American Physical Society adopts River Valley’s automated publishing platform for rapid publications

Published by Rivervalley Technologies on

London, UK, 7 April, 2016 – RVPublisher, launched end of 2014, is the innovative end-to-end production platform set to revolutionize scholarly publishing. The system is a “pure” XML based end-to-end publishing platform, comprising several modules that link seamlessly – from online collaborative authoring to peer review, proof checking, automated pagination, and delivery. The system is set to reduce publication costs and turn-around times for publishers by up to 70%.

RVPublisher’s user friendly collaborative authoring module saves all content natively in XML right from the start. Subsequent stages such as peer review, copy editing and proof correction are all carried out directly on the XML file but using a familiar WYSIWYG interface. An integrated version control system keeps track of the complete editing history.

The American Physical Society (APS) has adopted the full suite of RVPublisher modules for its online publication, Physics. The system, especially configured by River Valley, has the following unique advantages for APS:

  • Decide the precise time of publication, without the need for an external typesetting vendor.
  • Any late changes can be entered into the system and the XML and PDF generated and published in a matter of seconds.
  • Journal editor can accept or reject any editorial changes, with confidence that all textual changes (and the name of the operator making the change) are clearly highlighted.
  • Images and even videos can be imported at multiple resolutions.

Mark Doyle, Chief Information Officer at the APS said: “RVPublisher is a sophisticated XML/MathML content editing system that allows the editorial staff of Physics to rapidly create, update, and publish articles with a push of a button while maintaining tight deadlines and without concern about the underlying markup. Working with RVT, we have been able to finely tailor the system to our very specific technical requirements and worklfow.

The pagination module within RVPublisher (RVFormatter) allows for a manuscript or book to be instantly published as HTML, PDF and Epub (and even Word!) at any stage in the process. Resultant PDFs can be a standard file, or one of River Valley’s unique “Smart PDFs” allowing optional information to appear when the user hovers the mouse over relevant links.

River Valley’s 500 man-years’ experience with handling mathematics has been incorporated into RVPublisher in order to ensure that it is a comfortable environment even for authors writing mathematics. Authors can even enter math content by using LaTeX commands directly. In the XML file, the mathematics is then seamlessly converted to MathML, using sophisticated conversion filters which can even encode subtle math spacing. Graphics are saved in different resolutions, and automatically chosen for different outputs. Vector images remain as vector throughout the process and are not “rasterized”.

The content can be exported as XML at any point in the process. The XML can be written to conform to any DTD, e.g. JATS. For publishers who prefer to use a conventional pagination vendor, this XML can be ingested directly into most typesetters’ pagination systems.

Kaveh Bazargan, CTO of River Valley Technologies said: “Our partnership with APS has allowed us to put RVPublisher through its paces and to ensure that the most complex scholarly material including mathematics is handled with full automation. We look forward to continuing to push the boundaries through our close cooperation with APS.

— Ends —

About River Valley Technologies

River Valley Technologies was set up in 1988 in the UK by Dr Kaveh Bazargan.  A physicist by training, his intense interest in the emerging area of desktop publishing led him to start a service company with the aim of delivering cutting edge technology to academic publishers. Some 27 years later, the company has expanded internationally, and remains at the forefront of typesetting and publishing technology.

River Valley was one of the first companies to embrace authoring “in the cloud”, with the first incarnation of RVPublisher some 8 years ago. The company continues to look at areas of publishing that can be improved or automated, including a major new initiative of “structured graphics” where illustrations in publications are linked to the main text, and not simply placed as separate items.

River Valley clients include Cambridge University Press, IOP Publishing and The Institution of Engineering and Technology

For further information contact:
Kaveh Bazargan
Kaveh@rivervalleytechnologies.com
www.rivervalleytechnologies.com

Categories: News