Journals/Initial Setup
From TDL Wiki
Once you have requested your TDL Electronic Journal through the Services Request System, you should go through the five-step setup process to begin configuring your journal.
The Journal Manager
If you are the person who created the journal through the Services Request System, you are automatically designated the journal's Journal Manager.
The Journal Manager manages the overall publishing system. This doesn't take advanced technical skills, but it takes a certain comfort level with using an online interface, working with templates and uploading files. The Journal Manager does the setup for the journal, and enrolls the Editors, Section Editors, Copyeditors, Layout Editors, Proofreaders, and Reviewers who will operate the journal.
The Journal Manager also has access to the journal's other management systems, and can create new Sections for the journal, edit the default set of e-mails the system uses, manage the Reading Tools that are available with the journal, and see the Journal Statistics the system can generate.
Getting started
Log in to your TDL Electronic Journals account and select your role as Journal Manager.
You will see a menu of options to choose from. This your Journal Management home page:
Under the MANAGEMENT PAGES section, select SETUP and follow the five steps to create a new journal.
The Five-Step Journal Setup Process
Setup of a TDL Electronic Journal is not technically difficult, but it does require thoughtfulness and deliberation on the part of the Journal Manager, in conjunction with the editorial team, to create a high-quality journal. A new journal's manager must do research and make decisions about policies for the journal, its frequency of publication, requirements for submissions and review, etc, before the journal is active.
Not all steps in the five-step setup process must be completed immediately, however. You can complete as many sections as possible, and go back to fill in additional details later.
STEP 1: Details
General Information (1.1)
In this section, provide basic details about your journal, including the name, abbreviation, address, print or online ISSNs, and DOI. Use the link provided to obtain an ISSN or DOI.
Principal Contact (1.2)
This position will be listed on the homepage of the journal under Contact, along with the Technical Support Contact (see below)
Technical Support Contact (1.3)
This person will be listed on the journal's Contact page for the use of editors, authors, and reviewers, and should have experience working through the system from the perspective of all of its roles.
Journal Managers for TDL Electronic Journals may put the contact information for the TDL Helpdesk in this section:
Name: TDL Helpdesk
Email: support@tdl.org
There is no phone number for the TDL Helpdesk at this time.
Email Identification (1.4)
OJS makes extensive use of internal form e-mails. This signature will appear on the bottom of all e-mails sent by the system. You can also enter a bounce address, where any undeliverable email messages will be sent.
Publisher (1.5)
1.5 - 1.7 - The following three forms will add information to the About the Journal section of your journal Web site, under Journal Sponsorship.
The name of the organization publishing the journal will appear in About the Journal.
Sponsoring Organizations (1.6)
The name of the organizations (e.g. scholarly associations, university departments, cooperatives, etc.) sponsoring the journal will appear in About the Journal and may be accompanied by a note of acknowledgement. Additional organizations can be added by clicking the “Add Sponsoring Organization” button.
Sources of Support (1.7)
Additional agencies or organizations that provide financial or in-kind support for the journal will appear in About the Journal and may be accompanied by a note of acknowledgement. Additional sources can be added by clicking the “Add Contributor” button.
STEP 2: Policies
In Step 2, you will make decisions nd add information about your journal's policies. Much of this information appears in the About the Journal section of your journal Web site.
Focus and Scope of the Journal (2.1)
This section provides authors, readers and librarians with information about the range of articles and other items which the journal will publish.
''Click SAVE AND CONTINUE, then click NEXT STEP, to proceed to STEP 2.''
Peer Review (2.2)
In this section, you will outline the journal's review policy and process for readers and authors, including the following:
- the number of reviewers typically used in reviewing a submission
- the criteria by which reviewers are asked to judge submissions
- typical time taken to conduct the reviews
- principles for recruiting reviewers.
This information appears in the About the Journal section of your journal site.
Review Guidelines
These are instructions for your Reviewers that are made available at the time of review.
Review Process
This section allows you to choose the best method of peer review for your e-journal.
The Standard Peer Review Process is selected by default. With this model, Reviewers enter their comments and recommendations directly into the system.
The E-mail Attachment Review Process handles the Peer Review Process outside of the OJS system. In this model editors send the submission manuscript to the Reviewer via e-mail attachment and receive the Reviewer's recommendation and comments back via e-mail. Then the Editor must enter the Reviewer's comments and recommendation into the OJS system.
