First draft of standards, 2008.04.04

Feedback about these standards is welcome: dilger@purdue.edu cb-dilger@wiu.edu

1. Facilitate access to journal web presences.
   1. Build journal web presences using standards-compliant methods, striving for compliance with markup quality standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
   2. Keep journal addresses as stable as possible; if sites move, redirects should be used to ensure findability. After a reasonable period, old sites which have moved should be deleted. Sites maintained as archives should include prominent links to the up-to-date web presence.
   3. If feasible, identifiers such as the Digital Object Identifier System (DOI) or Persistent Uniform Resource Locator (PURL) should be used to facilitate permanent access to journal content.
   4. For journals whose primary mode of distribution is print, the role of companion web presences should be clearly defined and promoted in the print journals.
2. Provide a high degree of functionality.
   1. Ensure web addresses included in content are selectable links.
   2. Provide navigation between the sections of content (for example, subheads in an article).
   3. Seek to provide or link to tag clouds and similar displays of metadata.
   4. Given the large role print media continue to play in scholarship and education, provide up-to-date printer-friendly versions of online content.
3. Whenever possible, facilitate connections with other scholarly discourse.
   1. Use aggregation tools such as Atom or RSS to provide automated methods of accessing updated content. Publicize their availability and encourage their use.
   2. For all content, in addition to “works cited,” provide an up-to-date list of “works citing” integrated with article content.
   3. Seek to provide an automated method of adding a citation, and document this method for use by scholars and/or other journals. Encourage its use.
4. Help readers shape the future of these standards.
   1. Publicize compliance with these and other standards.
   2. Provide or link to training for using enhanced functionality.
   3. Seek and value feedback from readers regarding the work of journals and the functionality of scholarship presented online.
5. Help authors achieve compliance with these standards.
   1. Provide or link to templates and guidelines which aid the production of content.
   2. Seek and value feedback from authors about the effect of the standards on the production and distribution of scholarship.
6. Help editors implement these standards.
   1. Provide a means of validating standards-compliance—automated, if possible.
   2. Seek to automate the interoperability and functionality implied by these standards.
   3. Keep the cost of standards compliance as low as possible, via free licensing of software and other means.
   4. Provide source code, when applicable, for software used in the production of web presences, metadata, etc.
7. Follow established standards for metadata exchange.
   1. Rather than creating new standards, seek to use and/or complement existing metadata standards such as Dublin Core.
   2. Develop and implement these standards in cooperation with similar projects, such as the Open Archives Initiative (OAI).
   3. Facilitate connections with cataloging sites and citation managers driven by user-contributed data, such as Zotero, CiteULike and del.icio.us.
8. Provide incentives for participation.
   1. Seek the support of organizations such the NCTE and MLA, and the highest-visibility journals they produce (e.g. College English, PMLA).
   2. Publish scholarship based on this work which documents the results of standardization efforts and encourages allocation of resources to the project.

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