Journal Publishing Guide

The University of Victoria Libraries’ ePublishing Services is excited to support faculty, students, and associations in establishing new open access journals through our no-fee publishing program. We provide web hosting for journals using the Open Journal Systems (OJS) publishing software.

All journals partnering with the library operate under a Diamond Open Access publishing model and do not charge authors fees.

Read more about our service model which includes the following hosting services:

• Initial setup and ongoing maintenance
• Copyright guidance and licensing support
• Long-term preservation
• Indexing, application for ISSN
• Unique identifiers for articles

For more information, please contact the Scholarly Communications Office or visit the Libraries Grants Menu. 

We exclusively host diamond open-access journals to promote open science/scholarship. If you publish with us, you agree to:  

• Unrestricted access: Your journal’s content will be free and accessible to all upon publication
• Creative Commons licensing: All published content will be protected under a Creative Commons License, safeguarding authors' rights while promoting open information sharing
• No authors fees: Your journal will not charge authors article processing fees, including page or article processing charges, ensuring an inclusive publication process.

By agreeing to these terms, we work together to uphold the principles of open access, making scholarly work accessible and inclusive.

UVic Libraries will

• Host your journal on our Open Journal Systems (OJS) publishing platform.
• Provide initial support for Journal Managers and Editorial teams to set-up their journal or conference proceedings. 
• Support standard OJS configuration templates.
• Help you explore the requirements for inclusion in subject-specific indexes.
• Mint Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for articles published in your journal, when appropriate.
• Provide advice on copyright permissions and licensing.
• Provide advice and support on future preservation and archiving of journal content.
• Connecting author identifier (DOIs) for journal authors.

The publisher (faculty member, student, or association) will:

• Manage the administration of the journal including all submissions, review and editing processes and workflows within the journal publishing platform.
• Develop and maintain all policies and guidelines relating to the journal such as Copyright; Peer Review; Privacy Statement; Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement; Permissions and Licensing, etc.
• Be responsible for the production and quality control of journal content.
• Provide the library with advance notice of changes to the journal’s status (e.g. Journal stops publishing; Need to migrate; Updates to editorial board membership).
• Undergraduate journals must designate a faculty sponsor, who would agree to maintain contact with the library and your editorial team.
• Represent the journal editorial team in liaising with the library.
• Present a plan or demonstrate the intent to set-up a journal publication or conference proceedings.

Journal managers will need to need to review the Memorandum of Understanding that applies to them"

• Memorandum of Understanding for UVic journals
• Memorandum of Understanding for non-affiliated journals