*Apologies for cross posting*

Bringing life science to life with semantic publishing - a new direction for the Biochemical Journal

"Pdfs paralyse the proper and efficient use of scientific knowledge. By burying information in static, unconnected journal articles and by placing fragments of that knowledge in disparate, hard to access databases, scientists waste countless hours either repeating experiments that they didn’t know had been performed before, or worse, trying to verify facts that they didn’t know had been shown to be false." says Professor Terri Attwood, whose Manchester University team, with the help of funding from Portland Press Limited, have developed new and powerful publishing software that will help life scientists work more efficiently.

Launched by Portland Press Limited (www.portlandpress.com), this software, called Utopia Documents, has been used to transform the latest edition of their flagship journal, the Biochemical Journal, (www.biochemj.org) by dynamically linking documents to research data, enabling readers to interact with and manipulate the information in the journal’s scientific papers more effectively.

"Semantic publishing software is not new," said Rhonda Oliver, the Managing Director of Portland Press Limited, "but the Utopia document management system used by Portland Press is different for several reasons. First, the editorial staff carry out all text mark-up – this removes the need for authors to have to do this and ensures rigour and consistency. Secondly, the Utopia system "overlays" the additional, semantic data on to existing text, rather than embedding it into the text initially where it cannot be subsequently altered. This means that Utopia’s features can be used with any document – even one that has laid on a laptop, unread, for many years".

The new Semantic Biochemical Journal (www.biochemj.org) will turn static images, tables and text into objects that can be linked, annotated, visualized and analysed interactively. Terms and phrases in the paper are linked to external websites, glossaries and databases. Extra data such as images and videos can be embedded into the text and there are links to interactive tools to manipulate protein sequences and to see molecular structures in 3-D.

The Utopia software accesses and adds in these external services via the Web. This makes it easier to customize the software for other subject areas.

Initially, the developers have concentrated on providing access to protein sequencing and structural analysis, but they plan to extend the scope to other areas of biology, and to the medical and health sciences as the necessary information sets and databases in these subjects are already in place and accessible.

Future developments of the system include a feature to let the reader add notes and comments to an article – perhaps just for their own use or to share with other readers, reviewers and editorial staff.

Further information available from Kerry Cole

Kerry Cole

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Portland Press Ltd

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~with apologies for cross-posting~

Royal Society of New Zealand and Taylor & Francis co-publishing partnership, 
2010

Taylor & Francis is delighted to announce a co-publishing partnership with the 
Royal Society of New Zealand for its eight journals starting in 2010. The RSNZ 
journals include over three hundred volume years of top science content 
covering New Zealand research specialities such as the geosciences, botany, 
agriculture, marine science and zoology, with particular emphasis in the 
territories of New Zealand, Antarctica, the Antipodes and the Pacific Rim. The 
Royal Society of New Zealand’s flagship social science journal Kotuitui 
balances these debates by providing a home for a wide range of social science 
discussions with the additional intention of displaying the links between the 
social and physical sciences. 

Taylor & Francis’s Melbourne office will provide local production and editorial 
liaison while the company’s international marketing networks will ensure the 
journals are given tactical, tailor-made marketing to ensure their authors 
receive the greatest possible exposure for the unique content that the 
collection contains.

The journals will move to Taylor & Francis’s InformaWorld platform, where they 
will benefit from HTML versions of articles, forward citation linking and 
advanced publication of articles online through iFirst. ScholarOne Manuscripts 
online submission and review will also be established, making peer review more 
efficient and maximizing outreach to international authors. Back issues of the 
journals will be digitized and made available to subscribers online.

Dr Di McCarthy, Chief Executive, Royal Society of New Zealand said ‘We are 
very excited by this partnership, and the opportunities it offers for the 
journals. Our authors, editors, referees, and readers should all benefit from the 
proposed new initiatives, and we look forward to working with Taylor &amp; Francis 
in the coming years.’

Dr David Green, Global Journals Publishing Director at Taylor & Francis, 
added: “This group of highly ranked titles is one of the major journal lists in 
Asia-Pacific, and we are delighted that the RSNZ has selected Taylor &amp; 
Francis as their publishing partner of choice.  Our innovative strategies to 
drive global usage, citations and impact will bring major benefits to the 
dissemination of New Zealand science.”

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About Taylor & Francis Journals
Taylor & Francis is part of Informa, one of the world's leading publishers of 
academic journals. We are dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly 
information, drawing on expertise developed since first publishing learned 
journals in 1798. Taylor & Francis now publishes 1,562 scholarly journals in 
association with over 460 learned societies and scholarly institutions. We 
operate from a network of 20 global offices, including Philadelphia, Oxford, 
Melbourne, Stockholm, Beijing, New Delhi, Johannesburg and Singapore.

For more information please contact:
Jennifer McMillan, Library Marketing Manager, Taylor & Francis Group Journals
Tel: +44 (0) 207 017 6431; e-mail: Library@tandf.co.uk

Customer Services:
Sarah Wright, Customer Services Manager, Taylor & Francis Group Journals
Tel: +44 (0) 207 017 5544; e-mail: subscriptions@tandf.co.uk