Nordic Journal Hosting Possibilities
Nordic journal hosting and OA publishers: an overview
Introduction
This overview of Nordic journal hosts is part of the NordBib funded project “Aiding Scientific Journals Towards Open Access Publishing” (NOAP). A questionnaire was sent by email to identified hosts in the spring of 2009. The aim of the overview is two-fold. Firstly, to help journals to find hosting solutions and secondly to be a source of inspiration to new journal hosts or publishers. The Internet, together with journal software developments has made it comparatively easy and cheap to publish a new journal and make it available world wide. For many small journal operators (or would-be operators), running (the technical side of installing, updating…) an editorial support system (and even some of the other practical matters that go with producing a journal) is not as easy or desired. In these cases there are a number of third parties that offer services which can take care of the technical issues, marketing, indexing etc.
Our ambition is that when new hosts appear or there will be changes in what the existing hosts offer this web site will be updated and this will stay a live and current resource.
Open Access
All hosts/publishers except Museum Tusculanum Press are publishing Open Access Journals. If they only publish OA this will be stated in the field “Inclusion criteria”.
Hosts/publishers
The 13 hosts/publishers are classified into one of three groups.
Publishing houses
“Publishing houses” are independent publishers that give a more or less full range of services and support to their journals. The ones´ included here are either publishing open access or hybrid solutions already or moving in that direction. (Museum Tusculanum Press (MTP), Co-Action Publishing)
University presses
“University presses” are services with a clear connection to a university. A marked trend in these hosting services is that university libraries are taking in the task of providing hosting services, in most cases only for journals that have some kind of affiliation with staff at the university. Of the nine university hosts in this survey all, with the exception of Linköping University Electronic Press which started in 1996, were established in 2005 or later. (Linköping University Electronic Press, University of Tromsø e-Press, Bergen Open Access Publishing, Fritt - Oslo University, Copenhagen Business School Library, The State and University Library, Århus, University Library of Copenhagen/KB, Gothenburg University Library, Stockholm University Library)
Scientific and scholarly societies
Finally we have two services connected to “Scientific and scholarly societies” . (MedicalJournals. se, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies - Scientific Journals online)
Each service has a column in the following tables, where we have tried to systemize the replies that we received. The services are sorted by geographical limitations. First a table with short definitions of the fields used (link to)
| Host name | The name of the service, or the institution running it |
| Contact information | Name(s) and e-mail address of contact persons |
| URL | URL pointing to the service |
| Inclusion criteria | If a journal must live up to some specific criteria to be able to use the service. E.g. be affiliated to a specific university or be Open Access, etc. |
| Pricing | Is there any cost for the journal for using the service |
| Local technical development | If a journal wants new functionalities or features, can this be taken care of by the service itself? |
| Contracts journal/publisher | Is there a formal, legal contract between the journal and the service regulating terms and conditions? |
| Support multimedia publications | Is it possible to add audio or video files to an article? |
| Tech. support | Keeping the software up and running, upgrading software and running a back-up system. |
| Long-term archiving | Are there routines to secure long-time availability to the publications? |
| Proof-reading | Which of these services can the publisher/host offer? – indicates that the service is not offered. |
| Layout editing | |
| Parallel print ed. | |
| Print on demand | |
| Subscription management | |
| Publication fee management | |
| Marketing | |
| Copyright clearance | |
| Database indexing |
| Host name | Museum Tusculanum Press (MTP) | Co-Action Publishing | MedicalJournals. se | Linköping University Electronic Press |
| Contact information | Marianne Alenius / Niels Stern alenius@mtp.dk / niels@mtp.dk | Lena Wistrand lena.wistrand@co-action.net | Agneta Andersson agneta@medicaljournals.se | David Lawrence davla@ep.liu.se |
| URL | http://www.mtp.hum.ku.dk/default1.asp | http://www.co-action.net/ | http://medicaljournals.se/ | http://www.ep.liu.se/ |
| Inclusion criteria | Only peer-reviewed journals. Subject areas: Humanities, Theology and Social Sciences | Only peer-reviewed journals. Subject areas: Medicine & Health, Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities, Agriculture & Environment | n/a | See (b) |
| Pricing | See (a) | n/a | n/a | Free |
| Local technical development | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Contracts journal/publisher | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Support multimedia publications | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tech. support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Long-term archiving | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Proof-reading | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Layout editing | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Parallel print ed. | Yes | If requested by customer | Yes | No |
| Print on demand | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Subscription management | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Publication fee management | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Marketing | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Copyright clearance | Yes | Yes (Creative Commons NonCommercial) | No | Yes (Creative Commons NonCommercial) |
| Database indexing | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
(a) We price our services according to the demands/wishes of the individual journal, i.e. the price is negotiable.
