Overlay journals at UCL: the EPICURE project

Martin Moylem.moyle@ucl.ac.uk

JISC Programme Meeting, 17 January 2012

Overview

• Background and aims• Implementation• Benefits• Next steps

About EPICURE

• EPICURE: E-Publishing Infrastructure Capitalising on UCL’s REpositories

• UCL Publications Board exploring aspects of e-publishing

• EPICURE supports overlay journal publishing at UCL– Overlay journal:

• content resides in one or more open access repositories• content is original and quality-assured

Aims

• Create infrastructure to allow repository-underpinned campus-based publishing at UCL

• Migrate the web-based Journal of Bentham Studies (JBS) to the new platform, including backfile

• Project components:– Installation/infrastructure– Rights– XML markup– File migration– OJS configuration

The basic EPICURE model

• OJS (Open Journal Systems) installed– open source, PKP (Public Knowledge Project)– widely-used journal management software

• Journal articles stored in UCL Discovery– can be found through UI, search engines, etc.

• OJS provides the ‘official’ interface to the published articles, with journal brandings

• OJS can also be used to manage journal admin

Rights

• Project set out to produce a ‘model licence’• Result – more of a ‘framework’

– UCL Discovery deposit agreement: mandatory– Creative Commons licence: encouraged

• Prior to conversion of backfile (36 articles, 24 authors), JBS editors wrote to all authors

• 16 responded• All approved• All agreed to apply a CC licence...

Rights (contd.)

• 11 articles authored by non-respondents were transferred to UCL Discovery but retain their existing copyright statement

• Authors of future JBS articles will be requested to choose a CC licence

Type of licence No. of articles No. of authors CC-BY-NC-ND 18 10 CC-BY-ND 5 4 CC-BY-NC-SA 2 2

XML

• Aimed to provide XML version alongside pdf– Support for machine processing; support preservation

• How to encode?– No single standard for encoding journal articles– Comparative review of various solutions

• Digital Humanities Quarterly, DocBook, JATS

• JATS best for fitness, ease of use, documentation– STM-focused, but extensible to all UCL disciplines

• UCL-wide XML template created

XML (contd.)• XML retro-conversion not entirely successful

– Happy that we have a good template

– Implementation is painfully resource-intensive• Main body of text easy to convert

• Foot/endnotes are a pain.* JBS articles have up to 120 footnotes.

• XML not implemented for full JBS backfile• XML versions of papers downgraded from ‘essential’

to ‘desirable’ for future Epicure adopters

*[Note: apparently Harvard referencing quite easy to convert. JBS uses Oxford Referencing System. Library may advise future ‘customers’ to convert to Harvard]

JBS migration and configuration

• Past articles retrieved from web journal and uploaded to UCL Discovery

• Training provided; JBS team did the work– manual, but not onerous

• IRStats ‘set’ created for JBS• Journal article details added to OJS by JBS team• OJS user interface configured by JBS team• JBS team documented processes and created

guidelines for future UCL EPICURE adopters

Before...

After...

But also...

etc...

Benefits - JBS

• OJS – Gives a more professional look– Support for rolling publication

• Repository storage rather than CMS– Stable URLs– Higher visibility– Download stats

• Retro-formatting and new contributor guidelines– Greater professionalism and coherence

Benefits – more generally

• For campus-based journals: access to journal management software, better article visibility, archiving, repository bells and whistles, persistent URLs, advice (formats, encoding, rights...)

• Efficiencies in overall UCL journal production costs • Supports UCL’s strategic thinking on e-publishing• Publishing extension to Library’s service• Return on repository investment – putting the IR to

work• All findings, templates etc. will be available to other

HEIs through project website

Next steps (UCL)

• Fine-tune the technology– OJS links direct to articles stored externally (currently

fudged)– Calls to IRStats direct from OJS UI– Discovery config for consistent storage of licence info

• Let other UCL journals use the infrastructure– Slovo on board for 2012 volumes – transfer from third-party

publisher; currently print-only– Call for other adopters will go out early 2012

• UCL Publications Board to monitor resource implications of expansion

Next steps (JISC) ?

• Survey of campus-based publishing in UK HE– indication of demand for efficiencies brought by repository-

overlay services

• Commission desk research into University publishing trends internationally– eg US ARL ‘University Press’ studies; NL activity

• If findings are supportive, allocate resource– for advocacy of repository-overlay publishing– for further conversion and start-up operations

Thank you

• http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/epicure• http://ojs.lib.ucl.ac.uk/index.php/jbs

• m.moyle@ucl.ac.uk