Introduction 

The Texas Digital Library (TDL) hosts peer-reviewed Open Access scholarly journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS), the world's most widely used journal management and publishing system. OJS is an open source software platform developed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), "a multi-university initiative developing (free) open source software and conducting research to improve the quality and reach of scholarly publishing."

Faculty, staff, or students affiliated with a subscribing member institution may request a journal site by  completing this form or contacting the TDL Helpdesk at support@tdl.org. A TDL staff member will review your information, verify that your request meets the requirements of the service, and confer with the sponsoring institution before hosting arrangements are finalized. 

Overview of Roles and Responsibilities

The TDL Journal Hosting service is a library publishing collaboration among (at least) three parties, each with important roles in maintaining a successful journal:

• The Texas Digital Library, which provides hosting and technical support for the journal.

• The Library, which serves as a liaison between the TDL and the Journal Team and provides value-added services like consulting on scholarly communications issues, support for DOIs and ORCIDs, or web analytics setup. Member institutions may have publishing programs that provide additional services beyond the hosting and technical support provided by TDL. Journals will need to consult with their institutions to find out what services these may be as part of the application process, as TDL will verify with the liaison that the member institution is willing to support the journal. 

• Journal Team (including the Journal Manager(s), Editors(s), other journal staff and Editorial Board), which undertakes the work of editorial workflow management, policy setting, and decision-making within the journal site. The Journal Team must be able to support the publishing work that a journal entails, in consultation with their sponsoring institutions. This may include soliciting manuscripts, managing peer review, copyediting, typesetting, translation, DOI management, and other common services required by journals. The Journal Team is also responsible for custom site design.

Roles and Responsibilities of TDL 

Faculty, staff, and students at TDL member institutions with OJS hosting may be eligible for free hosting and technical support for open access, peer-reviewed journals. For additional eligibility information see https://texasdigitallibrary.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OAJ/pages/988577805.

The Texas Digital Library (TDL) includes the following services:

• Hosting and professional management of an OJS installation in the Amazon Cloud, which includes:

  • A journal website

  • Online submission tools

  • Editorial administration tools for managing the peer review and copy-editing workflows, and for creating online issues

  • Reporting on acceptance rates and journal usage, including via optional integration with Google Analytics

  • The ability to configure submission requirements, sections, and review processes

  • Indexing of content with search engines

  • A default set of OJS plugins. Seehttps://texasdigitallibrary.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OAJ/pages/2996109339. Users may request additional plugins through a Helpdesk ticket. 

  • A default set of theme options. Journal teams may use these theming options or adapt and upload customized CSS for their journal site. TDL does not at this time provide theme customization services.

• All system administration tasks -- including upgrades to the OJS software and maintenance of backups and security protocols --  are handled by TDL staff. See https://texasdigitallibrary.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OAJ/pages/1128693761for more about Security Protocols.

• TDL Helpdesk support for library staff, Journal Teams, and other users (e.g. peer reviewers, readers, etc.).

• Coordination of the and Journal Manager list. 

• Financial support of the Public Knowledge Project (the open source home of OJS) to facilitate on-going development of the Open Journal Systems software.

• Asynchronous training and documentation available for Journal Teams via PKP. See for more information.

TDL Journal Hosting Policies

Open Access. TDL-hosted journals must have a posted Open Access policy that provides free access to published articles.

Institutional membership. TDL works through an institutional membership model, and does not provide hosting services to individuals or individual journals outside of institutional memberships. Any institution of higher education interested in TDL membership and journal hosting services can contact TDL at info@tdl.org.

Institutional Liaisons. Each member institution that subscribes to the journal hosting service identifies a liaison to serve as a primary contact for TDL at their institution. This liaison:

• Serves as a member of the TDL OJS User Group.

• Approves new journal requests for their institution.

• Maintains a user account to which TDL provides Journal Manager access in each TDL-hosted journal sponsored by their institution.

Migration. TDL may provide support for migration of OJS journals hosted elsewhere at its discretion, assuming staff capacity to do so. For other kinds of content migration, the OJS application provides import tools and a Quick Submit plugin that can help Journal Teams move issue and article archives into a new TDL-hosted journal. TDL does not currently provide system administration support for journals currently housed in other platforms (such as WordPress or BePress). 

Journal URLs. 

By default, TDL-hosted Open Journals have a URL that follows this formula: 

https://[slug]-ojs-[institution].tdl.org/[slug]

where the "slug" is an abbreviation of the journal's name and "institution" is the TDL abbreviation for the sponsoring institution.

Example: https://fire-ojs-ttu.tdl.org/ 

TDL also maintains an alternate URL using the formula https://journals.tdl.org/[slug]/. This URL redirects to the canonical URL. Example: https://journals.tdl.org/fire/  

Journal Manager teams, or member libraries, may register their own custom domains and redirect them to a TDL-hosted journal site. It is their responsibility to manage the registration and redirection. TDL does not register custom URLs for new journals as part of the journal hosting service. 

Customization

• Code customization.TDL does not provide customization services that require changes to the php code.

