Publishing a Journal with TAMU & TDL

Eligibility

Faculty, staff, and students at Texas A&M are eligible for free hosting and technical support for open access journals.

To qualify:

• The journal must be diamond open access and have a posted Open Access policy that provides unlimited free access to all published articles and no costs for authors to publish.
• The journal manager must be affiliated with Texas A&M University.
  • If journal management later transfers to a non-TDL institution, Texas A&M Libraries retains the right to discontinue sponsorship.
• The journal manager must email the Digital Collections department to discuss creating the new journal and to sign an acknowledgment agreement (in development).
• Student-run journals must have a faculty sponsor who will sign the acknowledgment agreement.

Responsibilities

The Open Access Journal publishing program is built as a collaborative partnership between TDL, Texas A&M University Libraries, and the journal team.  Each has important responsibilities that must be followed:

The Journal Team including journal manager(s), editor(s), staff, and the editorial board is responsible for:

Journal Team

• Managing the full editorial workflow including soliciting manuscripts, peer review, copyediting, typesetting, translation, and similar tasks
• Setting journal policies and making editorial decisions
• Designing and customizing the journal site
• Ensuring all content and the journal site meets ADA Title 2 accessibility standards

The Libraries

• Serve as a liaison between the Journal Team and TDL
• Provide consulting on scholarly communication issues
• Support configuration of DOIs and ORCiDs
• Assist with crafting open access policies
• Guide the ISSN establishment process
• Provide guidance on inclusion in relevant indexes

Texas Digital Library (TDL) 

• Provides hosting and technical support for OJS
• Supports backend configuration for TAMU journals

Restrictions

All hosted journals must:

• Be diamond open access with a publicly posted open access policy
• Have a journal manager affiliated with Texas A&M (initially)
• Ensure all published content is accessible
• Understand that TDL and TAMU Libraries cannot support:
  • Custom code development
  • Custom design or advanced theming
  • Typesetting or copyediting
  • Specialized layout work

These responsibilities fall to the Journal Team.

Getting Started

Before applying for hosting, requesters must be able to answer:

• What need will your journal fill?
• What unique contribution will it make?
• Who is your audience?
• What types of materials will you accept?
• What will your publication frequency be?
• How will you recruit submissions?
• Will the journal use peer review?
  • Who will serve as peer reviewers?
• Who will serve on the editorial board?
• How will the journal be funded?
• What will your copyright policy be?

For additional planning guidance, see TDL’s Setting Up an Open Access Journal.

Next Steps

Once you have clarified the above, submit a request via our web form.

Setting Up DOIs

As a CrossRef member, the Libraries can help ensure your journal and articles are assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). DOIs:

• Provide persistent links to your content
• Improve discoverability
• Support accurate indexing and citation tracking

We can configure an OJS plugin to automatically assign DOIs to all eligible content.

For assistance, submit a request via our web form.

Integrating ORCiD

Texas A&M and TDL-hosted journals can activate automatic ORCiD integration. This feature:

• Collects and authenticates contributor ORCiDs
• Sends contributors an email requesting authentication
• Displays ORCiD data on article/preprint pages
• Helps distinguish authors with similar names
• Improves metadata accuracy and transparency

To enable ORCiD integration for an existing journal, submit a request via our web form.

Getting Indexed

Publishing with TAMU and TDL helps ensure broad visibility for your journal’s scholarship.

Default Indexing

All journals on our platform are automatically indexed in Google Scholar.

Applying to DOAJ

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a valuable index for increasing visibility. Before applying, your journal should:

• Publish at least 5 articles per year
• Maintain a regular publication schedule for 2 years

The Libraries can help you prepare your DOAJ application. For details, see DOAJ’s Guide to Applying.

Other Indexes

If your journal needs to be included in specific indexes to strengthen its visibility or credibility, the Libraries can help you identify appropriate indexing options. To get started, please submit a request via our web form.