Philosophy
Introduction
The Open Manuscript Initiative (OMI) is not merely a software project. It is a different way of thinking about scholarly writing.
Most contemporary authoring tools are descendants of office software. They were designed to produce formatted documents rather than structured knowledge.
OMI starts from a different premise:
A manuscript is a knowledge object, not a formatted document.
Knowledge Before Presentation
Authors should describe the meaning of their work rather than its appearance.
Instead of choosing fonts, margins or spacing, authors define scholarly concepts:
- title
- author
- affiliation
- abstract
- section
- quotation
- figure
- table
- citation
- note
- bibliography
Presentation is generated later according to publication requirements.
Separation of Content and Appearance
The logical structure of a manuscript must remain independent from its visual representation.
One semantic source should be capable of producing many publication formats without modifying the original manuscript.
Formatting is a publishing concern, not an authoring concern.
A Manuscript Is a Living Object
A manuscript evolves.
It passes through multiple stages:
- Authoring
- Collaboration
- Peer Review
- Editorial Revision
- Publication
- Preservation
OMI treats these as different views of the same scholarly object rather than separate documents.
Semantic First
Every element within a manuscript should carry explicit meaning.
A heading is not simply larger text.
A citation is not merely text inside parentheses.
A footnote is not just a smaller paragraph.
Each represents a semantic object with clearly defined behaviour and metadata.
Structured Knowledge
Scientific communication consists of interconnected entities.
Examples include:
- authors
- institutions
- ORCID identifiers
- references
- datasets
- software
- funding
- persistent identifiers
- review comments
- annotations
OMI models these relationships explicitly instead of embedding them in formatted text.
Modularity
Every component of OMI should be replaceable.
Editors, renderers, exporters, plugins and integrations should communicate through stable interfaces.
The core platform should remain lightweight and extensible.
Platform Independence
OMI is not tied to a single operating system, programming language or publishing platform.
Semantic manuscripts should move freely between applications without losing information.
Openness
All specifications should be openly documented.
All interfaces should be publicly available.
Community participation should be encouraged throughout the project's development.
Accessibility
Accessibility is a design requirement, not an enhancement.
Every researcher should be able to create, review and publish manuscripts regardless of ability or technology.
Longevity
Scientific knowledge should remain usable for decades.
OMI therefore favours:
- open standards
- semantic structures
- documented formats
- stable identifiers
- interoperability
over proprietary technologies.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is a tool for assisting scholarly work.
It may help authors improve language, consistency, metadata and structure.
Scientific judgement, interpretation and responsibility always remain with human researchers.
Human-Centred Design
Technology should adapt to scholarly practice.
Researchers should never be forced to understand publishing workflows in order to communicate their ideas.
Software exists to support scholarship—not the other way around.
The OMI Design Philosophy
Every design decision within OMI should answer three questions:
- Does this improve scholarly communication?
- Does this preserve semantic meaning?
- Does this increase interoperability?
If the answer is no, the feature should be reconsidered.
Summary
OMI is built upon a simple principle:
Write naturally. Structure once. Publish everywhere.
Everything else follows from that idea.