MPub edit: A revised program to meet the needs of today’s students

The Master of Publishing program (MPub) at SFU has been working on a few edits. While the content of its courses has continued to evolve alongside the ever-changing publishing industry, the structure of the program has remained mostly the same since its inception in 1995. Now, under the leadership of director Hannah McGregor, the MPub has been redesigned around the changing needs of students in the 21^st century. McGregor hopes the changes will expand the pool of students interested in pursuing a graduate degree through the program.

“Our goals were both to update the degree in terms of how students can access it, the reality of students’ lives today, the reality of the publishing profession,” says McGregor, “but also to provide increased flexibility so that we can attract students who perhaps are also interested in working with our research faculty — which has grown since 1995.”

Traditionally, the program has focused on trade publishing preparing students for a career in print and digital publishing, with courses in editorial practice and theory, production management, book design, marketing, and more. With the redesign, MPub will now offer a part-time option and three streams: the original trade publishing stream and two new streams in scholarly communication and innovation and entrepreneurship. McGregor says these new streams are reflective of the desires and paths that students in the program have already expressed interest in pursuing, as well as the ways in which publishing as an industry has expanded.

The Trade Publishing stream will continue the tradition of what the Master of Publishing program has taught since its inception. Students will learn book and magazine publishing and take applied courses that will simulate the process of publishing a book or magazine — learning core skills like budgeting, marketing, project management, design, and book production that will set them up to be ready to work at any press, large or small.

The Scholarly Communication stream takes advantage of the fact that several MPub faculty are experts in scholarly communication. John Maxwell has done a great deal of research into the history and future of the monograph. Juan Pablo Alperin is a major scholar in the field of open science and open access publishing science communication, and he is closely affiliated with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) which created the Open Journal system. The scholarly communication stream will include courses that are rooted in the work of the PKP, where students will learn about journal management, journal editing and the technological infrastructure that underpins scholarly communication work. Students in this stream will also have the option of doing a research-focused capstone project.

McGregor is excited to have this new stream that meets a growing demand among prospective students. “Frankly, there's work in scholarly communication, and we've had people come to us and say, ‘I want to do the MPub, but I'm really interested in the scholarly communication side of things.’ And we’d have to say, ‘well, we'd love to have you, but there's no courses about that’ and now there will be!”

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship stream takes aim at the differences of the new media publishing landscape compared to traditional publishing, the central role that self-publishing takes, and the different approaches to publishing that arise when you're creating in the spaces of online publishing and podcasting. Students will take courses in publishing, technology, web design, budgeting and startup management, with a self-directed capstone option which allows students to start their own new media publishing effort.

“This stream will really be for people who are interested in coming up with a startup, who want to create their own thing, and want the necessary skills and tools to actually put that into action,” says McGregor.

Until now, the MPub has been a full-time, intensive cohort-based program — a model which offers many benefits from the ability to deeply immerse oneself in your studies to building lasting friendships and community. The new part-time MPub option allows students, for whom a full-time commitment may not be possible, to pursue the degree at a more flexible pace.

“It’s Monday to Friday, nine to five, full on and intense, and that can be a really cool experience, it may not be realistic for many people right now,” says McGregor. “What we really want is for this degree to be as accessible as possible, particularly because the publishing industry has a diversity problem, a big part of which is who can afford to even study in the field in the first place? By saying, ‘you can do this degree part time over a few years, while you are still working,’ that hopefully increases the accessibility significantly.”

These changes are just the first steps in the reimaging of the Publishing program. McGregor says their goal is to find more ways to make the program even more accessible and keep up with the shifting realities of the publishing industry. Some of the future changes may come in the form of low residency options – allowing students to attend classes remotely outside of a few important dates – to address the increasing cost of living in Vancouver, embracing online teaching, finding ways for working publishing professionals to access MPub courses to upskill, and developing exchanges with other publishing graduate programs.

“We want people to know how to work in the publishing industry, but we also want them to go out empowered, to rethink how publishing works, and to feel bold enough to make changes,” says McGregor. “All of the redesign that we've done has really grown out of those core values.”

ABOUT THE MASTER OF PUBLISHING PROGRAM

Located within SFU’s Faculty of Communication, Art, and Technology, the Master of Publishing (MPub) program is the only program in Canada to offer a postgraduate degree in publishing, and is the country’s premier training ground for publishing professionals. With flexible full-time and part-time options, the MPub can help you kickstart a career in publishing, update your skills, or deepen your knowledge.