-
A journal publishing platform is a digital service that allows publishers to manage the publication process from manuscript submission to content publication and distribution on the web.
In Diamond Open Access Publishing, choosing a publishing platform requires careful evaluation of multiple factors. To help you navigate this decision-making process, we've developed the following resources:
- A course
Whether you're a publisher, service provider, journal editor, or you’re involved in supporting publishing infrastructure, this course is designed to help you make decisions towards choosing the right option for a platform compliant with the Diamond Open Access Standard (DOAS). This course is also useful for librarians and trainers supporting publishing activities. Time estimate: 15-20 minutes.
- A self-reflection guide
This document guides you through a structured evaluation of your current workflow and helps you assess various platform options, whether self-hosted or SaaS. Use it to analyze your current setup, explore potential solutions, and choose a platform that optimizes your publishing process.
Use of platform (REQUIRED): The IP guarantees that a digital publishing platform supports online submission, editorial, and publishing workflows of all its journals.
Documentation (DESIRED): The IP guarantees that all its journals are supplied with user instructions and documentation for editorial staff and end users, and have a General Terms and Conditions for the use of the publishing infrastructure or platform. This information is displayed on their website.
Security (REQUIRED): The IP ensures that the infrastructure complies with the security standards established by law. When no standard exists in the region, the IP will apply at least those measures necessary and sufficient to keep the system protected from malicious intrusions.
Basic functionalities (REQUIRED): The IP guarantees that all its publishing platforms have basic functionalities like assisting in the publishing workflow, being compliant with standards, allowing multilingual support, preferably including an accessible, responsive and usable interface, being interoperable or being able to support rich metadata.
Advanced functionalities (DESIRED): The IP guarantees (where relevant) that all its publishing platforms offer advanced functionalities like post-publication evaluation and commenting, support for multimedia, and open peer review.
Basic infrastructure management (REQUIRED): The IP guarantees that all its publishing platforms are well maintained, updated, regularly backed up and protected against security threats.
Advanced infrastructure management (DESIRED): The IP guarantees that all its publishing platforms are maintained and developed following best practices and standards for IT service management to ensure improved efficiency, quality and consistency, risk reduction, and continuous improvement.
Long term preservation (REQUIRED): The IP has a publicly displayed archival and digital preservation policy which is consistently implemented. The published content is deposited in at least one digital preservation service.
Interoperability protocols (DESIRED): The IP guarantees that all its publishing platforms support widely adopted metadata exchange protocols (OAI-PMH, API) and most usual metadata schemas. The IP’s publishing platforms also support bulk export of metadata, and they indicate on their website which interoperability protocols are used and how to access them.
· File format
A file format is a standard way of encoding information so that it can be stored in a computer file. It defines the structure and type of data that the file contains: how information is organised, encoded, and represented. Thanks to this, the data stored in files can be consistently interpreted, accessed, and processed by software applications.
File formats widely used in the context of scholarly publishing include:
PDF (Portable Document Format)
EPUB (Electronic Publication)
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
XML JATS (Journal Article Tag Suite)
DOCX (Microsoft Word Open XML Document)
LaTeX (Document Preparation System)
CSV (Comma-Separated Values)
Reference/derivation: https://opendatahandbook.org/guide/en/appendices/file-formats/
· Free and open-source software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a licence that grants the right to use, modify, and distribute the software, modified or not, to everyone free of charge, as opposed to proprietary software, where the restrictive copyright or licensing is used and the source code is not available to users. Reference/derivation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software
· Interoperability
Interoperability is the ability of different systems, devices, or software to communicate, exchange data, interact and work together smoothly and efficiently. It involves the establishment of common standards, protocols, and interfaces to facilitate smooth communication among systems.
· Metadata
Metadata provides information about data. Specifically, it is machine-readable data that describes content, context and structure of resources and their management over time. In the context of scholarly publishing, metadata are pieces of information that describe published outputs (articles, books, journals, etc.).
· Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Software-as-a-Service is a software delivery model where applications are hosted and maintained by a provider and made accessible to users via a web browser. This model eliminates the need for managing infrastructure, updates, or hardware on the user side and can involve subscriptions for using the service. In the context of scholarly publishing, SaaS refers to cloud-based publishing platforms provided by non-profit or commercial providers, allowing publishers to manage the entire publishing workflow without having to host software locally.
· TDM (Text and Data Mining)
Automated computational analysis of text and data. Often involves downloading, extracting, and indexing full texts and metadata for research purposes.
· Vendor lock-in
Vendor lock-in is a situation where a customer becomes dependent on a specific vendor’s products, services, or technologies because it is difficult and/or expensive to switch to another provider. Such a situation can arise due to high switching costs, proprietary formats, or incompatible systems that limit interoperability. In the context of scholarly publishing software and services, vendor lock-in may happen if:
The platform uses proprietary data formats that are incompatible with other platforms
Migration to a different platform would require significant time, effort, technical expertise and funds.
Service agreements impose high fees for data extraction.
Support, updates, or customizations are exclusively controlled by the vendor.
Infrastructure - OA Journals Toolkit. n.d. Accessed 28 April 2024. https://www.oajournals-toolkit.org/infrastructure. ;
Ball, Cheryl E., Corinne Guimont, and Matt Vaughn. 2023. Finding the Right Platform: A Crosswalk of Academy-Owned and Open-Source Digital Publishing Platforms, https://doi.org/10.17613/z27e-0z11. ;
Baker, Stewart. 2020. Assessing Open Source Journal Management Software. Journal of Electronic Publishing 23 (1). https://doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0023.101. ;
The Royal Irish Academy, 2023. Webinar: Discovering Journal Publishing Platforms.
.
- A course