Research

---

The Open Publishing Guide--Development: Phase 2

Area: New Media Publishing
Document #

Over the past year, the Open Publishing Lab has enlisted students as well as faculty to produce an informative publishing resource entitled “The Open Publishing Guide”. A beta version of the site is located at http://opg.cias.rit.edu. Over the past year we have developed the foundation of the site. In the coming year we propose to further develop, refine, and evaluate the usefulness of the content, features and tools of the site. Furthermore, we would like to propose a method for on-going maintenance of the site.

Research objectives include:

• Gather feedback and comments on the Open Publishing Guide Areas for feedback including:
  • The usefulness of the Publishing Self Advisor software, developed for the site
  • Overall usefulness of OPG site in actually completing publishing projects.
  • User testing and research, including further user testing on usability, navigational and organization aspects of the OPG. Specific areas of review will include testing of the book production templates and tutorials.


• Research and support compatibility between Internet browsers.


• On going site maintenance and enhancement. To be effective it must keep current with the changes and trends within the self-publishing world. Enhancement of content. We will continue to add content to the site expanding the usefulness for users. Additional content includes tutorials, videos, publishing checklists, page templates, and other editorial content to assist our users on the self-publishing process.


• Further develop and research our marketing approach. This includes gathering data on the demographics of the users of the site.


• Further research the current barriers of the self-publishing process. By clearly identifying the restrictions to self-publishing, we can better predict and discover ways to make the process easier and to also widen the scope of self-publishing and it’s users.


• Develop and implement on going maintenance plan during the first year of operation.

Tags: Open Publishing Lab Open Publishing Guide self-publishing

Author

---

Patricia Albanese
Gannett Distinguished Professor, School of Print Media
Rochester Institute of Technology

Author

---

Matthew H. Bernius
Visiting Assistant Professor
Rochester Institute of Technology

Author

---

Rachael Gootnick
Associate Content Manager, Open Publishing Lab
Rochester Institute of Technology