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Science's Next Wave: A Little XML Goes a Long Way
Alan Kotok
Managing Editor, Science's Next Wave
This case study explains the benefits of XML for publishing a
weekly publication with international editions
Science's Next Wave is
Science magazine's online career development resource, which provides
guidance on training, funding, preparing for the workplace, achieving diversity,
and finding alternative careers for the worldwide scientific community. Like
Science magazine itself, Next Wave publishes a new issue each week, and like
most publishers, Next Wave faces greater demands for imaginative content and
stiffer competition, while budgets and staff are shrinking. To help meet these
conflicting objectives, Next Wave installed an Extensible Markup Language (XML)
database to help manage its production workflow.
Next Wave chose an XML database because of the availability of off-the-shelf
tools, both packaged software and industry standards, that enabled its managing
editor to get the system in place quickly. Also, the ability to convert XML text
to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) with stylesheets helped cement the decision
to use XML.
The database uses the News Industry Text Format (version 3.2), a vocabulary
designed originally for data exchange between news producers and subscribers,
but one that works well for Next Wave's internal workflow. The database captures
basic metadata about the articles appearing each week. These metadata get reused
throughout Next Wave and Science's other online properties, as well as in
Next Wave's Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds.
 
Among the first beneficiaries of the system were Next Wave's European
operations. Next Wave has a Europe portal as well as individual home pages for
the U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands that feature articles of interest to
scientists in those countries. Before using the database, the European editors
were called upon to design their portal or national home pages each week, which
occupied too much of their time, as well as that of the managing editor and
Science production specialists.
With the database in place, Next Wave changed the workflow, to come up with a
common design that allowed these pages to draw content directly from the
database. Since the content on these pages overlapped, the common page design
consists of interchangeable parts that can be used on the different pages. As a
result, rather than writing new copy for the portals or home pages each week,
the editors now tell which stories they want to feature on any given week, and
the managing editor grabs the relevant entries from the database to populate
these pages. As a result, the editors have more time for writing and editing,
their real work.
Beginning in January 2005, Next Wave began generating its index pages directly
from the XML database using Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT)
stylesheets. This step saves Next Wave's production specialist from a lot of
routine repetitive work, which lets her concentrate on designing more
imaginative pages, which the readers come to the site to see. Using the database
also allowed Next Wave to expand its RSS feeds from three at the beginning of
2004 to nine feeds by December.
The process improvements and qualitative changes have paid off in sharply higher
audiences in 2005. In each of the first six months of 2005, the numbers of Next
Wave's visits, unique visitors, and page views increased steadily. By June 2005,
Next Wave attracted 48 percent more unique visitors and page views, and 76
percent more visits than the same month in 2004, with the gains experienced in
all parts of the world.
Case study: Science's Next Wave Adoption of XML
- XML database, XSLT and metadata re-use improved productivity
- Visitors and page views increased 48%
- Visits increased 76%
Science's NextWave
http://wnextwave.sciencemag.org
Science's NextWave (Europe)
http://wnextwave.sciencemag.org/europe/
Science
http://www.sciencemag.org
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