Print Versus Online Publication: ABCT Shares Their Challenges and Solutions

 

InView September 2010 Issue

Print Versus Online Publication: ABCT Shares Its Challenges and Solutions

By Susan Henninger

Many associations and nonprofits today find themselves evaluating whether they should take their publications online, keep them in print, or find a combination of the two venues that suits both their members or clients and their Boards of Directors. NYSAE member David Teisler, CAE, director of communications for the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), advises organizations to “think about what it is that you want as your end outcome and everything else will flow from that,” adding, “take the time to learn as much as you can before you begin to make decisions!”

In ABCT’s case, Teisler explains that they put their two journals online six years ago and added PDFs of their newsletter slightly afterwards. However, the association’s members and committees actually started to consider this move several years beforehand.

“We saw that the world was changing, and at the same time we noticed that many of the things we used to consider products had morphed into services,” recalls Teisler. Using ABCT’s Fact Sheets as an example, he elaborates: “We used to sell the sheets but when we realized that our ultimate goal was to drive traffic to our website, our purpose shifted from creating a small revenue stream from the sale of the sheets to increasing information dissemination by making the sheets readily available at no cost to our members so they could then share them with their clients.” Teisler adds that if associations want to be relevant in today’s world, they need to be able to understand and take advantage of the online universe and all it can offer.

Teisler describes the newsletter conversion process as easy and low-cost because ABCT simply had its printer create a PDF when it printed ABCT’s newsletter. Conversely, transitioning the association’s print journals online was an immense undertaking. Since the group wasn’t sure where to begin the process, Teisler and his associates spent a significant amount of time researching the pros and cons of going online with their written materials and trying to discern who would be best able to create the text and platform that they wanted for ABCT. Teisler asserts that this was a crucial step because “you really need to know your options and who the players are.” ABCT’s research group was diverse, made up of stakeholders that included members from its finance and publication committees, editors, and the Board of Directors. The research group took many factors into consideration including:

  • The various costs of the options;
  • How to come up with a consistent format for its Request for Proposals so submissions would be easier for ABCT to compare and evaluate;
  • What librarians favored because they were the ultimate buyers of ABCT’s journals;
  • The opinions of other societies, authors, and editors; and
  • Whether ABCT should give up its rights and sell its journals to a publisher or form a partnership in which they could retain its rights.
ABCT ultimately decided on a combination of print and online newsletters. It put its newsletter online in static (not dynamic or searchable) PDF files, while continuing to mail them to members because both Teisler and Executive Director Mary Jane Eimer, CAE, believe that “it’s essential for an association to demonstrate its continued relevance and to do this it has to visit you in a personal, physical form other than a dues notice or a call to action.” Teisler feels this approach has been optimal for ABCT because it discovered that, despite numerous and diverse online reminders to its members such as e-mail blasts, “There are still a lot of people out there who don’t realize that our publications are now online.”

For the journals, ABCT used what Teisler calls “a true online conversion”, meaning it puts them online as web pages (not PDFs) through a professional publisher, because this is the direction in which the scientific publishing world is moving; and researchers depend upon online access to find references for their articles which will then lead to citations for your publications’ articles. “If you want your publication to be relevant then it must be easily accessible online,” says Teisler.

“It’s the impact factor that helps drive perceived relevance in the scientific community,” he elaborates. “The impact factor is determined by the number of times that your articles are cited in a given period. The more you can get your important articles out in front of researchers so they can choose to cite them in their own articles, the greater the impact. The greater the impact, the more other authors will want to submit to your journals, and the more librarians will want to keep your publications on their subscription list.” Ultimately this domino effect should lead to more recognition of, and revenue for, your organization.

Teisler has two valuable tips from ABCT’s experience with online conversion using an outside publisher:

  • Assume that submission and management software that the publisher uses will be different than what you use which means you’ll need to retrain your editors and production people;
  • Most publishers have cookie-cutter templates, so if you like the way your publication looks and favor its editorial style and guidelines then you must be sure to write in your contract that the publisher will need to accommodate your existing templates.

Though finances was an element in its final decision, organizational values turned out to be more important to ABCT. According to Teisler: “We looked toward the future and realized that we wanted to be in alignment with other essential psychological journals, as well as to retain the look and feel of our publications. That premise was what we based our final decisions on.”

Susan Henninger is a freelance writer who created this article in collaboration with Singlebrook Technology, Inc., a web and mobile development firm; www.singlebrook.com or call 607-330-1493.

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ABCT ultimately decided on a combination of print and online newsletters. It put its newsletter online in static (not dynamic or searchable) PDF files, while continuing to mail them to members because both Teisler and Executive Director Mary Jane Eimer, CAE, believe that “it’s essential for an association to demonstrate its continued relevance and to do this it has to visit you in a personal, physical form other than a dues notice or a call to action.” Teisler feels this approach has been optimal for ABCT because it discovered that, despite numerous and diverse online reminders to its members such as e-mail blasts, “There are still a lot of people out there who don’t realize that our publications are now online.”