Publishing With XML 2014

 

Overview

Publishing faces a combination of diverse technological challenges: maintaining
traditional channels while developing new ones; monetising the lists
effectively; managing Intellectual Property without conflict; and simply trying
to stay ahead of competitors and customers. XML and its partner technologies are
at both the core and the leading edge of these developments.

This course identifies some of the techniques and applications that can be used.
It provides a mix of presentations, case studies, and practical exercises to
help publishers to leverage more of the intellectual resources in their
domain.

This course is chaired by Norm Walsh and taught by Mohamed Zergaoui, Norm Walsh, Tony Graham, and Tomos Hillman.

Classes for 2014

The Publishing With XML course runs on
and
.

Digital Publishing and Content Lifecycle

Taught by Tomos Hillman.

Publishing as an industry been driven by technology since the invention of the
printing press, and XML is no exception. This session addresses the impact of
technology in general and digitisation in particular on publishing, exploring
the trends of abstraction, speed to market and reduction of overheads.

We will go on to talk about the strengths (and weaknesses) of using XML for
single source publishing, as well as options for content analysis and data
modelling.

The final part of the session will be a walk-through of the publishing lifecycle
of an XML document, focusing on significant stages such as:

  • XML authoring
  • 3rd party XML Capture.
  • Copy Editing and value add.
  • Typesetting and design
  • New editions and re-use of XML.
Designing for the future

Taught by Mohamed Zergaoui.

One of the most critical aspects of managing structured information is the
precise form that it takes: what is the schema? This session will explore the
challenges of schema design. We’ll consider the task of information modeling and
the precise technical aspects of schema languages.

Among the questions we’ll explore are: should you build your own schema, or get
one “off the shelf”? What are some of your choices and what are the trade offs?
Can you customize, should you customize, and how much? How can you manage schema
changes over time? What does it mean to version schemas? What does it mean to
mix-and-match vocabularies? What are the consequences of long term evolution:
what will your schema look like in 2015 and 2025?

Document Management

Taught by Norm Walsh.

Having XML documents, the raw materials of your publication process, is only
part of the story. Modern publishing environments demand reuse and repurposing
of content to maximize its value. That means you need not just XML, but also a
vision for how it can be combined and transformed to deliver new products.

This session will explore some of the fundamental technical pieces of that
vision including the ability to describe workflows that can combine and process
content and the challenges and opportunities afforded by the promise of reusable
documents.

We’ll go on to discuss some specific technical tools that you can use to manage
and develop an effective workflow system. This will include a review of the role
that schemas and validation play in assuring a correct production process as
well as introduce some possibly new tools including XML pipelines.

Technical Aspects of Document Production

Taught by Tony Graham.

This session explores technical aspects of getting your documents into XML and
then out the other side as print, EPUB, or web content. It also covers recent
changes in the landscape of standards affecting digital publishing, styling, and
pagination.