In 1930, our namesake, Forrest Harding, declared in the first issue of Mailing List that professional journals must disseminate and stimulate military thought. Today, the new Line of Departure modernizes how the Army disseminates military thought to a web-first, mobile-friendly platform.
Realizing a key point of the Harding Project platform, the Line of Departure provides a single access point to all of the Army’s branch journals, while providing current content in one easy-to-navigate platform. Content resizes to your device, is available for listening, prints cleanly for your leader development sessions, and does not require a common access card. Furthermore, the move to the Line of Departure aligns with a shift to rolling publication. Rather than waiting months for a new issue to drop, branch journals will regularly publish new content. In addition to offering a landing page for all your favorite military-oriented podcasts, Line of Departure will feature the Sergeant Major of the Army’s Muddy Boots (launching next week), and the CSA’s articles of the month.
Letting editors edit
Beyond accessibility, consolidating the web-platform offers three key benefits. First, readers are more likely to discover or monitor content from other branches. While each journal maintains a separate “vertical”, the landing page highlights the best new content from across all journals. Second, editors must no longer negotiate separate agreements with different network enterprise offices for their websites. Third, overall web-hosting functions are consolidated in a small team at Army University Press. Editors can edit; web designers can design and post.
While we’ve consolidated web hosting, each journal retains editorial independence. Under the oversight of your center of excellence commander and branch commandant, Harding Fellows direct the editorial teams that are soliciting, reviewing, editing, and publishing your articles. Line of Departure hosts, but your branch magazine remains your branch magazine.
The road ahead
We’re exceptionally proud to launch the Line of Departure today, but readers should expect new features over the weeks and months ahead.
First, we’re thinking hard about how to integrate “thoughtful comments.” Open comments can often become toxic, while letters to the editor are used to offer thoughtful back-and-forth on issues raised in articles. We want to encourage more of the latter. Post a comment if you have ideas!
Second, we’re investigating how to launch an app with push notifications. The Line of Departure’s web-first, mobile-friendly platform does a lot well. Creating a desktop link on your phone ensures readers can rapidly access the site. But a link to the website does not “push” notifications of new articles at the Line of Departure or your preferred branch journal. Expect a simple app in the future.
Third, we’re sifting through beta tester feedback to understand your most demanded features. As we improve the archives of the Army’s historical journals, those will become available for search through our partnership with the Defense Technical Information Center. We also want to ensure tight integration with citation tools like Zotero.
What do you think?
The Line of Departure makes the Army’s journals more accessible, realizing Harding’s vision for the dissemination of military thought. In fact, 79 beta testers rated the Line of Departure at 4.75 points out of five.
But we want to know what you think of the Line of Departure. Let us know in the comments below.