Review Options
In this section, you can set up a number of rules and settings for the review process, including:
- length of time for reviewers to complete their reviews;
- an optional rating system for reviewers (visible only to the editors);
- optional one-click access for reviewers (One-click access lets editors send reviewers an e-mail message with a secured URL, taking them directly into the appropriate section of OJS, without the need to create an account or log in. The option was created to reduce technical barriers to reviewer participation.)
Privacy Statement (2.3)
The privacy statement will appear on the About the Journal section of your Web site.
Editor Decision (2.4)
Check this box to add all co-authors to the "include" list when an Editor sends a Notify Author e-mail. A Notify Author e-mail is sent when the Editor makes the decision whether to accept/reject/require revisions on a submission.
Add Item to Appear in "About the Journal" (2.5)
If you wish to add more information to the About the Journal page under Peer Review policies, this section allows you to enter content.
Journal Archiving (2.6)
LOCKSS is an open source solution to archiving online journals. To ensure the prservation of your journal, follow the steps outlined in this section. OJS will even generate the e-mail message to send to the participating libraries.
Potential Reviewer Database (2.7)
You can add a link to a relevant literature database that can be searched for potential reviewers and is open to editors without subscription.
Click SAVE AND CONTINUE, then click NEXT STEP, to proceed to STEP 3.
STEP 3: Submissions
The items under Step 3 provide information for authors as they submit articles for consideration. Step 3 also sets up your metadata fields and metadata harvesting.
Author Guidelines (3.1)
This section appears on the About the Journal page and should provide authors with information about the appropriate format and content for their submissions, including:
- appropriate bibliographic and formatting standards
- examples of common citation formats
- types of appropriate supplementary files
The Submission Preparation Checklist is visible on the About the Journal page and also appears in the online Author Submission interface, when an author submits and article for consideration. Authors will be asked to check a box next to each item before they can proceed with submission.
OJS provides a set of default checklist items, but you can edit these as you see fit:
- To delete any item, click the DELETE button next to the item.
- To create an additional item, click the ADD CHECKLIST ITEM button at the bottom of the list and fill in the appropriate fields.
- To reorder items, type the desired number in the ORDER field at the left side of the list. The new order will appear after you've clicked SAVE AND CONTINUE at the bottom of this STEP 3 page.
Copyright Notice (3.2)
The Copyright Notice appears on the About the Journal page. You may also require that authors agree to the Copyright Notice when they submit an article for consideration by clicking the appropriate checkbox here.
OJS provides sample copyright notice wording for those wishing to publish under a Creative Commons License. Find out more about Creative Commons Licenses here.
Competing Interest (3.3)
This section allows the journal to require authors and reviewers to file a Competing Interest statement. Competing Interests statements are typically required for biomedical journals to ensure that reviewers and authors disclose anything that might interfere with the objectivity of either authors' or reviewers' work.
For an example of Competing Interest policy wording, see the PLoS Policy on Declaration and Evaluation of Competing Interests.
For Authors to Index Their Work (3.4)
This section sets up metadata fields for each published work in your journal. OJS adheres to the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), the emerging standard for repository interoperability. OAI-PMH makes it possible for OAI-PMH harvesters (like OAIster or the PKP metadata harvester) to index the metadata content in your journal, making it searchable and available to researchers.
In this section, the Journal Manager should select the metadata categories s/he wants to make available to authors (e.g. Academic Discipline, Subject Classification, etc.) by selecting the checkboxes next to the desired categories. The textboxes under each category allow the Journal Manager to provide relevant examples to authors to assist them in providing useful descriptive terms. Each list of examples should be preceded by "E.g.," and each example term should be separated by a semicolon.
Note: Authors submit metadata for the fields you've selected when they submit their articles for consideration. However, Editors and Section Editors have the ability to edit the submitted metadata at any time during the editorial process.
Register Journal for Indexing (Metadata Harvesting) (3.5)
To make sure your journal's content is indexed and searchable, your journal must be registered with a metadata harvester. This section allows you to register your journal with the Public Knowledge Project's metadata harvester, which collects the metadata for each published item in the journal and enables searching among research sites that adhere to OAI-PMH.
The instructions in this section read: "Note that if your site administrator has already registered this site with the PKP Harvester, your journal will be indexed automatically and you do not need to register your journal." The TDL has NOT registered the entire TDL Electronic Press site with the PKP metadata harvester, so it is worthwhile to register your individual journal here. However, the TDL Electronic Press is registered with OAIster, a catalog of digital resources that is accessible through a searchable database.
