# WikiJournal User Group/Starting a journal

This is a suggestion of the broad prcess by which a journal may be created.

## Preparation

Before starting the endeavor of creating a journal, check whether a journal in your field of interest already exists as a WikiJournal or Preliminary WikiJournal.
A good way to start the creation of a journal would be to gather a group of people with the same ambition:
* It is no specific number of participants needed to found a journal, however it is recommended that they cover the following expertise and that the journal could continue operating if 50% become unavailable:
** participants from relevant academic/professional networks
** participants with academic publishing experience
** participants with some experience in a Wikimedia project (e.g. Wikipedia) - such people may be found at WikiProjects relating to the field of interest.
* An agreed upon title, scope, main aims / goals, and preferred article types

## Application to WikiJournal User Group

For a journal, being a member of the WikiJournal User Group provides technical support, a voice within the wikimedia movement, membership services such as crossref (for generating DOIs), and google workspace (for managing domain names and email accounts).
A journal can apply either before it is created, or after it has been running as a preliminary version. If intending to become a member of the publishing group, the online title should include "Preliminary WikiJournal of...". The title should preferably reflect a subject with minimal overlap with existing WikiJournals and Preliminary WikiJournals. To be considered as an official member of the WikiJournal User Group, a journal must fulfill the following criteria:
* No cost for authors to have their works published
* Open access for anyone to read, adapt, and distribute without cost
* Peer review of all articles before publication, by at least two knowledgeable persons for the subject at hand
* Transparency, with peer reviews and article discussions being open for everyone
* Engagement, with anyone free to share ideas, contribute to, and edit the journals (but changes to an article's meaning require a new peer review)
To be added to the WikiJournal User Group, an application can be made at Talk:WikiJournal User Group by including: a short description about the journal (title, topic scope), future goals and the expected time to achieve them (first submissions, first publications, main article types etc.), and initial interested editors.
There is then a vote by the WikiJournal administrative board on whenter to add the new journal to the group (relevant bylaws section).

## Technical setup

Website creation: WikiJournal of Medicine provides a model for how a journal can be designed in a wiki. Its texts and templates can be copied into new pages, with titles replaced with that of the new journal. Main pages of interest are:
* WikiJournal of Medicine/Editors
* WikiJournal of Medicine/Publishing
* WikiJournal of Medicine/Peer reviewers
* WikiJournal of Medicine/Editorial guidelines
* WikiJournal of Medicine/Ethics guidelines
* WikiJournal of Medicine/Bylaws
Domain name registration: A domain name of the journal title on the Internet provides a direct URL to the journal (such as www.WikiJMed.org for WikiJournal of Medicine). This facilitates all mentioning of the journal in external sources. Providers include godaddy.com where the cost for .org domains can be purchased for 8 USD per year, provided the service is limited to redirecting the URL to a page in Wikiversity.
Editorial board creation: When building the initial editorial board, it is recommended that the editors post summaries of themselves for the record at this page. Technically, this is only a formality for the initial board but is useful for transparency. Subsequent editors should be voted in via these summaries as per the bylaws.
Initial votes: The first order of business should be for the editorial board to vote on ratifying the bylaws and ethicThese can be accepted as-is, have additional adenda, or even suggestions made to all the journals in the group for a global amendment. s guidelines.
ISSN: Acquiring an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) constitutes a basic certification as a journal. It is acquired from a national center, which can be found at issn.org. Wikimedia Foundation may be stated as the "publisher".
DOI minting: Assigning Digital Object Identifier (DOI) codes to published articles is done via crossref. These are static links to each article, even if the page may be moved to another wiki location or URL. Journals in of the WikiJournal User Group share the doi prefix "10.15347". DOIs in WikiJournal are structured as 10.15347/WJ_/2024.XXX, where _ is the first letter of the journal scope, and XXX should be the chronologic order of the article in the year of publication, for example 10.15347/WJM/2017.001 for the first article published in WikiJournal of Medicine in 2017.
Mailing lists: These can be created for the editorial board and/or broader participants. It can be created through google groups (via google worspace) or lists.wikimedia.org (this will ensure that communications are archived on Wikimedia servers).

## Ongoing

Indexing services: Journals should aim to meet the inclusion requirements for relevant indexing services and apply to them for auditing when they are met.
Reputation: A major task in creating and maintaining a journal is to keep it easy for authors to get important subjects published, but at the same time having quality assurance by peer review in order to make the journal reputable. Reputation then attracts further authors, as well as peer reviewers. Separation of roles: Eventually, a reputable journal should generally have an editorial board and peer reviewers who are independent of each other, as well as independent of the authors. However, during early experimentation, some overlap between the roles may be necessary, such as in trying out publication processes. Still, articles published during such circumstances may need to be withdrawn from the journal in the future if the minimal standards for article processing increases.