Journal hosting service

The University's journal hosting service is managed by the Open Research team in the Library. The service consists of expert advice and support for academic staff and students who are interested in setting up their own online journals, as well as a dedicated University of St Andrews journal hosting platform.

The service uses the open-source software Open Journal Systems (OJS) to support the publishing process, including submission, peer-review and online publication. The hosting service will act as an 'electronic distributor' for the journal and will provide a secure archive for the content.

Journal Managers and Editorial staff are responsible for the management, administration, and journal content. The journal Publisher must always be either a School, Department, or recognised centre or institute within the University, with the journal hosting service serving as the platform and distributer only.

For more information email journal-hosting@st-andrews.ac.uk.


Planning a journal

If you are interested in starting a journal with OJS, you should consider what you want the journal to achieve. You will need to consider the journal title, the scope and what role this journal will fulfil in your discipline. Will the journal be peer-reviewed, and what will be the frequency of publication and expected types of content?

OJS is primarily designed to deliver open access content, and all journals hosted by this service will be fully Open Access.

You should look at the New OJS journal proposal (PDF) to see the initial questions you need to consider for your journal. After the first enquiry stage, you will be sent a more detailed form with further questions. This will assist with developing the policies you will need and closely mirrors the information required to set up the journal in OJS. The Open Research team will use these forms to record key information about the journal. You may also find them useful as the basis for discussions with a prospective editorial team.