Maximizing Exposure of Your Scholarly Journal
This is a list of suggestions for maximizing the online exposure of your journal. Please note that some of these options are limited to journals that meet specified criteria. These criteria will be noted in this list where possible.
Register your journal with Google Scholar
Google Scholar has a specially recognized category for OJS journals. Search Google Scholar to see if your journal appears. If it is not visible, register your journal here: http://www.google.com/support/scholar/bin/request.py
Include your journal in the York University Library catalogue
Upon publication of your first issue, York University Libraries will catalouge your journal. This catalogue record will be harvested by WorldCat, giving your journal exposure in the world’s largest library catalogue. Other libraries around the world are able to download this record and add it to their own catalogues.
Register with the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
“The aim of the Directory of Open Access Journals is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting their increased usage and impact. The Directory aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content. In short a one stop shop for users to Open Access Journals.”
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTempl&templ=about&uiLanguage=en
An added benefit is that the DOAJ makes it possible for libraries to easily add updates of DOAJ content to their respective catalogues.
Criteria listed here: http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=suggest&uiLanguage=en
Register your journal with Ulrich’s
Ulrichsweb.com is the authoritative source of bibliographic and publisher information on more than 300,000 periodicals of all types — academic and scholarly journals, Open Access publications, peer-reviewed titles, popular magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and more from around the world. It is the most comprehensive source of print and electronic serials data available.
Titles in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) are automatically included.
To include your Journal, go to: http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/areyou.asp
Submit your journal to relevant abstracting and indexing services
Look up other related journals in your field to see where they are abstracted/indexed. Ulrich’s Web collects this information. Make sure you authenticate through the Libraries, as access to this resource is subscription based.
You may also want to contact your liaison librarian at York University Libraries for abstract and index suggestions.
Abstracts and indexes tend to look for a minimum number of published issues with a demonstrated quality of scholarship and established frequency of publication. Fit with respect to the subject area of the content and how well it meshes with the subject area of the abstracting/indexing service may also be examined.
Check to see if JURN has indexed your journal
JURN is a search-engine dedicated to indexing free ‘open access’ ejournals in the arts and humanities, along with other arts and scholarly publications offering free content. York Digital Journals are automatically harvested by this site.
http://www.jurn.org/
Announce new issues and calls for papers on subject-specific and association listservs
Your colleagues and liaison librarian may be able to help you identify subject-specific listservs.
Enable the RSS feature for the table of contents of your journal
Enabling RSS allows users to subscribe to your RSS feed which automatically sends out announcements of newly published content to subscribers.
To enable RSS in OJS:
1. Login as Journal Manager
2. Under Management Pages, click on System Plugins
3. Under Generic Plugins, click on the “Enable” link under Web Feed Plugin.
4. Your screen will refresh.
5. Scroll down the screen to the SECOND mention of Web Feed Plugin.
6. Click on “Settings”, select desired options and save changes.
7. As Journal Manager, under Management Pages, click on Setup, then click on The Look.
8. Scroll down to Section 5.6, and move the “Web Feed Plugin” from the “Unselected” column to the “Right Sidebar” column.
9. Scroll to the bottom of the page and save.
Your RSS feed buttons should now be visible in your right sidebar.
Synergies Canada Portal
Synergies Canada is a portal for Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) scholarship.
http://www.synergiescanada.org/page/about
Criteria: Must be a Canadian SSH journal. The collection policy uses the same eligibility criteria as the SSHRC Aid to Scholarly Journals program.
Consider joining CrossRef
“CrossRef is the official Digital Object Identifier (DOI) registration agency for scholarly publications. The DOI system is designed to uniquely identify and facilitate location of digital material. CrossRef supplies a number of other useful cross referencing services that will help integrate your journals material into the literature. Joining costs $275 USD for a small OA journal plus an insignificant fee for each article you register.”
http://www.developing-oa-journals.org/Guide_to_developing_oa_journals.pdf
For more information about CrossRef: http://www.crossref.org/02publishers/index.html
Note: If you are applying for the SSHRC Aid to Scholarly Journals program, see a Research Officer about including a CrossRef membership into your grant application under the category of “distribution costs”.
Register with Open J-gate
Open J-Gate currently aggregates metadata from 4000+ OA journals published in English and provides seamless access to the full-text on publisher websites. It covers both peer-reviewed as well as professional journals including trade and Industry journals.
About: http://www.openj-gate.com/Footer/About.aspx
For contact, see http://www.openj-gate.com/Footer/Contact.aspx
Local Loading and Indexing by Scholars Portal
Scholars Portal currently houses 8,400 journals totaling over 17 million articles; 800,000 articles are added annually. In 2009, Ontario faculty and students downloaded 4.9 million articles and conducted approximately 2.5 million searches.
Scholars Portal is nearing the completion of a pilot to include Synergies-eligable journals in its delivery platform and index. Scholars Portal is now accepting Synergies journals.
Encourage your readers to “register with your journal as readers”
If your readers register with your journal, they will automatically be able to receive emails that notify them about new content and announcements such as calls for papers.
This also forms the basis of an informal mailing list, as OJS allows you to easily select groups of users and send them emails.
Granting agencies may find the number of registered readers a figure of interest, as this statistic may help to show demonstrated interest in your journal.
ticTocs Journal Table of Contents service
“The ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents service makes it easy for academics, researchers, students and anyone else to keep up-to-date with newly published scholarly material by enabling them to find, display, store, combine and reuse thousands of journal tables of contents from multiple publishers. With ticTOCs, it only takes a tick or two to keep up to date. ”
http://www.tictocs.ac.uk/
Criteria: Your journal must be RSS enabled and special instructions must be followed for submission of RSS feed.
Further Reading
The Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing
This is a concise guide to the steps involved in starting an online open access journal. The link below is a comprehensive guide to journal indexing and marketing.
http://www.doaj.org/bpguide/publish/#4-5-1-market-the-journal
Getting Found, Staying Found, Increasing Impact: Enhancing Readership and Preserving Content for OJS Journals Kevin Stranack Public Knowledge
Kevin Stranack, Public Knowledge Project
2006.
http://pkp.sfu.ca/files/GettingFoundStayingFound.pdf
Developing Open Access Journals: A practical guide
David J Solomon, 2008
http://www.developing-oa-journals.org/Guide_to_developing_oa_journals.pdf
