MPublishing currently provides online hosting for approximately 25 journals and scholarly conference proceedings, covering disciplines across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. We believe that the primary goal of scholarly communication should be the advancement of knowledge, not market share. That’s why we’re committed to providing cost-effective content preparation and delivery services, and promoting the widest possible circulation for our publications.

Our service model is based on partnership: we bring together journal editors and MPublishing staff to establish a permanent, high-profile home for your publication.

Journal editors or other staff perform acquisitions and editorial functions, working with authors to deliver the final text of their copy to MPublishing according to regular, agreed-upon schedules.

MPublishing staff ensures that your journal content is preservable for the long term, discoverable by readers, and standardized for compliance with today’s digital publishing technology.

To learn more about becoming a publishing partner, explore our current journals, and contact us at mpublishing@umich.edu.

Open Access

Open access publishing enables your published works to reach a global audience, as they can be read, downloaded, and shared by anyone with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world. In support of this mission to increase access to high-quality scholarly works, MPublishing provides hosting services to qualified journals in all scholarly disciplines. While our first commitment is to the University of Michigan, our services are also available to the broader academic community.

In support of our commitment to open access, our core publishing principles include:

• Authors and editors retain all intellectual property rights; MPublishing generally operates with non-exclusive licenses to distribute content
• Long-term preservation of the electronic publication; the publication becomes part of the University Library’s collection and is therefore part of its preservation scope
• A preference for publishing open access publications and those with scholar- and library-friendly policies and pricing

Editorial Standards & Best Practices

MPublishing journals are peer reviewed, have high-profile editorial boards, use accepted editorial conventions, publish regularly according to stated schedules, and are affiliated with scholarly and academic networks. MPublishing journals will clearly state their copyright policy, peer review guidelines, and length of expected review period.

Technical Considerations

MPublishing journals will:

• Provide full text electronically to readers through our publishing platform
• Be fully searchable
• Possess a stable home base with a persistent, citable URL for each article
• Be accessible to people with disabilities
• Follow industry standards for online journal publication citations, i.e., easily identifiable journal title, ISSN, year of publication, and volume and/or issue number (if applicable)
• Have metadata distributed via RSS feed and by OAI-PMH

Content Delivery & Format

Your journal will be hosted in a publishing platform developed at the University of Michigan by the same team that brought you HathiTrust. MPublishing has extended the platform to offer features specific to the needs of modern digital publishing.

MPublishing takes care to convert your files into formats that will ensure long-term preservation and access. We will supply you with guidelines that will facilitate this process. Your journal content is presented either as HTML created from fully structured XML, with the option for complementary PDF availability, or in rare cases as page-image facsimiles of print editions.

Marketing & Promotion

We start from the idea that each of our publishing partners has expertise in different areas, and that by working together we will be most successful in marketing and promoting your journal. Already, authors promote their work widely by talking about it at conferences, teaching it to students and engaging in the scholarly conversation. In addition to these usual activities, we recommend using online tools to draw attention to your journal, and can provide you with guidelines to help you use these tools. Take a look at our marketing guide to learn how we can work together to promote your journal to the broadest possible audience.

MPublishing’s primary goal for your journal is to enhance its discoverability online so that anyone who is interested in it can easily find it and read it. A fully searchable electronic version of your text will be freely and permanently available through our publishing platform. The publications we host are indexed by search engines like Google Scholar, which help readers find your work.

As a library-based publisher, MPublishing has expertise in the library community and works to let libraries know about your journal. We catalog your journal prior to publication and make the records available to libraries worldwide through WorldCat, the premier union catalog for library holdings worldwide.

Usage

MPublishing provides download statistics through COUNTER reports that count the numbers of page views and full-text searches. COUNTER reports are ordered through the MPublishing website and delivered as Excel files by email.

Statistics are also tracked using Google Analytics. Reports can be made available upon request.

Other Available Services

The following supplemental services can be negotiated on a case-by-case basis:

• Print-on-demand editions
• Espresso Book Machine services for local publishing partners and customers
• E-commerce capability
• Business planning consultation for journals in the social sciences and humanities
• Digitizing back issues
• Assistance with indexing and abstracting services

Application Process

We ask that each prospective publishing partner complete an application for services. Applications are reviewed four times per year, and we are happy to answer questions as you complete the application. To obtain an application, please contact us at mpublishing@umich.edu.