Notification of Author Submission (3.6)
This section allows you to set up an automated e-mail that is sent to the journal's primary contact (as set up in STEP 1) AND/OR any other e-mail address you wish any time an article is submitted for consideration to the journal. Note that an e-mail is automatically sent to the author upon a completed submission by default.
Click SAVE AND CONTINUE, then click NEXT STEP, to proceed to STEP 4.
STEP 4: Management
This section sets up several management settings for your journal.
Access and Security Settings (4.1)
Open Access vs. Subscription Models
This section lets you decide between offering full open access to your journal's contents and using subscriptions to control access. Though the TDL currently has no formal policy regarding subscriptions, it strongly encourages the adoption of a full open access policy and does not provide support for the payment module or subscription manager roles.
OJS provides default language in the text box under Open Access Policy that reads: The journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.
Other Access Restriction Settings
As Journal Manager, you can set up other restrictions or hurdles to accessing content, including the requirement that users register to perform certain functions. Decisions to be made in this section include:
- Whether users must register and log in to view the entire site or certain content.
- Whether users can register themselves in the following roles: READER, AUTHOR, REVIEWER.
- Whether registration of all users should be the responsibility of the Journal Manager an Editors.
- Whether to maintain logs of actions and emails related to a submission. These logs are visible on the History page within the Editor Interface.
Publication Scheduling (4.2)
In this section you will set up your journal's publication schedule. It is important to think about and declare your intended publication scheduling, as it will help serials librarians to catalog your journal properly.
You may use a number of scheduling schemes for your journal, for instance:
- you can publish a group of items collectively as part of an issue with its own Table of Contents
- you can publish individual items as soon as they are reviewed, edited, and proofread by adding them to the Current Issue's Table of Contents.
The text box provided allows you to provide readers of your journal a statement about the journal's publishing frequency, which appears on the About the Journal page.
The Format section allows you to decide which identification elements you'll use to number issues for your journal. These can be overridden by the Editor for any single issue. (So, for instance, your Editor could add a title for a special issue, even if you don't normally use the title field for issue identification.)
The Starting Point and Frequency section allows you to set the initial issue and volume numbers for your first publication. (If your journal has been published previously as a print publication, your number and volume might not be Vol. 1, Number 1).
Identification of Journal Content (4.3)
Unique Identifiers
You can visit the DOI web site for more information about registering for a Digital Object Identifier for your journal. Additionally, CrossRef is the official DOI link registration agency for scholarly publications.
Page Number Option
As a default setting, there are no page numbers in an OJS journal and page numbers cannot be automatically assigned to articles or Tables of Contents using OJS. However, you can select this checkbox to add a field to the Table of Contents page, which will allow you enter page numbers MANUALLY.
Announcements (4.4)
This section allows you to configure your Announcements page, which lets Journal Managers communicate important news items or information to readers. An Announcements link is included in the top menu navigation for your journal, and Announcements can also appear on your journal homepage.
Copyeditors, Layout Editors, and Proofreaders (4.5-4.7)
These sections ask you to make some decisions about how you wish to handle some parts of the Submissions Editing Process:
- For each section, you are asked whether (A) a separate Copyeditor/Layout Editor/Proofreader will be assigned to perform these roles or (B) an Editor or Section Editor will be the person who undertakes these functions for a submission.
- Additionally, for each of these sections, you have the option to provide instructions for copyediting, layout editing, and proofreading. Default instruction for Copyediting and Proofreading are provided; however, because each journal could set very different requirements for layout, file format, etc. no default instructions are provided in this section.)
Extra steps for configuring the Layout Editors section
Layout Editor Templates and Embedding Links
Additionally, in the Layout Editors section (4.6) you need to follow a couple of additional steps.
First, you can upload a template for each of the standard formats published in the journal (a layout for articles, one for book reviews, etc.) that specifies things like required font type and size, margins, columns, etc. These documents serve as guides to Layout Editors as they create production-ready galleys for the journal. The template can be uploaded in any file format (PDF, Word doc, etc.)
Secondly, in this section you can provide instructions to the Layout Editor on how to embed links in references cited by your journal's authors. This enables readers to link directly from your author's work to the works they cite. Default instructions for Reference Linking are provided and you can choose whether to provide your Layout Editors with these instructions. [Note: If you choose NOT to embed reference links in your journal's articles, readers can still search for cited references online using the Reading Tools, if that function is enabled.]
Click SAVE AND CONTINUE, then click NEXT STEP, to proceed to STEP 5.