(b) To qualify for hosting at LiU E-Press, a journal or proposed journal is required to meet the following conditions: - The journal must be of high quality and national or international in scope; - The journal must be open access, i.e. allowing completely free access to the articles. A creative commons agreement (attribution, or attribution non-commercial) will be used to clarify the licensing of published articles; - All articles must be externally peer-reviewed, i.e. the reviewers must include people beyond those affiliated with the editorial committee of the journal; - The journal must show sufficient promise to publish at least two issues per year, or equivalent, when continuous publishing is envisaged, for at least five years; - The journal must provide a business plan and an editorial plan consistent with the above conditions. Journals will go through an application procedure in which a journal will illustrate in writing and through a meeting with E-Press personnel how it meets the above conditions. LiU E-Press will set up a working group comprising the Chief Librarian, the Scientific Editor and the Chair of the E-Press Steering Group which will solicit feedback from experts in the field of the journal on the following: - the need for such a journal; - the competence and reputation of the proposed editorial staff; - the quality of the proposed editorial board; - the potential volume and source of material; - the potential for continuing support; - the distinctness from other journals in the area. This information will be analyzed and a recommendation provided to the Board of Directors of LiU Library which is the formal decision-making body with respect to initial approval to host a journal and for withdrawal of E-Press’s journal hosting services.
| Host name | NTNU Open Access Publishing | University of Tromsø e-Press | Bergen Open Access Publishing | Fritt - Oslo University |
| Contact information | Katherine.fonn@ub.ntnu.no | Stein Høydalsvik. stein.hoydalsvik@uit.no | Ingrid Cutler Ingrid.Cutler@ub.uib.no | fritt-info@journals.uio.no |
| URL | http://www.ntnu.no/ojs/ | Each journal has a unique URL | http://boap.uib.no/ | https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/index/index |
| Inclusion criteria | Presently the journal should have an organizational connection to NTNU. This may be expanded at a later date. | Presently, the journal must have an organizational connection to the University of Tromsø. This could be expanded at a later date. | The journal must be Open Access. The journal should have an organizational connection to Bergen University. This may be expanded at a later date. | OA journals run by researchers at Oslo University |
| Pricing | Free | Free | Free | n/a |
| Local technical development | No | Yes | No | n/a |
| Contracts journal/publisher | No | Yes | No | n/a |
| Support multimedia publications | Yes | Yes | Yes | n/a |
| Tech. support | Yes | Yes | Yes | n/a |
| Long-term archiving | No | No | No | n/a |
| Proof-reading | No | No | No | n/a |
| Layout editing | No | No | Yes | n/a |
| Parallel print ed. | No | No | No | n/a |
| Print on demand | No | No | No | n/a |
| Subscription management | No | No | No | n/a |
| Publication fee management | No | No | No | n/a |
| Marketing | Yes | No | No | n/a |
| Copyright clearance | No | No | No | n/a |
| Database indexing | Yes | Yes | Yes | n/a |
(c) Bergen Open Access Publication is a project at the University of Bergen Library funded by Norwegian Open Research Archoves (NORA). As a project the services are free, but there may be a time when the University of Bergen Library has to charge for the hosting. The fee will be low.
