Teaching Publishing as Information Technology: A Description of a Structural Editing Curriculum at a South African University

As traditional publishing becomes more digitized, the responsibilities of its professionals become increasingly distributed. This is especially true in situations where copy editors are required to work within a mark-up (increasingly XML) paradigm. In developing our curriculum, we have shaped our teaching of editorial practice to consistently reinforce the underlying structure of a publication, as inferred from the technology and practices of a production department. As such, the philosophy of creating a publication from an informed structural perspective has become one of our key driving concepts reinforced over the course of several modules in our degree and continuing professional development programs.