This year Wiley introduced a new Online Proofing System for many of its journals. We caught up with Dev Kumar, SVP Content Management, Wiley to learn more about what this means for our authors and editors.

Q. Could you briefly explain what the new HTML Online Proofing System (HTML-OPS) is?

A. HTML-OPS is an online, real-time HTML based proofing system that allows authors and editors to proof and edit articles online in real time. We believe that this creates a better experience for authors and editors.

Q. How does it work?

A. HTML OPS offers authors and editors an easy, cleaner way to make corrections to articles directly in XML/HTML, creating faster publication times by reducing the rounds of revisions in the production process. Authors use the simple interface to offer corrections for text, equations, tables, and images in an HTML format. PDFs are also available for download for authors who are unable to use the HTML functionality. The content editing is done from the author/editor desktop with no additional software required. HTML-OPS is supported in most major browsers An editor sees the proofs including the author’s changes and can view, accept, reject, or modify them. The production editor reviews, accepts, or rejects changes per journal guidelines, addresses comments given by the author, and prepares the final paginated PDF.

Q. Is HTML-OPS available for all titles?

A. We have a phased roll-out plan which began in January 2019 and we now have over 1,100 journals successfully using the system with more planned in the coming months.

Q. What exactly will using HTML-OPS mean for authors? Could you explain some of the benefits of the new system?

A. HTML-OPS means that our journals will now have online browser-based proofing to replace PDF-based proofing where PDF files were emailed to authors and Editors. This enables direct mark-up on a central XML file which streamlines corrections. New functionalities include: adding, citing, auto-renumbering of references, and editing of mathematical formulae. Overall, this increases efficiency and clarity of corrections for typesetters and removes the need for manual proof collation by production editors and importantly decreases the time to article publication.

Q. What do authors think of it so far?

A. In the majority we have had positive feedback. We launched a survey to authors recently and from the 4650+ respondents so far, we have a 4.2 out of 5 satisfaction score. 84% of authors are either satisfied or very satisfied with the system and 83% find it easy to proofread their articles with the new system. Of course, there is always room to improve, especially when launching something new, but after taking on board some of the comments and suggestions from authors using the system we look forward to making the experience better.

"This is the most efficient online proofing system I have ever used. I hope other journals will adopt the same system soon." -HTML-OPS user