STEP 5: The Look
This section allows you to customize the look of your journal Web site by adding pictures, headers and footers, links, and other content. You can also change the journal's look to one of several prefab "themes" provided by the system or upload a fully customized CSS stylesheet.
Journal Homepage Header (5.1)
You can change the journal's header in a couple of ways:
- You can add Title Text - words that will appear in the header block at the top of the page. (The default for this is the journal's actual title, but you can change this -- an abbreviation or shortened title, if you wish.)
- Alternatively you can add a title image, which will replace the Title Text/header with a JPG, GIF, or PNG image that you upload.
You can also add a Journal Logo, which will appear to the left of the Title Image or Title Text.
NOTE: The default width for the header is 820 pixels (including both Title Image and Journal Logo) so images should be sized accordingly.
Journal Homepage Content (5.2)
You can add several types of content to customize the look of your journal's homepage. You can use any, none, or all of the options provided.
Journal description: a 20-25 word description that appears just below the top navigation bar. You can use limited HTML in this text box.
Homepage image: you can upload an image that appears in the middle of the page, below the journal description. Acceptable width for this image can vary depending on the theme you use (See Journal Layout below), but 600 pixels is a safe width for most themes. The TDL Theme can handle a slightly wider image (700-800px) without the image covering up the right sidebar.
Current Issue: You can add the Table of Contents for the current issue by selecting this checkbox. Note: If this box is checked, and images are also added for each issue (something the editor does when compiling the ToC), then that image will also appear on the homepage along with any "homepage image."
Additional Content: You have a larger textbox with a WYSIWYG editor to add any additional content to the homepage. This would normally be information about the journal that would not need to be changed frequently. Journal information with a limited shelf life should probably be included as Announcements.
Journal Page Header (5.3)
Similarly to the Journal Homepage Header section (see above), you can add graphic or text versions of headers, including a journal logo. These headers appear on each web page of your journal other than the homepage.
Journal Page Footer (5.4)
In this section, you can add formatted text (using the WYSIWYG editor or html) that will appear at the bottom of every web page in your journal. This might be useful for:
- Copyright/Licensing information
- Contact information
- ISSN number
- Other identifying information about your journal
Navigation Bar (5.5)
In this section you can add a link to the Navigation Bar (Home, About, etc.) at the top of the journal page. Enter the name of the link in the first text box and select the checkbox if you want the name to appear exactly as you've entered it. Add the link address in the URL field.
You can create additional links by clicking the ADD ITEM button and entering the appropriate information.
You might use these additional navigation bar items to link to:
- A sponsor's website
- A TDL Scholarly Blog that you've created
- A TDL Research Wiki that you've created
Journal Layout (5.6)
This section allows you to make several big changes to the way your journal web site looks and the way content is laid out.
Journal Themes
From the Journal Theme drop-down menu, you can choose from about a dozen prefab themes that change the colors and fonts used in your journal. Note that the theme does not change until you click the SAVE AND CONTINUE button at the bottom of the page.
Journal Style Sheet
You can upload your own CSS style sheet to customize the look of your journal. This requires more advanced Web design skills and is dealt with elsewhere.
Moving blocks of information between left and right sidebars
Typically, content in your journal is laid out with blocks of navigational and information content appearing on the right side of the web page (i.e. in the right sidebar). You can change this default layout by moving certain blocks to the left side of the web page (i.e. the left sidebar).
To do so, click on the block you wish to move in order to highlight it. You can then move that block to the opposite sidebar by using the long arrow buttons.
You can also move blocks up or down within a sidebar by using the up and down arrows.
If you don't want a certain content block to appear in either sidebar, you can move it to the "unselected" box using the shorter arrow buttons located between the boxes.
Note: Be aware that, depending on the theme you're using, utilizing both sidebars will decrease the amount of main content space is available in the middle of your page and will thus affect the maximum picture width for your Homepage Picture.
Information (5.7)
This section allows you to edit default text that provides descriptions of the journal for librarians, authors, and readers. These three text boxes comprise the "Information Block" that appears by default in the Right Sidebar. (See Journal Layout above).
Lists (5.8)
This section allows you to configure the maximum number of listed items to appear per page and the maximum number of pages to appear at a time. Lists appear in other role interfaces, such as the Editor interface where, for instance, you have long lists of articles submitted to the journal.
Here's an example of the section of the journal setup configured to allow 3 listed items per page and 10 page links displayed at a time.
Click SAVE AND CONTINUE and you're done with the 5-step journal setup process. You can go back to the Journal Management home menu to continue with other management activities.
Back to Journals User Documentation