• Theme customization. TDL journals come out of the box with several theme options. Journal teams may use these theming options or adapt and upload customized CSS for their journal site. (See for Theme plugins included by default.) TDL does not at this time provide theme customization services.

• Workflow customization. TDL-hosted journals come with built-in tools for managing editorial workflows for academic journals. TDL cannot provide support for customizing these tools beyond what is possible within the journal management user interface. 

• Custom URLs. Journal Manager teams, or member libraries, may register their own custom domains and redirect them to a TDL-hosted journal site. It is their responsibility to manage the registration and redirection. TDL does not register custom URLs for new journals as part of the journal hosting service. 

Maintenance of DOIs. The OJS application features tools for assigning DOIs and exporting metadata to DOI registration services like CrossRef and DataCite. TDL does not at this time provide automatic membership in a DOI registration service as part of the journal hosting service; nor does it maintain a relationship with these services on behalf of the journal. Sponsoring member institutions may provide services for DOI registration through their library; journal teams should contact their library liaison for information.

Student-run journals. Student-run journals must be sponsored by a faculty member or academic department at the TDL-affiliated member institution. The faculty sponsor(s) must maintain a Journal Manager role in the OJS site.

Journal Site Deprecation and Migrations away from TDL hosting

Inactive Journals. TDL periodically reviews its hosted journals for recent activity. After one year of inactivity (defined as a full calendar year without publication), TDL may contact the journal team to determine if the journal has ceased publication. If it has ceased publication, TDL staff will work with the Journal Team and Library contacts to determine an appropriate archive for the journal content. If the journal intends to continue publishing, TDL will continue hosting for an additional year.

A journal site that is inactive for two years may be deprecated and archived, after TDL Staff have sent a notification of deprecation to the Journal Team and Library Liaison. Journal Teams and/or Library Liaisons may request continued hosting of an inactive journal beyond the two-year mark, assuming the Library is willing to continue sponsoring the journal.

Tombstones and redirects. At the time of deprecation, Journal Teams and/or the Library Liaison may request a “tombstone,” which is a static html page that is shown whenever one of the former journal’s pages are accessed. 

Additionally, if a journal site moves to a different hosting service, the journal may request that TDL place a redirect on the deprecated URL so that users are redirected to the new journal site in a different location.

Changes in Affiliation. Sometimes a journal begins its life affiliated with one institution, but the editorial board and journal management operations transfer to individuals affiliated with another institution. When this happens, it is the responsibility of the sponsoring Library and its liaison to determine whether the institution will continue sponsoring the journal via the TDL hosting service or require transfer to another hosting service.

Roles and Responsibilities of the Library

The TDL Library Member supports journal hosting via its institutional membership in the Texas Digital Library and its subscription to the TDL’s Open Journal Hosting service.  The member is responsible for identifying an individual within its staff or faculty to serve as a liaison between TDL and the journals it sponsors.

Liaison responsibilities include:

• Serving as a point of contact for TDL staff and for TDL-hosted journal teams affiliated with their institution. 

• Authorizing (or declining to authorize) TDL to begin and continue hosting services for any journal site requested by faculty, staff, and students of their member institution.

• Maintaining one or more user accounts with Journal Manager privileges in each sponsored journal hosted by TDL. 

• Contributing to the OJS User Group and initiatives it prioritizes, as able.

TDL Library Members may provide additional publishing services and support at their discretion. The support available for journal operation will vary depending on an institution’s publishing program and resources. Some institutions may be able to provide no additional services aside from TDL basic hosting service, while others may be able to provide support for services such as DOI minting, ORCID and web analytics setup, training, and technical support. Others may have a robust publishing service that can help coordinate copyediting, typesetting, and other editorial functions. Journal Teams should consult with their library’s TDL liaison for more information. 

Roles and Responsibilities of Journal Team

Journal Teams undertake the work of editorial workflow management, policy setting, and decision-making within the journal site.

The Journal Team must be able to support the publishing work that a journal entails, in consultation with their sponsoring institutions. This may include soliciting manuscripts, managing peer review, copyediting, typesetting, translation, DOI management, and other common services required by journals. The Journal Team is also responsible for custom site design.

Key roles for your Journal Team Members include:

• Managing Editor -  This person is the main contact for the journal and is responsible for assigning articles to reviewers or editorial board members.

• Editorial Board - The board is absolutely crucial. Every journal should have a board willing to serve, before setting up the journal. An editorial board should be made up of respected individuals in the field.

  • Questions to consider: 

    • Are the editorial board going to be faculty members?

    • How are you going to recruit for the editorial board?

    • Do they have a range of expertise?

    • How much work is expected of editorial board members?

    • What will be the term and process for regular replacement/ongoing reappointment of members?

    • How many members will you need on your editorial board?

• Reviewers - People knowledgeable in the field who are willing to read and review the articles that are submitted to the journal.

  • How will you solicit reviewers?

  • How many peer reviews are needed?

  • How long will you give your reviewers to review the papers?

For more information about setting up and running a TDL-hosted OJS journal, see .

Institutional Policy Model

The document at the link below is a template for library members to use in developing their own institutional policies and agreements related to the Open Journal Hosting service.

Related Resources