Open Hosting Service | External Partners

We offer a journal and book hosting service to external organisations and institutions.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Open Hosting External Partner's Service! We are part of a vibrant community of academics, researchers, students and librarians who all champion Open Access publishing and Open-Source software. 

This site contains all the information you need about the service, as well as about launching your own publishing initiative.

For more information or queries, please contact the Open Hosting team at open.hosting@ed.ac.uk.

About the Service

Using Open Source software, Edinburgh University Library offers book and journal hosting to external organisations and institutions.

For journals, the Library uses Open Journal Systems (OJS). For books, the Library uses Open Monograph Press (OMP). OJS and OMP are web-based content management systems and publishing platforms. They can be used either to manage the full editorial workflow, including submission and peer review, or just for publishing online. Using OJS and OMP requires minimal technical expertise. 

The service is provided at cost, without profit margin or contingency for commercial performance claims. The service will therefore be provided on a best endeavours basis. We guarantee that the service will never be bought out by a commercial enterprise.

Criteria

In order to be eligible to use the service, you must publish under a Diamond Open Access model. You must also meet one of the following criteria:

  • have a strong connection to Scotland, the University of Edinburgh or city of Edinburgh where there is a recognised benefit to the University or society as a whole in making the content openly available.
  • OR publish in the field of librarianship, information management, research data management, open access etc which supports the work of professional services in higher education.
  • OR University of Edinburgh staff have been long standing members of the editorial board.

The Open Hosting service is managed by a small team. As such, we reserve the right to decline new partnership applications in order to ensure our existing service is robust and well resourced.

Costs

The current cost of the service is £2,160 + 20% VAT per annum. This includes all the services outlined within the scope of the service. Additional work outwith this scope is charged at £350 per day. 

Service Governance

The service is hosted, supported and managed by Edinburgh University Library.

Our Partners

We are proud to work with the following partners:

Scope of Service

Below sets out what the Open Hosting Service includes and doesn't include.

Service Inclusions

  • General
    • We provide ongoing technical support and are on hand to fix bugs and answer all system-related queries at any point. We have a 1 FTE expert dedicated to the service, along with our own service, Edinburgh Diamond.
  • Servers & Storage
    • A hosted service for OJS and OMP utilising a managed Linux Virtual Machine, for running production and test services.   
    • Two (2) application servers: production and test servers for each OJS/OMP installation. The test environment will consist of an individual installation per partner of OJS/OMP on an individual server.
    • All servers mentioned above are Virtual Machines running CentOS.
    • The service includes configuration of one URL for each OJS/OMP instance. There will be an additional charge for mapping existing URLs to new ones, charged at day rate (minimum ½ day).
  • Backup & Recovery
    • We run regular back-up of the OJS/OMP installations and their databases nightly.
    • Data backup of virtual machines can be provided using Veeam disk-based block-level backup software. This copies block-level changes to remotely held storage nightly
    • Additionally a SQL dump is taken daily.
  • Third-Line Support
    • When your 1st and 2nd line cannot resolve an issue, OR when five (5) or more end-users (academics/students etc) experience a common issue, OR Application errors, OR there is complete non access THEN you should contact us.
    • Site monitored 9-5pm, Mon-Fri.
  • Key Maintenance & Upgrades
    • Key maintenance of OJS/OMP, as well as upgrades, are included. Additional technical support available, charged at day rate (minimum ½ day).
  • Migrations
    • If you have archived content, we can migrate it over to OJS/OMP site, no matter where it was hosted before.   
  • Service Levels
    • Excluding planned outages for key maintenance and upgrades etc., after the implementation & stabilization period, system availability is targeted to be circa 99% pa. We will make best endeavours to provide you with reasonable notice of any planned outages.
  • Custom Theme
    • Choice limited to existing custom themes. Additional customisation is available and charged at day rate (minimum ½ day). 

  • OJS & OMP | The Library uses Open Journal Systems (OJS) and Open Monograph Press (OMP) – open source, web-based platforms built for managing and publishing academic journals and books online. We will set you up with your own installation of OJS/OMP, which includes:
    • Your own website
    • As many web pages as you need (e.g. submissions, announcements, policies, about etc)
    • A publishing workflow management system
    • A place to publish your books/journal(s)
  • Website set up | We will support you at all stages of setting up your publishing initiative, including the initial configuration of your website and basic customisation of the user interface.
  • Website design | We will work closely with you to create a website design that reflects your brand, including colours, logos, fonts and feel. Future basic website updates will be your responsibility, but we will be on hand for major changes.
  • Content migrations | We will help migrate back content to your new platform.

  • OJS & OMP | The Library uses Open Journal Systems (OJS) and Open Monograph Press (OMP) – open source, web-based platforms built for managing and publishing academic journals and books online. Both OJS and OMP can be used either to manage the full editorial workflow, including submission and peer review, or just for publishing online. Using OJS and OMP requires minimal technical expertise and full training and guidance will be given.
  • Workflow | We will work with you to help understand how you can best use these systems for your publication model of choice.
  • Plugins | We can enable relevant plugins where possible, including Crossref, DOAJ, PubMed, and ORCID integration. 

  • We are on hand to provide guidance about industry developments and good practice advice on academic publishing issues (although it is down to you to take ownership and implement these yourself). Topics include:
    • Using OJS/OMP
    • Being a journal editor
    • Managing the publication process
    • Managing peer review
    • Writing policies, including on peer review, digital preservation, Open Access, licensing and publication ethics
    • Creative commons licenses
    • Copyright and permissions
      • Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)
    • Copyediting and production
    • Indexing
    • Promotion and outreach
    • Metrics and reporting

Service Exclusions

  • All partners are expected to remain the initial contact point for queries, fault logging etc. for all of their authors, editors, staff and students.
  • Edinburgh University Library staff should only be contacted on issues that partners are unable to resolve themselves in-house.

  • All partners are expected to source and manage their own ISSNs and ISBNs.  
  • All partners are expected to source their own DOI providers and manage the allocation and payment of their own DOIs. 

  • Partners are responsible for managing the editorial, marketing, production, rights, and legal processes for their publishing initiative (whether through coordinating it themselves or training their authors/editors on coordinating it).
  • Partners are also responsible for making basic website updates, e.g. adding new editorial board members or adding a new user to OJS.

  • We will give you workflow training on using OJS/OMP, and show you how to provide training for your users. It is then up to you to provide that training to your users as and when needed.
  • There are excellent guides provided by PKP. See our Resources page. 

The service does not include the following services:

  • Copyediting
  • Proofreading
  • Typesetting
  • Printed versions, including hardbacks and paperbacks

Contact us through an online sign language interpreter

British Sign Language (BSL) users can contact the University of Edinburgh via Contact Scotland BSL, the online British Sign Language video relay interpreting service.

Find out more on the Contact Scotland BSL website


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