Page History

Background

The following checklist includes the most common considerations and decisions that have to be made when starting up a new journal. Items where the library commonly advises are marked with an asterisk.

Journal set up and general information

•  Journal name
•  Domain name
•  Aims and scope statement
•  Target audience
•  Business model
  •  Open access statement (if applicable)
•  Peer review model
•  ISSN (library can manage application)
•  Journal subject keywords
•  Abstracting and indexing
•  Language of publication
•  Article types (for example research papers, book reviews, etc.)
•  Article formats
•  Acceptance of supplementary material

Staffing

•  Editor in chief
•  Editorial board
•  Reviewers
•  Reporting (submissions, publication times, etc.)
•  Publicity
•  Continuity and succession: terms, recruiting reviewers, board members

Policies and documentation

•  Author submission guidelines
  •  Author template
•  Author publishing agreement
  
  •  Standard license (e.g. Creative Commons)
•  Copyright policy
•  Peer review guidelines
•  Authorship policy and dispute resolution
•  Author name changes policy
•  Human subjects research policy
•  Research data policy
•  Research ethics policy
•  Conflict of interest policy
•  Preservation policy

Workflow information

•  Continuous or by-issue publication
•  Publication frequency and scheduling
•  Expected first issue (date)
•  Submission platform/system
•  Recruiting submissions
•  Desk review of submissions
•  Routing submissions for peer review
•  Communication with authors
•  Copy editing
•  Production of galleys (i.e. PDF or HTML versions of accepted papers)
•  Proofing
•  Assigning articles to issues
•  DOIs