| Host name | Copenhagen Business School Library | The State and University Library, Århus | University Library of Copenhagen/KB |
| Contact information | Kurt Mathiesen. km.lib@cbs.dk | Niels Erik Frederiksen, nef@statsbiblioteket.dk | Thea Marie Drachen
thmd@kb.dk |
| URL | http://ej.lib.cbs.dk/index.php/ | http://ojs.statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/index/index | http://www.tidsskrift.dk/ |
| Inclusion criteria | The journal must have some kind of affiliation with CBS | As a main rule the journal must have some kind of affiliation with Aarhus University | n/a |
| Pricing | Free | Free | n/a |
| Local technical development | No | No | n/a |
| Contracts journal/publisher | No | n/a | n/a |
| Support multimedia publications | Yes | Yes | n/a |
| Tech. support | Yes | Yes | n/a |
| Long-term archiving | Yes | Yes | n/a |
| Proof-reading | No | No | n/a |
| Layout editing | No | No | n/a |
| Parallel print ed. | No | No | n/a |
| Print on demand | No | No | n/a |
| Subscription management | No | n/a | n/a |
| Publication fee management | No | n/a | n/a |
| Marketing | No | n/a | n/a |
| Copyright clearance | No | No | n/a |
| Database indexing | Yes | Yes | n/a |
| Host name | Gothenburg University Library | Stockholm University Library |
| Contact information | Jonas Gilbert & Gösta Cramby. ojs@ub.gu.se | Marie Lövgren marie.lovgren@sub.su.se |
| URL | http://www.ub.gu.se/publicera/epublicering/ojs/ | n/a |
| Inclusion criteria | The journal must be connected to University of Gothenburg (d) | The journal must be connected to Stockholm University |
| Pricing | Free (e) | Free |
| Local technical development | No | No |
| Contracts journal/publisher | No (f) | No |
| Support multimedia publications | No | No |
| Tech. support | No | No |
| Long-term archiving | No | No |
| Proof-reading | No | No |
| Layout editing | No | No |
| Parallel print ed. | No | No |
| Print on demand | No | No |
| Subscription management | No | No |
| Publication fee management | No | No |
| Marketing | No | No |
| Copyright clearance | No | No |
| Database indexing | No | No |
(d) For instance that researchers from the university are members of the editorial committee.
(e) The service started as a strategic project in 2007, financed by strategic funding from the library. We have so far not charged the journals for the service of hosting OJS. If we would start doing this, the price would depend on the number journals using the platform, the service level included in default package etc.
(f) We do have a written ”Memorandum of Agreement" with the publishers, though not a legal contract.
| Host name | Federation of Finnish Learned Societies - Scientific Journals online |
| Contact information | Jani Laatikainen. jani.laatikainen@tsv.fi |
| URL | http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/ |
| Inclusion criteria | This service is limited to member societies of the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies. |
| Pricing | Free |
| Local technical development | Yes |
| Contracts journal/publisher | No |
| Support multimedia publications | Yes |
| Tech. support | Yes |
| Long-term archiving | No |
| Proof-reading | No |
| Layout editing | No |
| Parallel print ed. | No |
| Print on demand | No |
| Subscription management | No |
| Publication fee management | No |
| Marketing | Yes |
| Copyright clearance | No |
| Database indexing | No |
Software
Originally this part of the NOAP project was intended to be a report on systems suitable for smaller open access journals but after we looked at a couple of studies from recent times [1] and trying to find the software on the internet we realized that most of the systems reviewed were no longer developed or even maintained. The free, open-source Open Journal Systems (OJS)[2] seems to dominate the market for smaller Open Access journals today. Ten of the thirteen Nordic hosts/publishers we have identified so far are using the OJS platform. Nine have installed the system locally and one is using an international host to run the system. We identified three possible options to OJS that seems to be alive that we will just list here.
DPubS - http://dpubs.org/ is an open source software developed by Cornell University Library and Penn State University Libraries and Press.
E-Journal – http://drupal.org/project/ejournal a journal module from Drupal
ePublishing Toolkit - https://dev.livingreviews.org/projects/epubtk/ from the Max Planck Gesellschaft
If you are looking for other software, including software that manages a part of the journal publishing workflow (e.g. the peer review process), the SPARC listing of journal management systems is a good place to start. http://www.arl.org/sparc/publisher/journal_management.shtml
[1] Omlægning til e-publicering -et systemreview og en analyse af to tidsskrifters overvejelser ved omlægning til e-publicering (Transfer to E-Publishing: a system review and anlaysis of journals’ experiences when going electronic): www.deff.dk/showfile.aspx?IdGuid=%7BE816AA2A-E7F3-40E3-AB91-2E69E91D2467%7D . A Survey and Evaluation of Open-Source Electronic Publishing Systems: https://wiki.library.jhu.edu/download/attachments/22964/Open+Source+ePublishing+Systems+White+Paper.pdf?version=1
