Yogesh Singh
Starting an academic journal is one of the most rewarding things you can do in scholarly publishing — and one of the most misunderstood. Most guides either tell you to “just use a spreadsheet and a free website,” or they drown you in open-access funding theory without ever explaining how to actually get your journal built, registered, and indexed.
This guide is different. It walks you through the entire journey — from the first idea to a properly indexed, credible, discoverable journal — in the real order you’ll need to do things. It is written for university departments, scholarly societies, independent editors, and publishers who want to launch a journal that is taken seriously, not flagged as predatory.
By the end, you’ll understand exactly what it takes to launch a journal, how long each stage realistically takes, what it costs, and where the common mistakes are that quietly kill new journals before they reach indexing.
| Quick summary: To start an academic journal you need to (1) define a clear scope and need, (2) recruit a credible editorial board, (3) set up a professional publishing platform such as OJS, (4) establish peer review and ethics policies, (5) register an ISSN, (6) register DOIs through Crossref, (7) publish your first issues to a consistent schedule, and (8) apply for indexing — starting with DOAJ, then working toward Scopus and Web of Science. |
Table of Contents
Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………… 1
Should You Start an Academic Journal? Be Honest First…………… 3
Step 1 — Define Your Journal’s Scope, Aims, and the Gap It Fills. 3
Step 2 — Choose Your Publishing and Funding Model………………. 3
Step 3 — Build a Credible Editorial Board………………………………… 4
Step 6 — Register Your ISSN…………………………………………………. 6
Step 7 — Set Up DOIs with Crossref and Get Your Metadata Right……………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
Step 9 — Get Indexed: DOAJ, Then Scopus and Web of Science. 8
Step 10 — Promote Your Journal and Attract Quality Submissions 8
How Long Does It Take, and What Does It Cost?……………………… 9
The Biggest Mistakes That Sink New Journals………………………….. 9
Frequently Asked Questions…………………………………………………. 10
Final Thoughts: Build It Properly, From the Start……………………… 11
Should You Start an Academic Journal? Be Honest First
Before anything else, ask why you’re doing this. A journal is not a one-time project — it’s an ongoing commitment that lives or dies on consistency. Indexing bodies, authors, and readers all judge a journal on whether it publishes reliably, year after year.
A journal is the right move if you have identified a genuine gap, have access to a community of authors and reviewers, and can commit to publishing consistently for at least three to five years. It is the wrong move if you’re chasing quick prestige, expecting fast revenue, or hoping to be indexed in Scopus within a year — none of those are realistic.
The single most important thing to understand up front is this: indexing is earned, not bought. Any service promising “guaranteed Scopus indexing in 3 months” is either lying or running a scam. Legitimate indexing in DOAJ, Scopus, or Web of Science comes only after you have built a real publication record. Plan for the long game from day one.
Step 1 — Define Your Journal’s Scope, Aims, and the Gap It Fills
Every successful journal answers one question clearly: why should an author choose us over the journals that already exist?
Start by identifying the specific gap your journal fills. This could be an underserved subfield, a region whose research is poorly represented, a faster and more author-friendly review process, or a discipline dominated by expensive subscription titles where a fair open-access option is needed. Vague positioning (“a journal for all areas of science”) is one of the clearest signals of a weak, and often predatory, journal.
Once you’ve found your niche, write your aims and scope — a short, precise statement that will sit on your journal’s About page. It should make immediately clear what subjects you cover, what kind of research you want (empirical, theoretical, applied, review), what article types you accept, and who your intended readership is. A sharp aims-and-scope statement is also one of the first things DOAJ and Scopus evaluators read, so it’s worth getting right early.
Finally, choose a journal title that is distinctive and descriptive. Avoid titles that imitate established journals or use inflated words like “International” or “World” without substance behind them — evaluators notice, and so do authors.
Step 2 — Choose Your Publishing and Funding Model
Publishing is never free, even when reading is. Someone has to cover the cost of hosting, software, DOI registration, copy-editing, and the editorial team’s time. Deciding how your journal will be sustained is one of the most consequential early decisions you’ll make.
The main models you’ll choose between are:
- Diamond / Platinum Open Access — free for authors and free for readers, with costs covered by a sponsoring institution, society, or grant. This is the most respected and author-friendly model, and increasingly favoured by funders, but it requires a reliable backer.
- Gold Open Access (APC-based) — readers access articles for free, while authors (or their institutions) pay an Article Processing Charge. This can work, but only if your APC is genuinely justified by the services you provide, and only if you offer meaningful waivers for authors from low- and middle-income countries.
- Subscription / Hybrid — readers or libraries pay for access. This is harder to launch from scratch today and runs against the direction the whole field is moving.
