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Digital Research & Publishing - The University of Iowa Libraries

Journal-hosting service

Interested in starting a new e-journal?
Need help hosting and publishing an existing e-journal?
Interested in moving a print journal online?

Our new journal-hosting service is part of a larger initiative at the Libraries to help advance new forms of scholarly publishing. The journals are accessible through Iowa Research Online (http://ir.uiowa.edu), a dynamic archive of the research produced by faculty, researchers, and students, from published articles in peer-reviewed journals to presentations, theses, dissertations, and unpublished papers.

Publishing options:

  • electronic-only—publish articles as indexed and searchable PDFs through a custom-designed website
  • print and electronic—submit ready-to-publish articles to a traditional printer to offer readers the option of print or electronic access

Our services include:

  • software demonstrations
  • training your editorial team to use the EdiKit software
  • creating a customized web site for your journal, hosted by Iowa Research Online
  • migrating back issues into your journal site (including scanning and metadata creation)
  • helping you draft author copyright guidelines
  • offering long-term digital preservation
  • managing software upgrades and customer support 

Types of journals:

  • scholarly journals published by University of Iowa
  • literary journals published by University of Iowa
  • society publications with University of Iowa editors
    (all editors do not need to be at Iowa)

This publishing platform is well suited for open access titles or titles that become open access after an embargo of no more than 24 months.

Editorial management software
Several locally edited journals and working paper series are currently using EdiKit, our editorial management software, to manage the peer review process and publish issues electronically. Users can:

  • accept online submissions and assign them to editors
  • simplify management of the peer-review process by tracking reviewer activity, automatically emailing appropriate reminders, and allowing for anonymous correspondence between reviewer and author
  • easily communicate with authors and track manuscript revisions
  • manage access to the journal through subscription controls and moving wall thresholds (to release older issues as open access)
  • publish articles as fully indexed and searchable PDFs
  •  All editorial activities — including copy-editing, proofreading, and page composition — are the responsibility of the participating academic unit or publishing program.

Other benefits:

  • great visibility–very high Google rankings
  • stable URLs that facilitate linking to content
  • publish audio, video and high-resolution images
  • supplementary materials can accompany articles
  • professionally designed site, meeting accessibility requirements
  • offer e-mail alerts and RSS feeds to readers
  • title will be preserved for the long term
  • generate usage statistics counting downloads of articles

Getting started:

If you are interested in starting a journal, you should consider the journal title, the scope, what role this journal will fill in the field, whether it will be peer reviewed, frequency of publication and expected types of content. Student journals need to have faculty sponsorship to ensure continuity and scholarship.  We prefer to work with open access journals and that authors retain copyright. To schedule a consultation, contact your subject liaison or Digital Research & Publishing at lib-ir@uiowa.edu.

Sampling of journals we host:

MFF screen

Medieval Feminist Forum (MFF) is the journal of the Society for Medieval Feminist Studies (SMFS).

POROI journal screen shot

POROI is an online peer-reviewed journal for scholarship attuned to rhetoric in inquiry and culture.