Journals available online faster

"Faster and online publishing is becoming increasingly important, we would like to be prepared for that."

👉 Publisher, Irene van Rossum, Amsterdam University Press

Why Amsterdam University Press is going completely digital

In recent years, Amsterdam University Press (AUP) has considerably expanded its range of journals. We think that's great already. But they want to serve their readers even better: all articles are available digitally quickly and in the right place. That's their dream. We at Crius Group are ready to make that dream a reality.

“Furthermore, the constantly changing international market and the developments in the field of 'open access' require digitization”, explains publisher Irene van Rossum of AUP. Being future-proof, that's what we hear!

3 challenges for Crius Group

Of course, you cannot digitize everything without thinking. AUP had to take into account a number of important conditions that they passed on to us with concern:

Costs manageable: Without sacrificing quality, the costs for editing and typesetting had to be limited. We understood that all too well.
International standards: XML in the JATS standard is increasingly requested on international platforms. In addition, they assign DOIs for the findability of the articles. We couldn't get around that.
Digital future: Some articles or magazines will only be published digitally in the future. We thought they should be prepared for that at AUP.

Together with AUP, our team developed an XML-first workflow. This fulfills all their wishes, but does mean a completely different way of working for the author, editor and typesetter. That took some getting used to!

Do you want to know exactly how we approached that? Find out the details about this workflow

The 4 benefits of this new workflow for AUP

This new working method has a few very big advantages for AUP, but it is also an adjustment for the employees.

Partner close to home: With Crius Group, AUP has short communication lines and can therefore switch quickly. Useful!
Price that stays the same: With a pricing that is approximately equal to that of a full offshore route, they are really lucky at AUP.
Articles available faster: Thanks to the switch to the XML-first workflow, authors are now able to have articles available digitally rather than in print. A top performance!
Making the most of new platform: In addition, AUP can now leverage the JATS metadata-encoded articles - to take full advantage of the capabilities of their new online platform, aup-online.com. Two birds with one stone! Or say four.

The biggest drawback? The adaptation for the team

The switch to the XML-first workflow has been a learning experience for both sides.

“But there are not only happy faces. In particular, the difference that the content is separated from the design is simply very new for many editors. There are many people who have to get used to this. That is why we have chosen to roll out this workflow step by step so that the chance of success is greatest,” concludes Irene.

We are indeed going to take that step by step, AUP. It'll be fine!

About Amsterdam University Press (AUP)

AUP is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The key aim of AUP is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public.

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