TDL Open Access Journal Hosting

Owned by Kristi Park
Last updated: Aug 03, 2023
3 min read

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.

Faculty, staff, and students at TDL member institutions who subscribe to this service can set up and publish an online journal without any costs to faculty for the software or TDL technical assistance. 

TDL’s open journal software helps with every stage of peer-reviewed publishing, handling online submissions from authors, managing the peer-review process, publishing issues online, and indexing content. Workflow for faculty, staff, and student journals are managed within the software.


Learn how to request a TDL-Hosted Open Access Journal.

TDL Membership and Journal Hosting

  • Information about TDL Membership and costs of the Journal Hosting service is available here: https://www.tdl.org/members/membership/.
  • The TDL Journal Hosting Service is provided to TDL institutional members who subscribe to the service. Hosted journals may be requested by any faculty, staff, and student at those institutions at no additional cost to individual users.
  • There is currently no limit on the number of journals TDL will host for any subscribing institution.
  • TDL does not provide hosting services to individuals or individual journals outside of institutional memberships.

Elements of TDL Journal Hosting Service

  • Hosting and professional management of OJS installations in the Amazon cloud, including
    • 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 process.
    • Indexing of content with search engines.
  • All system administration tasks handled by TDL staff.
  • Local library control over policy for new journal creation.
  • Training for library liaison who manages the service locally.
  • Asynchronous training and documentation available for Journal Teams via PKP.
  • TDL Helpdesk Support for library staff, Journal Teams, and other users (e.g. peer reviewers, readers, etc.).
  • Participation in the TDL OJS Users Group for member library staff.
  • TDL currently deploys new journals in OJS version 3.3 (as of March 2022)

Policy FAQs

See the full TDL Open Access Journal Hosting Policy for more detail.

  • Who is eligible for TDL OA Journal hosting? TDL Member Institutions subscribing to the Journal Hosting Service provide free hosting and technical support for Open Access peer-reviewed journals to faculty, staff, and students at their institution.
    • Journal Managers must be affiliated with a TDL member institution. If journal management transfers to individuals affiliated with another institution, the sponsoring TDL Member Institution may choose to continue sponsorship of the journal at their discretion.
    • Journal teams may apply for a TDL-hosted journal site via the TDL Helpdesk. More here.
    • TDL does not provide hosting services to individuals or individual journals outside of institutional memberships. 
    • TDL Member Institutions may have additional eligibility requirements.
    • Student-run journals must be sponsored by a faculty member of academic department.
  • Do you have an Open Access policy? Yes. TDL-hosted journals must have a posted Open Access policy that provides free access to published articles.
  • Will TDL migrate my existing OA journal to a TDL-hosted OJS journal? TDL can on occasion provide support for migration of OJS journals hosted elsewhere, assuming staff capacity. It does not currently provide system administration support for journals currently housed in other platforms (such as WordPress or BePress). That said, OJS itself comes with import tools and a Quick Submit plugin that can help Journal Teams move issue and article archives into a new TDL-hosted journal.
  • Theming. TDL journals come out of the box with several theme options. Journal teams may adapt and upload customized CSS for their journal site. TDL does not at this time provide theme customization services.
  • Code customization. TDL does not provide customization services that require changes to the php code.