Managing Editor Inc. (MEI) today announced that the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) is using the vjoon K4 Cross-Media Publishing Platform to manage its three scholarly journals and monthly newsletter. RSNA is a leading international society of radiologists, medical physicists and other medical professionals.

By implementing vjoon K4 — the preeminent cross-media publishing solution integrating Adobe InDesign and Adobe InCopy — RSNA has completely revamped its workflows and and dramatically shortened its cycle times from manuscript to published journals, eliminating several days in production. The organization's publishing team also extended its system with powerful add-ons including vjoon Overset Manager, vjoon Notes Manager, K4 XML Exporter and the K4 Integration with Adobe DPS for tablet publishing. MEI is the exclusive distributor of vjoon K4 in the Americas.

Previously, RSNA's publishing workflow relied on hard-copy printouts that were passed around from editor to editor. The publications were laid out in InDesign by outside production suppliers, and paper proofs were circulated for review. RSNA editors would mark them up by hand and return them to the suppliers, who would go back into the InDesign files, decipher the requested changes and incorporate them. Then, the paper proofing cycle would start over again.

With the publishing team processing more than 2,800 manuscript submissions per year, the need for a better system to take control of their content and streamline the production workflow was obvious. RSNA was hoping to switch to an entirely paperless environment, and in late 2011, the organization decided to make a change. Based on recommendations and research, they chose vjoon K4.

"We heard about vjoon K4 from a colleague, and after the initial research, decided that it was a system to investigate further," said Carol Douglas, managing director at RSNA. "We found that with vjoon K4, we would be able to host all of our content on our end instead of on a remote server, and controlling content was important to us.

"We also wanted to go with an InDesign-based system for a smoother transition. K4's connection with the Adobe products seemed like a good fit."

MEI helped RSNA roll out the software for four publications: Radiology, a monthly journal; RadioGraphics, a bimonthly; Radiology Select, a biannually; and RSNA News, a monthly newsletter. The installation went smoothly, and RSNA found MEI's experts exceptionally knowledgeable and professional.

"I was surprised at how quickly my staff picked up on the software," said John Humpal, managing editor for Radiology. "MEI was very responsive and helped us take care of every question that came up right away."

Thanks to vjoon K4, the editors of Radiology are able to work more efficiently and with fewer errors. RSNA's outside printer designs the journal in InDesign, based on copy from the Radiology team, and then sends the InDesign layouts back. In-house editors then put the layouts into the K4 database, where they edit and manage them directly, rather than having to mark up and pass around hard proofs.

For RadioGraphics, the entire production process is now handled in house, starting with layout. Both RadioGraphics andRadiology have seen measurable improvements in efficiency, shaving seven to ten days off each production cycle, since adopting vjoon K4.

"We track every step of the process, which allowed us to shorten the production cycle," Humpal said. "Receiving auto-notifications and managing everything electronically through our servers instead of passing printed proofs around really keeps things moving. Everyone can see the status of the entire workflow at any time."

RSNA editors expect the monthly RSNA News to benefit especially from vjoon K4's industry-leading cross-media capabilities. The newsletter is already available as an iPad app built using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite; the organization has plans to use the K4 Integration with Adobe DPS to further integrate its vjoon K4 system with Adobe DPS and to help automate tablet production. Similarly, RSNA is planning to feed the newsletter's website with dynamic content from the vjoon K4 database using the K4 XML Exporter.

RSNA is also considering using vjoon K4 to help manage the program guide it produces for its scientific assembly and annual meeting, which draws 60,000 attendees each year in Chicago, and potentially creating tablet versions of some guide content.

"Working with vjoon K4 is much better than moving files around on the old server and trying to track everything manually," said Kyllan Wescott, manager, content workflow, at RSNA. "It really has helped us develop efficiencies, keep track of content and review it for repurposing, and also to backtrack and make last-minute changes."

"By implementing a modern, electronic workflow supercharged with vjoon K4, RSNA is saving an impressive amount of time each production cycle," said Craig Roth, senior vice president of sales at MEI. "This new process not only delivers their brand to market faster, it also makes their team more efficient and opens new possibilities for streamlined, automated multi-channel publishing."