Ceci n'est pas un hamburger: modelling and representing the scholarly article

Abstract: Current approaches to publishing scholarly work are falling behind the growing demands of modern readers, who need easy access to the underlying data, as well as the ability to consume content on an ever-growing variety of electronic devices. The pros and cons of the various formats for representing the scholarly article are hotly contested, but as yet these debates have had little tangible impact on the publishing world where, in spite of its apparent limitations, the PDF remains the dominant form of distribution. We discuss fundamental philosophical differences between a scholarly work and its representation, and describe Utopia Documents, which realizes those differences in software, aiming to resolve many of the current issues in this area.