Periodicals play an important role in exchanging scientific ideas and presenting the results of the latest research. Their reputation is primarily determined by the substantive quality of their articles, but they must also meet the requirements of Act 2.0 (MEiN – the Ministry of Science and Higher Education) and bibliometric databases. Promotion in the scientific community is also of great importance. Those developing the concept for a new scientific journal should take the above-mentioned aspects into account, as well as the specificity of publishing. In turn, the editorial boards of existing periodicals will find out what changes should be introduced in order to gain a strong position among researchers and be included in the list of scored journals. The aim of the course is to systematize knowledge about publishing a scientific journal, and to present solutions for problems that may arise during planning and implementation.
Participants of the course will learn the steps they should follow when creating a new scientific journal and what recommendations should be taken into account. Topics range from the choice of the discipline / disciplines, subject matter and its scope, recognition of the competition, to the frequency of publication, method of financing, and distribution. The formalities which should be completed to register the journal, assign ISSN, e-ISSN, DOI, and ORCID numbers, will be discussed. Those taking part will learn about the basics of copyright law, the types of Creative Commons licenses, the meaning of the term “public domain”, and the factors influencing the choice of license type.
Members of the editorial boards of journals will learn how important the structure, information about the author and publisher, composition of the abstract, selection of keywords, and bibliographic record are to the distribution of the content of articles. They will hear why a modern scientific journal cannot exist without a dedicated website, what one should look like, and what it should contain. Bibliometric databases and the conditions on applying to the databases as indicated by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education – Scopus and Web of Science.
The specificity of the publishing process in which the editorial office of a journal is autonomous from the publishing house, requires a precise division of responsibilities at individual stages of work. Students will become familiar with the stages of work and the creation of a schedule. The precise assignment of tasks and work according to a schedule facilitates cooperation and communication between editorial offices and publishers, and will avoid misunderstandings in areas where competencies may overlap.
The available studies on publishing scientific journals describe the conditions and requirements for journals above all. They do not answer the questions of how to implement them in practice, how to deal with the contradictions between the guidelines of MEiN and indexing databases, or how to organize cooperation between journal editorial offices and publishers, which may be a source of numerous conflicts.
