Events, Educational Programs

Seminar Series on Selected Topics in Electronic Publishing

Spring Semester

Association of American Publishers
71 Fifth Avenue (between 14th & 15th Streets)
New York, NY

The PSP Electronic Information Committee (EIC) is introducing the first installment of the Seminar Series on Selected Topics in Electronic Publishing – starting with four programs this spring and four more in the fall.  The programs are targeted to staff new to electronic publishing at member organizations and address the transition underway from print to the electronic side of scholarly and professional publishing. 

The members of the EIC are affiliated with organizations that have a breadth of experience in digital innovation, cutting across many subject disciplines and publication formats.  The Committee, which holds education as fundamental to its mission, feels that this program will reach out to engage new members of the PSP community and share some of the Committee members’ expertise and insights through a succession of programs dealing with different topics in electronic publishing.

To facilitate discussion and interaction, the number of attendees will be limited to 20, and participants will be asked to commit to the full series of four sessions.  Participation will first be offered to individuals from organizations active in the EIC and Executive Council, and any remaining spots will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis to other PSP members.  A small fee ($100 for each four-part series) will be charged to ensure commitment on the part of participants.  PSP will provide a certificate to participants after completion of a series.

Each 90-minute session, focusing on an important current issue in electronic publishing, will offer a 45-minute presentation followed by a 45-minute Q&A with discussion.  All sessions will run from 12:00 – 1:30 PM and a light lunch provided. 

Spring semester

Thursday, February 26th – 12:00-1:30pm
Cultivating Innovation and Agility in a Customer-focused Culture
Kent R. Anderson, Executive Director, International Business & Product Development, The New England Journal of Medicine

Kent will introduce electronic publishing to the students by focusing on the centrality of innovation to the enterprise, emphasizing what is new and different, including an overview of organizational changes, with some concrete examples. The presentation should be motivational, envisioning the excitement of a career in electronic publishing as well as stimulating the students to look forward to the coming series of presentations.

Publishers have always benefited from strong relationships with their customer base, but the Internet has changed the dynamics. Distribution is no longer a proxy for audience, and product offerings are provided in an environment over-heated with competitive innovations. The only constant is change, a very different mode from the more sedate product evolution pace of the previous era. How do publishers catalyze, cultivate, and sustain a culture of innovation and agile development? How do people trained in linear or waterfall development adapt to embrace the new paradigm? How do project managers learn to love late changes and new requirements? How do you keep the customer experience in the forefront of your mind during ideation, evaluation, and realization?

Tuesday, March 31st – 12:00-1:30pm
Electronic Publishing Project Organization and Management
Caroline Rothaug, Director of Project Management, Wiley InterScience, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Caroline’s presentation will be organized around a complete electronic publishing project. She will provide a broad sweep through a range of e-publishing topics by delineating all aspects of the project’s conception, organization, design, implementation, test, roll-out and support. Of necessity, each aspect will be dealt with briefly with the intent of showing by example how an electronic publishing project is carried out and all the things that need to be considered in so doing.

  • Defining and documenting business requirements (could be part of the above)
  • User centered design - Information architecture, design for usability, user testing (pre/post launch)
  • Discoverability and search engine optimization
  • Testing basics (kinds of testing, test planning, carrying out testing, how do you know when you are done)
  • Backoffice (billing, fulfillment) systems and processes, including how to move from the print fulfillment world to electronic
  • Production & content preparation - books/reference works, journals, getting print & electronic product out of the same production workstream, working with offshore vendors
  • Pros & cons of building in-house vs. using a vendor; RFP process and selecting a vendor
  • Customer service and technical support

Tuesday, May 12th – 12:00-1:30pm
New & Emerging Technologies
Terry Hulbert, Director, Business Development, American Institute of Physics and
Barbara Lange, Director, Publications Product Line Management & Business Development, IEEE, Inc.

Terry and Barbara’s talk will zero in on the technology aspects of an electronic publishing project as delineated in the previous talk by Caroline. A case study will illustrate how 2.0 publishing technologies are themselves leveraged internally in project management.

  • How to keep on top of emerging technologies
  • Have processes and an organization structure in place so new technologies can slot straight in
  • How to integrate with existing products
  • 2.0 technologies used internally and externally

Tuesday, June 30th – 12:00-1:30pm
Managing Content: The Why and How of Managing Digitally Captured Assets
Mark Licker, VP/Publisher – Science, McGraw-Hill Professional and
Stephen Sterns, Managing Editor for Reference and Electronic Publishing, Columbia University Press

Mark and Stephen will talk about two distinguishing features of the digital publishing medium itself: its transformative nature that enables re-purposing of content and its computing power which allows functionality to be embedded with content. They will present a case study to illustrate how essential mark-up is, of both metadata and full-text, to realizing the full potential of these features of the digital medium. The case study will contrast the electronic publication with its print precedent.

  • Rationale for capturing and managing content digitally
  • How digitally managed content can be presented to users in different media, e.g, print and online
  • Content tagging: Why XML? How does it work?
  • What types of publications benefit most from such tagging?
  • Metadata: Why, how, and what for?
  • Repurposing content

This will be an interactive session, so bring your questions for the panelists.

We are only accepting registrations for 15 people to attend as we want to keep the group small to make it more interactive. Space will be allocated on a first come first served basis.


REGISTRATION FORM