Journal Creation Project: OJS Journal, Brief Paper, Editing and Peer Review
Each student will go through the whole process of creating a scholarly journal, from creating the journal using OJS, writing, editing, and peer reviewing, and publishing. The journals are meant for practice only; serious content is not expected, rather the journal is an opportunity to learn and practice each of these steps. At each step, timely completion of your work is necessary for another student to proceed with their next step, so timely completion of assignments is essential to this exercise.
The exercises will inform class discussions. Procedures for completing assignments will be covered in class, and additional instructions will be provided for major assignments.
Technical assistance with OJS is available by contacting the Instructor, hgmorris@gmail.com, or Rob Stibravy, Digital Initiatives Librarian, UBC Library, robert.stibravy@ubc.ca. See also OJS in an Hour and the PKP Support Forum, links from <http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs_documentation>.
Many thanks to Rob Stibravy and UBC Library for supporting the OJS journal assignment project for LIBR 559L.
LIBR 559 L. Issues in Scholarly Communication and Publishing. Fall 2009.
<http://www.slais.ubc.ca/COURSES/syllabi/09-10-wt1/l559L.htm>
Instructor: Heather Morrison. hgmorris@gmail.com
OJS Journal Assignment: Due Dates and Marking Breakdown
| Due |
Assignment |
Mark
(of 30) |
Marking breakdown |
Approx time * |
| Sept. 16 |
Scholar’s Biography |
2
|
On time: 1
Completeness of content: 1 |
1 hour |
| Sept. 23 |
OJS Journal Admin Registration |
1
|
On time: 1 |
15 mins |
| Sept. 30 |
OJS Basic Set-up |
4
|
On time: 1
Quality of content: 3 |
1-3 hours |
| Sept. 30 |
OJS Author / Peer-Reviewer Registration & Paper Submission |
2
|
On time: 2 |
30 mins |
| Oct. 7 |
Assign 2 peer reviewers |
1
|
On time: 1 |
15 mins |
| Oct. 14 |
Two peer reviews |
3
|
On time: 1
Quality of reviews: 2 |
2 – 4 hours |
| Oct. 21 |
Substantive editing |
2
|
On time: 1
Quality of editing: 1 |
1 – 2 hours |
| Oct. 28 |
Author’s Final Manuscript (postprint) |
4
|
On time: 1
Quality of final manuscript (Scholar’s Biography): 3 |
2 hours |
| Nov. 4 |
Final galley proof |
1
|
On time: 1 |
30 mins |
| Nov. 18 |
OJS Journal Final |
10
|
On time: 1
Quality of OJS journal
Journal looks & creativity: 3
Additional content: 3
Depth and insight of setup: 3 |
1-2 hours min. |
| Total |
|
30
|
On time: 11
Quality of content: 19
Total: 30 |
|
* Approximate time, barring technical glitches. Please plan to complete OJS-related minor assignments no later than Monday noon before the due date, to allow time to address technical glitches.
Sept. 16: Scholar’s Biography Assignment.
Marks: 2. Marking criteria: on time, complete.
Overview: there are two purposes to this assignment: to introduce the topic of scholarly communication by beginning to think about scholarly publication in terms of the author, and as the rough draft to be peer reviewed by other students. The assignment is to find the website of an author that you do not know, and briefly note some of the publicly available information about the author’s publications.
This assignment is a rough draft, to be submitted for peer review by other students. It is called a rough draft to distinguish from a preprint, which is a work submitted by an author for serious consideration for publication.
Procedure:
Find one scholarly publication (e.g. journal article or book), in the topic or discipline of your choice. The publication should be recent, e.g. publication date of 2008 or 2009.
See if the author has a website. Hint: look up the author’s affiliation. If you can’t find a website, try another article.
Are publications and presentations listed? Are there links to online versions of any publications listed? Are these links to open access materials? Note: it does not matter what you find. This exercise forms part of the discussion for the next class, so it is good if different students come up with different results.
Sept. 13: OJS Journal Administration Registration
Mark: 1. Criteria: Completed on time (barring technical glitches).
Using information provided by UBC Library, register in OJS. You will automatically be the administrator for your journal.
Sept. 30: OJS Basic Set-Up.
Marks: 4. Criteria: On time: 1. Content: 3 (extent and depth of set-up, quality of policies and procedures). Note: quality of set-up will also be reflected in marks for the final assignment, journal completion.
Under Journal Management / Management Pages, select Setup.
Under 5 Steps to a Journal Web Site:
- Details
1.1.1 General Information
Add a unique title, initials and abbreviation. Note: the journal must prominently say that the journal is a practice journal, lest anyone accidentally come across it.
1.2 Principle Contact – enter your information
1.3 Technical Contact – enter Heather Morrison, hgmorris@gmail.com
1.4 Email identification: this is a generic signature. Please enter your e-mail, your journal’s title and URL (we will go over how to find your journal’s URL in class).
