The document discusses the key stages of journal publishing including peer review, production, and publishing. It outlines the peer review process and best practices for efficient, high-quality peer review. It then covers the journal production and publishing process from copyediting to typesetting to proofing and publishing. Finally, it discusses important technical publishing standards like producing articles in PDF, HTML and XML formats and ensuring metadata and identifiers are included to increase discoverability and indexing. The overall document provides an overview of the full lifecycle of publishing a journal article from submission to final publication and indexing.

1. A deep dive into the stages
of journal publishing and
core technical standards
Brian Cody, Co-Founder and CEO
Danielle Padula, Community Development

2. ❏ Understand the main stages of journal publishing
❏ Unpack the peer review process and best practices for
efficient, high-quality peer review
❏ Take a deep dive into the journal production and publishing
process and learn digital dos and don’ts
❏ Overview technical publishing standards journals should fulfill
Learning objectives:

3. Who is this presentation for?
1. You’re interested in learning more about
the stages of journal publishing
2. You’re looking to further develop your
journals program

4. We’ll share our experience as a peer review and
OA publishing software and service provider
Scholastica’s mission is to
empower journal publishers to
make quality research available
more efficiently and affordably
to facilitate a sustainable
research future.
◎ Peer review
◎ OA publishing/hosting
◎ Typesetting

5. The stages of journal
publishing
Understanding the lifecycle of a journal article

6. Stages of the publishing process
Peer review
Accept
submissions
Manage
reviewers
Make final
publication
decision
Copyediting
Grammar check
Spell check
Technical
copyediting
Conform to
journal style
guide
Typesetting
Format article as
PDF, HTML
Create metadata
Reference check
Convert to XML
Equations
Proofing
PDF proofs sent
Author reviews
PDF proof
Journal editor
reviews proof
Edits made
Publishing
Hosting
Access
management
Metadata
posting
Indexing
Submit articles
to indexes
Convert article
into index DTD
Submit article to
archive, e.g.
Portico/CLOCKSS

7. First, let’s take a look at
the peer review process...

8. 3 main types of peer review
Single-blind
The reviewers are
anonymous, but the
authors are not.
Double-blind
The reviewers and
the authors are
anonymous.
Open review
Authors and
reviewers know each
others’ identities at
any point in peer
review.

9. While journals have different peer review
workflows the stages are generally:
1. Manuscript is submitted
2. Initial desk review
3. Editor assignment
4. Reviewer assignment (when to wait, when to move on)
5. “Revise & resubmit” rounds
6. Final decision (handling conflicting reviewer recommendations)

10. Example of the peer review process from Hindawi
https://www.hindawi.com/peer.review/

11. Best practices for efficient,
high-quality peer review
Good process will lead to high-quality outcomes
— peer review efficiency, Production schedule,
Journal reputation

12. “
The absolute best thing that you can do is have a clear
descriptive information for authors link available on
your online submissions webpage. Authors shouldn’t
have to search for a journal’s conflict of interest,
copyright, figure permissions, or other necessary forms.
- Christine Dymek, Former Senior Managing Editor at Kaufman
Wills Fusting & Company Editorial Services

13. COPE: https://publicationethics.org/core-practices
1. “How to submit”
section
2. Publication
process overview
3. Publication ethics
statement
4. Duties of reviewers
5. Duties of authors
6. Duties of editors

14. Set baselines for core journal
“health” metrics
1. Overall publication data: submissions received, ratio of
accepts and rejects, time to (final) decision
2. Editor performance indicators: assignment speed, time
to decision, acceptance and rejection rate
3. Reviewer performance indicators: pending invitations,
late reviews, average time to complete a review

15. Example of journal + editor performance metrics

16. Deep dive into journal
production + publishing
Copyediting > typesetting > proofing > publication

17. A journal’s publishing model will impact BOTH
speed and quality
Traditional issue-based schedule
◎ Wait for enough articles to make
an issue
◎ Compile articles into issue
◎ Articles start having impacts with
new issue
◎ Articles get indexed with issue
Rolling publishing
◎ Publish articles as they’re ready
◎ Compile articles into issues
retroactively
◎ Articles can start having
impacts ASAP
◎ Articles can be indexed ASAP

18. “
Every article has a publication date on it. We still
technically bind them into issues. So you will see that
everything published in 2018 will be under the same
issue, we just add it to that issue on our website as it
comes out.
- Ashley Amaya, editor-in-chief of Survey Practice

19. The indexing equation:
Marker of journal quality + greater discoverability =
greater impact potential

20. Long-term digital preservation/archive
Dark archives:
◎ Triggered release of content
◎ Guaranteed preservation
Public archives:
◎ Articles are openly available
◎ Increased discoverability

21. Technical standards
Advanced publishing best practices

22. File types needed for best publishing outcomes
1. PDF 3. XML2. HTML

23. “Can’t we just publish PDFs?” Why 3 file types:
2. HTML
◎ Optimize for
online search
(SEO)
◎ Responsive/porta
ble online reading
◎ Reference linking
◎ Embedded media
3. XML (JATS)
◎ Machine-readable
metadata/text
◎ Automate archive
and index deposits
◎ Text and data
mining potential
1. PDF
◎ Legacy format
still preferred by
some scholars
◎ Printable
○ Canonical
print format
◎ Page numbers
Production workflows are changing,
so it’s a good time to shop around

24. JATS XML is the technical standard for journal
articles
Journal Article Tag Suite
(JATS):
Specific way of formatting
XML developed by the
National Information
Standards Organization
(NISO).
JATS is PubMed Central's
required XML tagging style

25. Journals should at least produce front-matter
metadata, including:
◎ Journal title
◎ Publisher name
◎ Article title
◎ Authors’ names
◎ Article abstract
◎ Persistent Identifiers (PIDS)
○ Digital Object Identifier
○ ORCID

26. Every journal article should have its own
webpage and metadata

27. Plan S and recent OA initiatives promote
technical publishing standards

28. ❏ Understand the main stages of journal publishing
❏ Unpack the peer review process and best practices for
efficient, high-quality peer review
❏ Take a deep dive into the journal production and publishing
process and learn digital dos and don’ts
❏ Overview technical publishing standards journals should fulfill
Learning objectives:

29. Additional resources from Scholastica
◎ Check out the blog:
blog.scholasticahq.com
◎ Visit the resources page:
scholasticahq.com/resources

30. THANKS!
Any questions?
Twitter: @scholasticahq
Email: support@scholasticahq.com