Description

This course provides an introduction to electronic publishing with a strong emphasis on XML and related standards, and on digital publications that use these technologies. We will look at the overall structures of digital publication systems, with a view to understanding how the components interact and where certain kinds of information and value are added. We will pay particularly close attention to XML technologies, spending time gaining a basic grounding in XML so that we can analyse different DTDs and design approaches for text markup systems. We will also consider some of the more theoretical background for text markup systems and their application in scholarly digital publications.

This course takes a multifaceted view of the technologies of electronic publishing. Electronic publication has been hailed as a panacea for a wide range of problems, social and practical: it is perhaps faster, cheaper, more efficient, more flexible, more powerful, more egalitarian, and more accessible than any publication technology that has gone before. As implementers we need to take stock of the potential benefits and understand how to harness them. As critical implementers we also need to be aware of the challenges and unsolved problems that are such a fundamental part of any cutting-edge system, any attempt to push the boundary of the possible. But even more importantly, we need to understand that these technologies emerge from specific social and organizational environments, and that the work of "publication" which they accomplish is also a complex social act. In our attempt to gain a deep understanding of electronic publishing, we will seek to tease out the theoretical and methodological issues that lie at the heart of these technologies and make them such an interesting area of study. Awareness of these additional issues should not prevent us from being effective implementers, but it will help us avoid being shallow implementers.

A few words about what this course is not! It is not a practical how-to course, so although you may pick up some useful technical skills the goal of the course is not to train you to be electronic publishers. It is also not a full-fledged XML course; although we will focus on XML technologies, we will aim to get a conceptual understanding rather than a detailed technical knowledge of this domain. (You are of course welcome to gain as much expertise as you like on your own, and the readings will provide some pointers on where to go for the requisite information.)

Course Assignments, Requirements, Policies, and Grading

  • Assignment 1 (5%). Publication review, about 300 words.
  • Assignment 2 (10%). Document analysis, four paragraphs.
  • Assignment 3 (5%). XML encoding and CSS experimentation (graded credit/no credit).
  • Assignment 4 (20%). Schema design and text encoding sample.
  • Assignment 5 (25%). Functional specification and audience/needs assessment for your project, about 1500 words.
  • Assignment 6 (25%). Grant proposal.
  • Participation (10%). This includes participation in the class discussions, weekly contribution to any bulletin board discussions, and general involvement in the course. Although these factors only count for 10% of the total, you cannot pass the course without a satisfactory grade in this area. See the "assignment" entry for each week for any specific assignments in preparation for class.

Attendance and late assignments

We are all busy professional people, and our time is valuable. I plan my grading time carefully around my other responsibilities, so that I can give you timely feedback on your work. I expect you to be prompt in attending class and handing in assigned work. That said, I understand that many of you have full-time jobs, families, etc., and that unpredictable things like weather and travel may make life difficult. What I ask from you is the following:

  • Notify me in advance of any scheduled absences from class.
  • Notify me as soon as possible of any unscheduled absences (e.g. if your train breaks down and you can't show up for class).
  • If you are unable to hand in an assignment on time, request an extension in advance.

I will start to get cranky and will wonder about your commitment to the course if you are frequently late or absent, and at my discretion I may reduce your grade accordingly. Work that is handed in late without an extension will be graded down. I am always sympathetic to requests for extensions, and I am also always happy to provide advance feedback on draft work.

Academic honesty

In this course, your colleagues are an important source of expertise, help, and useful information. I encourage you to make the most of each other's knowledge and be generous with your own areas of expertise. In your assignments for the course, though, you should turn in work that represents your own understanding of the material, not someone else's.
If you're not absolutely certain you know what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, please let me know and we can go over it.

Readings

There are no required book purchases for this course. Three books are recommended for this course, as follows:

  • Recommended: Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, eds. A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwells, 2004. Available online at This has an amazing wealth of useful and illuminating essays in it on a wide variety of topics germane to electronic publishing, by many of the leaders in the field.
  • Recommended: Elliotte Rusty Harold and W. Scott Means, XML in a Nutshell. O'Reilly, 2004. This is a very useful reference tool, the place where you can look up the details of various pieces of the XML picture quickly and concisely. We will be covering XML technologies in an introductory way, and this book would be a good reference work to have on hand, particularly if you want to go into the technical side in more detail. I strongly recommend you buy it if you are interested in working with XML.
  • Recommended: William Kasdorf, The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing. Columbia University Press, 2003. Referenced in syllabus as "Kasdorf". This is a very broad overview of digital publishing, mostly useful for the references and links and for the wide landscape it covers.

In addition, I recommend the Journal of Electronic Publishing ( for current issues, and for earlier issues) and DLIB magazine ( as sources of interesting and provocative reading on a range of issues in electronic publishing.

All of the readings for the course are either freely available on the web (linked from this syllabus) or available through the UIUC library's electronic course reserves. Some of the materials assigned later in the course may not appear in the course reserves for a bit. There may be a few additional readings to flesh out some of the assignments. There may also be slight changes in the order of topics, depending on the availability of guest lecturers.

In addition to each week's required readings, there are often some suggested extra readings. These usually provide extra detail or a different perspective on the material, or a more in-depth technical look. Try to choose at least one of the extra readings each week, based on your interests.

Discussion Forum

The discussion forums for the class are a place to post thoughts, ideas, questions, comments of any sort. They also serve as a way for us to continue discussions after class in a less pressurized environment. I'd like everyone to participate actively. Participation in the discussions will count towards your grade.

Contacting me

As you will have gathered, I don't have an office on campus. The best ways to reach me or meet (virtually) with me are as follows, roughly in order:

  • By email: For normal, non-emergency email, use my UIUC address: . I'll almost always answer by the end of the day (my time). For very urgent situations, where you need an instant response, you may use my Brown address: . This is for things like last-minute notifications of illness, urgent family problems, questions whose answer will affect your purchase of a plane ticket, etc. Please don't use it for ordinary situations.
  • In the discussion forums: I will read the discussion forums very regularly and will respond to any questions posted there.
  • Office hours: In the past, office hours haven't been terrifically useful (no one seems to take advantage of them). If you'd like me to hold regular office hours, I'm happy to do so, just let me know.
  • Via chatroom: I am happy to schedule virtual "meetings" with you at other times, if you'd like to meet privately for any reason, individually or in groups. Just send me email and we can set up a time. Evenings or weekends will usually be best for me.