contributors without a way to merge them.
In the humanities, where the pressure to publish is significant (“publish or perish”
[Auerbach 2006]), the actual process of publication is quite slow and cumbersome;
this conflicting injunction is painful to both authors and editors. These paratextual
elements are restrictive and should shape both the ideation and implementation of the
editing process.
Figure 2: Schema of a single source publishing process with the conversion and transformation steps.
This diagram (Figure 2) shows that templates model the text (differently for each
output format) in a new format that includes textual content and metadata. This file
is then translated with a “graphic layout” that gives information on the disposition
that elements should take on a page, and on the geometry of the page itself.
These transformations are not only aesthetic, they represent important editorial
decisions about how to render a page in a way that conveys both semantic and
graphical information.
This figure contains other information. As we already said, the templates are
the modelling of the text according to the final outputs. It is both the distribution of
data (text and metadata) and the construction of the artifacts. The “graphic layout”
is the visual translation of the templating, like the disposition on the page or the
typographical choices. It is not just about aesthetic details, but important decisions
about how informations are rendered on a page (printed or HTML).
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source publishing is a horizontal workflow since all actors of the publishing chain can
participate at the same time—for example, editors (and in some rare cases, authors)
on the source, publishers on the metadata, designers on the templates, and editorial
engineers on the tool chain. So, editors, publishers, designers, and digital distributors
can work simultaneously on the different stages of the publishing chain without having
to wait for the previous steps to be completed. This process can support continuous and
iterative work; building a publishing chain can be an iterative method.
Legitimization of content
A horizontal publishing chain makes it harder to legitimize its content: where do we
situate the validation, structure, and design of the documents, and how do we deal with
the de-structuration of the classic chain? With single source publishing, legitimization
is no longer a centralized issue: few different people with different levels of technical
skills can modify the content until the final steps of the publishing workflow. However,
since they are in control of the templates and publishing software, editors and
publishers have final say in the layout without having to burden authors and reviewers
with the responsibility to adopt or maintain a particular style. This also opens new
possibilities for the publishing of new formats or the republishing of older texts with
updated formats or layouts.
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer,
or Google Docs. Proprietary software (and copycats of proprietary software like
LibreOffice Writer for Microsoft Word and Scribus for Adobe InDesign) maintains
a confusion between the structure of the contents and the graphic rendering. The
academic community needs tools that correspond to its constraints, and that means the
conscious encoding of semantic (rather than visual) information. Many communities
already work in this paradigm of WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean):
Manifold, PubPub, Coko, Métopes, Quire, Stylo, etc. Groups and initiatives such as
Métopes (Université de Caen), Editoria (Coko Foundation [Hyde 2021]), Quire (The
Getty), or Stylo (Canada Research Chair on Digital Textualities and Huma-Num) are
implementations of the single source publishing principles.
Concepts
Some interesting concepts are intertwined with single source publishing; here is an
overview of three of them. We have chosen these because they give a new perspective
on the single source publishing principles.
Hybridity
The hybrid or the meeting of two media is a moment of truth and revelation from which
new form is born. For the parallel between two media holds us on the frontiers between
forms that snap us out of the Narcissus-narcosis. The moment of the meeting of media is a
moment of freedom and release from the ordinary trance and numbness imposed by them
on our senses. (McLuhan [1965] 1994, 55)
Hybridization
In other words, this book [Martin Fuchs and Peter Bichsel’s book Written Images] is a
comprehensive example of post-digital print, through a combination of several elements:
print as a limited-edition object; networked crowdfunding; computer-processed inform-
ation; hybridisation of print and digital—all in one single medium, a traditional book.
(Ludovico and Cramer 2012, 156)
Written Images was a book subject to a crowdfunding campaign from which several
artifacts such as a website, printed books, and printed postcards were produced. From
Alessandro Ludovico, the hybridization of forms and formats is a phenomenon that can
be observed in the first digital experiments, like electronic literature available online or
the first augmented e-books. Electronic literature explored the possibilities of writing
and publishing literature in new forms (Rettberg 2014). It is about producing literature
that can seemingly only exist on digital supports like computers, since it uses hyperlinks,
interconnected texts, or multimedia, such as texts, images, videos, and interactions in
the same document. Augmented e-books appeared mostly through technologies such as
the iPad around 2010. An augmented or enhanced e-book (James and De Kock 2013) is a
special form of digital book that incorporate digital elements and tools that could not be
included in a traditional paper publication. Augmented e-books make use of hyperlinks
(both within and outside the browsed documents), create popup windows, play videos
and sounds, might include interactive or live graphs, and even change according to user
interaction (either through individual choices or according to a community’s practice).
