0.8 Online hosting issues and options

Online publishing options

Specialized guides are available that provide detailed information for societies seeking to outsource online journal publishing services, See Meyer (2004), Page (2000), Powell (2005), Bull and Hezlet (2000), and Ware (2008). For an overview of the issues relevant to online production and workflow, see Markwood (2006). or for societies migrating from one journal publishing service provider to another. See Morris and Clark (2009). A cross-sector working group has developed a code of practice to govern the transfer of a journal from one publisher to another. See< http://www.uksg.org/transfer/papers >. Those guides cover a wide range of issues, including the relationship between the print and online editions of a journal, For example, whether the print or online edition is the version of record. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has issued best practice guidance for describing the versions of scholarly journal articles that appear online before, during, and after formal journal publication. See NISO (2008b) and Morgan (2008). online submission guidelines, digital format options, hosting option selection, online editorial workflow, online search and navigation, citation linking, metadata, and other issues.

The information below supplements the more comprehensive guidance available from those sources, with a focus on relevant business issues.

Types of online publishing service providers

Several types of organizations provide online hosting services for peer-reviewed journals. They include university presses, commercial publishers, society-sponsored publishing service providers, university-library-based digital publishing offices, nonprofit and commercial publishing service firms (including some subscription agents and journal printers), and open source journal software federations.

The service offerings and business models vary by organization type. Some organizations (for example, university presses and commercial publishers) provide comprehensive publishing services—including editorial, production, marketing and sales, fulfillment, customer service, and financial management support—for both print and online publishing. Other organizations provide à la carte service options that allow a society to retain control over some publishing functions (for example, continuing to self-publish the print edition while outsourcing the online version). There are also low-cost solutions, such as open source software, that offer basic journal publishing functionality but with little or no supplemental services.

Unless a journal requires extensive non-standard features or functionality, it should be able to identify an existing online publishing platform capable of serving its needs. As a result, few small publishers will find it either cost effective or strategically important to develop and maintain their own online publishing systems. Ware (2007) describes the issues that publishers should weigh in evaluating whether to outsource online publication of a journal or to develop and host their own proprietary system.