JATS4R – standardising the way XML content is tagged to enhance publishing workflows and reusability

Abstract

See video of the presentation.

There are many participants in the publishing ecosystem and all have a vested interest in labelling content in a consistent manner so interchange between systems, processes and parties is made easier. Reuse and discoverability of final output is greatly increased by consistent labelling. XML is the standard interchange format favoured at the end of the publishing process, but this is moving upstream in an effort to save processing time as well as allowing standards to form for common systems earlier in the process, for example at submission.

The JATS4R (JATS for Reuse) working group is composed of all parties in the publication process (e.g. publisher, submission system, traditional production vendor (typesetting/composition), online host, data repository and data miner).

To this end, in April 2015 two formal JATS4R recommendations were published: license information and math representation.

To check whether content is compliant with the recommendations, we have built a JATS4R validation tool (http://jats4r.org/validate/).

A side, but important aim of the group is to encourage and enable publishing staff to gain confidence and control over their XML. We recognise many small (and large) publishers may leave these decisions to their vendors and online hosts. We hope to encourage an interest in XML and help demystify it for people who are processing content on a day-to-day basis, so they have a greater understanding of the decisions they make and the wider implications.