POPS - Publishing Online to Preserve Scholarship The internet offers almost limitless opportunities for self publication and UCLan has a number of in‐house journals, all of them using different and sometimes inappropriate technological solutions, with varying levels of governance, quality control and association with the institution. (Leaving aside the librarian’s innate need for order and control), this leads to issues of sustainability, rework, preservation and un-harvested esteem and research reputation for the institution We developed this project in response to academic demands for a journal publishing solution. It needed to be: in-house low-cost open access easy to implement robust in terms of governance and preservation Integrated with existing institutional systems

Open Access : Trusted nodes in publishing and archival network Digital Preservation : Policy Background Quality, impact and productivity of academic research Efficiency and effectiveness of corporate and business systems UCLan’s Research Strategy “This Research Strategy addresses the research ambitions and aspirations of A World-Class Modern University. At its core, the Strategy is inclusive, supportive and ambitious, recognising, and responding to, the different challenges and opportunities in the research environment. Above all, we aim to boost the quality, scope and capacity of our research activities; invigorating everything we do with genuine evidence-based claims to be world-class, focusing especially on the enhancement of each member of staff’s abilities and range of activities.” JISC

Solutions ePrints repository offers : robust governance existing integration into the institutional infrastructure and research culture existing workflows around the creation of metadata etc established preservation policies and workflows OJS (open Journal Systems) offers : trusted and well used scholarly publishing platform Integrated peer review workflows ??? We needed to provide a journal creation and publishing toolkit that would allow : quality control robust governance distinctiveness appropriate to their discipline, School and individual needs Can they work together to create a single workflow that integrates all the advantages of both systems?

We looked at: RIOJA – and found that it had not really been applied nor developed of late UK use of OJS – and found that while there was some use of the system it was not completely integrated with the preservation aspects or work flow of ePrints repositories ePrints – and we found that while it could handle most of the backroom processes the author/editor interface was lacking …and we concluded that we needed to pilot a workflow with two potential endpoints leading to a service that perhaps combined the two with recommendations for future development : Engage EPrint Services to develop and overlay journal application Implement OJS and explore the interface between that system and the repository and learn about the advanced editorial features along the way… This would allow us to simultaneously : Provide the finished journals for the academics current need Explore those needs and how we could best meet them within context of institutional and preservation etc needs and standards Develop tools to practically disseminate best practice and avoid rework both internally and externally

Progress We have also, crucially, identified other issues/solutions – for instance, relating to the embedding of the system in the Research and publishing culture and work flows

Current Status We have sorted out what static pages we need and a look/feel

….and we have worked out an overall work flow… Using the OJS workflow… …and…

…and an ePrints based workflow… …and came up with this… Now need to : Fine tune Allocate roles Identify un-resourced processes

Lessons Learned (or worked examples of the blindingly obvious) When we set out we assumed someone would have done this before… When we set out we assumed it would be reasonable straightforward to do… The ‘easy bits’ have turned out to be the ‘hard bits’ and (luckily) vice versa… … just because we as repository managers/web designers/librarians and technical types think something is interesting/important – doesn’t mean the academic end user does Don’t rule anything out and try anything – at least once