In Post-Digital Print, Alessandro Ludovico analyzes several examples of hybrid
publishing initiatives, where few artifacts derived from the same content complement
each other. Electronic versions of books, journals, magazines, or articles came in to
complete already existing forms: printed and digital artifacts become hybrid. Even if the
source is unique, it is possible to conceive different scenarios depending on the output
format; for example, a specific block of text can be displayed differently depending on
the artifact. This can be considered as an anticipation or as an investment in order not
to waste time on adjustments that would concern artifacts that would no longer have
any link between them. Paper publishers already experiment with different versions
for a given printed book with the same content inside: from the cheap and affordable
paperback to the luxurious, embossed, limited edition hardcovers. It is also not
uncommon to find that the digital version lacks some content that would not be well
rendered in the EPUB format, or better quality/more pictures in an electronic version
where colour printing is too expensive. Hence, single source publishing implements
Ludovico’s concept of hybridization: rather than editing several source versions to get
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the corresponding artifacts, it is possible to create a unique source and use templates as
scenarios for generating different artifacts in both their form and content. Hybridization
is more coherent and powerful when all of the content of a given project is in the same
place, generating different forms and version from the same source.
Editorialization
Editorialization is the set of dynamics that produce and structure digital space. These
dynamics can be understood as the interactions of individual and collective actions within
a particular digital environment. (Vitali-Rosati 2016, 8)
Revue2.0 project was led by the Canada Research Chair on Digital Textualities from 2018
to 2021 (Revue2.0 2022). Revue2.0’s (in French revue means “journal”) goals were to
investigate how academic journals build knowledge and to show the richness of variety
in academic publishing practices. Experimentations were conducted with a dozen
journals in the humanities, such as open peer reviews, automatic analysis of a corpus
of journals in the humanities, and single source publishing. Stylo, the semantic text
editor for academic writing and editing, was created in this context (Vitali-Rosati et
al. 2020). Several journals have experimented with single source publishing and Stylo,
with which it is possible to produce simultaneously many different versions from one
set of files: the source. From a set of text (Markdown), metadata (YAML), bibliographic
data (BibTex), and media (jpg, png, etc.), scientific journals can produce the following
formats: HTML for their website, PDF for their own distribution and aggregators, and
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XML formats for digital distributors. Stylo also supports the production of e-books with
the EPUB format, as well as LaTeX, DOCX (as some publications still require this format
for submissions), and ODT. A research report is available on the Revue2.0 website
(Fauchié 2021); it gathers the editorial experiences of three journals.
Stylo is a tool designed to transform the digital workflow of scholarly journals in
humanities and social sciences (Vitali-Rosati et al. 2020). As a WYSIWYM (What You
See Is What You Mean) semantic text editor for the humanities, it aims to improve the
academic publishing chain with specific export setups.
Revue2.0 (and its use of Stylo) is an example of the technical and human
implementation of the theoretical principles of single source publishing. This project
was only made possible with a clear understanding of single source publishing issues
and an appreciable dose of skilled labour and determination. Each journal found explicit
solutions for their publishing requirements and helped to improve the methods, the tools,
and the documentations. Revue2.0’s conclusions can be found in the aforementioned
reports, articles, and books, and in Nicolas Sauret’s thesis (Sauret 2020).
This article was made with Vim, Markdown, YAML, Pandoc, and Git. The poster from which it
is derived is available in different versions (Fauchié, Mellet, and Vitali-Rosati 2022).
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Competing interests
The authors have the following competing interests to declare: Antoine Fauchié and Yann Audin are
involved in the development of the software Stylo, and Antoine Fauchié is the creator of the workflow
la fabrique.
Contributions
Authorial
Authorship is alphabetical after the drafting author and principal technical lead. Author contributions,
described using the CASRAI CredIT typology, are as follows:
Author name and initials:
Antoine Fauchié (AF)
Yann Audin (YA)
Authors are listed in descending order by significance of contribution. The corresponding author is AF
Conceptualization: AF
Methodology: AF
Software: AF
Formal Analysis: AF
Investigation: AF, YA
Writing – Original Draft Preparation: AF, YA
Writing – Review & Editing: AF, YA
Editorial
Special Issue Editor
Roopika Risam, Dartmouth College, United States
Barbara Bordalejo, University of Lethbridge, Canada
Emmanuel Château-Dutier, Université de Montréal, Canada
Copy Editor
Christa Avram, The Journal Incubator, University of Lethbridge, Canada
Layout Editor
A K M Iftekhar Khalid, The Journal Incubator, University of Lethbridge, Canada
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