1.5 Publisher. Optional. Suggestion: SLAIS, include URL for SLAIS, course syllabus or blog.
1.6 Sponsoring Organizations. Please add a thank-you to UBC Library for sponsoring these practice journals for this class.
1.8 Search Engine Indexing: optional, possibly of interest.
Step 2: Journal Policies
2.1: Focus and Scope of Journal: add brief statement about the journal, e.g. this is a practice journal prepared for partial completion of requirements for LIBR559L.
2.2: Peer Review
Suggested policy: Scholar’s Biographies are reviewed by 2 reviewers in a double-blind review process. This journal practices a constructive criticism approach to peer review. Reviewers are asked to include positive comments as well as critique, and to write reviews in a manner designed to both encourage and help writers to develop their skills as writers and researchers.
Review Guidelines: Please include positive comments as well as critique, and to write reviews in a manner designed to both encourage and help writers to develop their skills as writers and researchers.
3.1 Author Guidelines / Submission Preparation Checklist
At minimum, state any technical requirements for submissions. One example might be to request documents in either Word (97, i.e. ending in .doc) or Rich Text Format, to ensure that yourself and both reviewers can open the document.
3.2 Copyright notice. Suggested: Creative Commons Canada CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, or CC-BY-NC-SA. If you wish to offer authors the option of selecting their own CC license, wording to this effect can be entered here.
3.5 PLEASE DO NOT REGISTER your journal for indexing. This is for real journals!
3.6 Notification of author submission: suggest checking primary contact.
Management
4.1 Access and security settings – suggest default open access policy, or?
4.2 Publication Scheduling
Suggested text: this journal will be published once, as part of the requirements for LIBR 559L. If you’d like to experiment with publication schedules, an explanation can be entered here.
Select format, starting point and frequency
4.4 Announcements (optional)
4.5-4.7: Suggest retaining default for copyeditors and layout editors.
Reference linking: optional, but possibly of interest.
5. The Look
Add at least one image, and select a layout. Additional customization may be of interest.
Journal Sections
Create a section called “Scholar’s Biographies”.
Create additional sections if desired. Examples: announcements, interesting blogposts (check copyright, e.g. cc licensing), great papers by SLAIS students, UBC Open Access Week.
Prepared emails.
Review / consider customizing the following e-mails:
Reviewer request.
Reviewer acknowledgement.
Submission acknowledgement.
Optional but interesting: reading tools.
Sept. 30: OJS Author / Reviewer registration, paper submission (Scholar’s Biography)
Mark: 2. Criteria: Completed and on time.
You will be assigned three journals to register for, one as author and two as reviewers. Follow the same registration process as for journal management, this time indicating whether you are an author or reviewer.
Paper submission: submit your Scholar’s Biography for review.
Oct. 7: As an Editor (go to Journal Management and assign yourself a role as Editor), assign two peer reviewers in OJS (following assignments provided by instructor).
Marks: 1 (on time).
Oct. 14: Two peer reviews. Complete and hand in the two peer reviews that you have been assigned, using OJS.
Marks: 3. Criteria: Completed on time (1). Quality of reviews: 2.
Peer reviews should follow a constructive criticism approach. Note that this approach to peer review reflects the instructor’s personal style, and is designed to facilitate this exercise, where review is a course requirement. Different disciplines have different traditions with respect to review. Critique is key to review, and for many disciplines harsh critique is considered normal and appropriate.
Peer review approach for LIBR 559L:
Write a brief statement describing the paper you reviewed. This assures the Editor and Author that you have indeed read the paper, and that you are submitting the review that goes with this particular paper.
Highlight good points about the work, and provide suggestions for improvement. One suggestion that is recommended: add citation to one of the course required readings. Write in a manner that is meant to be encouraging for the author.
Oct. 21 : Substantive Editing. Read both peer reviews. Prepare comments for the author, perhaps summarizing key points from both reviews, and adding some of your own comments. Decide whether to send the reviews to the author and other reviewer. Send reviews.
Oct. 28: Author’s Final Manuscript (postprint). Revise your Scholar’s Biography based on comments from the Editor and Reviewers. Please note that substantive changes at this point need to be cleared with the Editor, and may require re-review. Upload your final manuscript.
Marks: 4. Criteria: Completed on time: 1. Quality of final Scholar’s Biography: 3 (split into research, insight / analysis, quality of writing).
Nov. 18 OJS Journal.
Marks: 10. Timely completion: 1.
Quality and content:
Journal looks / creativity: 3
Additional content: 3
Depth and insight of policies and procedures (e.g. prepared e-mails, reading tools): 3
At minimum, publish at least one issue (Scholar’s Biography).
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