Single-source publishing, also known as single-sourcing publishing, is a content management method which allows the same source content to be used across different forms of media and more than one time.[1][2][3][4] The labor-intensive and expensive work of editing need only be carried out once, on only one document;[5] that source document (the single source of truth) can then be stored in one place and reused.[6] This reduces the potential for error, as corrections are only made one time in the source document.[7]
The benefits of single-source publishing primarily relate to the editor rather than the user. The user benefits from the consistency that single-sourcing brings to terminology and information. This assumes the content manager has applied an organized conceptualization to the underlying content (A poor conceptualization can make single-source publishing less useful).[4] Single-source publishing is sometimes used synonymously with multi-channel publishing though whether or not the two terms are synonymous is a matter of discussion.[8]
^Lucas Walsh, "The Application of Single-Source Publishing to E-Government." Taken from Encyclopedia of Digital Government, pg. 64. Eds. Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko and Matti Mälkiä. Hershey: IGI Global, 2007. ISBN9781591407904