OMI Manifesto
We believe scholarly writing deserves better.
For decades, researchers have written manuscripts using tools designed for office documents rather than scientific communication.
These tools ask authors to think about fonts, margins, spacing, page breaks, and formatting instead of knowledge.
This should not be the responsibility of researchers.
Knowledge Comes First
A manuscript is not a collection of formatted pages.
It is a structured representation of knowledge.
Titles, citations, figures, tables, notes, references, and metadata all have meaning that extends beyond their visual appearance.
Meaning should always come before presentation.
Write Once
Researchers should write their work once.
They should never be required to recreate the same content for different publishers, repositories, or formats.
A single semantic manuscript should support every stage of scholarly communication.
Publish Everywhere
Scientific knowledge should not be locked into proprietary document formats.
One manuscript should generate:
- HTML
- EPUB
- JATS XML
- Crossref XML
- DataCite metadata
- future publishing formats
without rewriting or manual formatting.
Open Standards
The future of scholarly publishing depends on open standards.
No institution, publisher, or software vendor should own the document model of scientific communication.
Standards must be transparent, extensible, and community-driven.
Interoperability
Knowledge should move freely.
OMI is designed to integrate with existing scholarly infrastructure rather than replace it.
Publishers, repositories, archives, and journal platforms should exchange semantic manuscripts without information loss.
Collaboration
Research is collaborative.
Authoring, reviewing, editing, publishing, and preservation should all work on the same manuscript instead of creating disconnected copies.
Accessibility
Scientific knowledge belongs to everyone.
Accessibility is not an optional feature.
It is a fundamental design principle.
Preservation
Scientific manuscripts should remain readable for decades.
Open formats and semantic structures are essential for long-term preservation.
Artificial Intelligence
AI should support researchers.
It should never replace scientific responsibility.
Human authors remain responsible for scholarly content.
AI should assist with:
- language
- structure
- consistency
- metadata
- references
while preserving transparency.
Community
OMI belongs to its community.
Researchers.
Editors.
Developers.
Publishers.
Librarians.
Students.
Everyone is invited to contribute.
Our Commitment
We build openly.
We document publicly.
We collaborate respectfully.
We value scientific integrity above convenience.
We believe that scholarly communication deserves infrastructure designed specifically for scholarship.
This is OMI.
Write naturally.
Structure once.
Publish everywhere.