For most new journals — especially those launched by universities and societies — a diamond open-access model backed by institutional support is the strongest foundation for credibility. If you must charge an APC, keep it modest and transparent. Inflated or hidden fees are one of the fastest ways to get labelled predatory and rejected by DOAJ.
Step 3 — Build a Credible Editorial Board
Your editorial board is your journal’s reputation made visible. When authors consider submitting, and when indexing bodies evaluate you, the editorial board is one of the very first things they scrutinise.
A strong board combines recognised, established scholars who lend credibility with active early-career researchers who bring energy and fresh networks. Aim for genuine geographic and institutional diversity — a board where every member comes from the same department, or the same country, is an immediate red flag to evaluators.
Three principles matter most here. First, every listed member must have actually agreed to serve — listing scholars without consent is unethical and frequently exposed. Second, board members should be real, contactable, and have a verifiable publication record in your field. Third, define clear roles: an Editor-in-Chief to set direction and make final decisions, Associate or Section Editors to manage submissions in their areas, and a wider Editorial Board to advise and review.
Recruit your board before you launch, not after. Authors and indexers want to see an established team behind the first issue, not a placeholder.
Step 4 — Set Up Your Journal Platform (OJS and the Alternatives)
This is where your journal becomes a real, functioning publication — and where many founders underestimate the work involved.
The most widely used platform in the world for scholarly journals is Open Journal Systems (OJS), the free, open-source software from the Public Knowledge Project. OJS manages your entire workflow: online submissions, peer review, editorial decisions, production, and publication. It powers tens of thousands of journals globally, and importantly, indexing bodies are deeply familiar with it.
OJS is free to download, but “free software” is not the same as “free to run well.” A professional OJS journal needs reliable hosting, correct configuration, a clean and trustworthy-looking theme, security hardening, regular updates, and proper integration of plugins for DOI deposit, ORCID, and indexing. A poorly configured, insecure, or outdated OJS site does real damage to a journal’s credibility — and a slow or hacked site can derail an indexing application entirely.
You broadly have three options for getting your platform running:
- Self-host and self-manage OJS — maximum control and lowest software cost, but you take on installation, security, updates, and troubleshooting yourself. This works only if you have genuine technical capability on the team.
- Use a managed publishing platform — a hosted, supported system that removes the technical burden, in exchange for an ongoing fee.
- Work with a specialist to set up, customise, secure, and maintain your platform so your editorial team can focus on the scholarship rather than server administration.
| A note from experience. Over the past decade I’ve set up, migrated, secured, and customised well over a hundred academic journals on OJS and on custom platforms, and the single most common reason a new journal stalls is a publishing setup that looks amateurish or breaks under load. The software being free lulls people into thinking the setup is trivial. It isn’t — the configuration, security, metadata pipeline, and indexing-readiness are exactly what evaluators judge you on. If your team doesn’t have hands-on OJS and metadata expertise in-house, this is the one stage where bringing in help genuinely pays for itself, because mistakes made here are expensive to undo later. At DigitalBisht this is precisely the work we do — OJS setup, migration, theming, security hardening, and full indexing-readiness — but whether you do it yourself, use a platform, or work with a specialist, treat this stage with the seriousness it deserves. |
Whichever route you choose, your platform must, at minimum: accept online submissions, support a structured peer-review workflow, produce articles with proper metadata, assign DOIs, and present a clean, professional, secure public website.
Step 5 — Write Your Core Policies: Peer Review, Ethics, and Copyright
Policies are not bureaucratic box-ticking — they are the backbone of a credible journal, and every major indexing body checks for them. A journal without clear, public policies will not be accepted into DOAJ, let alone Scopus.
At a minimum, you need to define and publish the following on your website:
Peer review policy. State clearly which model you use — single-anonymised, double-anonymised, or open peer review — and describe the steps every submission goes through, from initial editorial screening to reviewer assessment to final decision. Transparency here is non-negotiable for indexing.
Publication ethics. Adopt and publicly commit to recognised standards, most importantly those of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Your ethics policy should cover plagiarism, authorship criteria, conflicts of interest, handling of misconduct, corrections, and retractions. A plagiarism-screening process (using tools such as iThenticate or similar) should be part of your workflow.
Copyright and licensing. Decide who holds copyright and under what licence articles are published. For open-access journals, a Creative Commons licence (commonly CC BY) is the standard, and saying content is simply “open” is not enough — you must state the specific licence. DOAJ explicitly checks that your licensing is clear and consistent across your site, so make sure there are no contradictions between different pages.
Author guidelines. Provide clear submission instructions: formatting, citation style, structure, word limits, and what authors must include. Good author guidelines reduce friction and signal professionalism.
Getting these policies right and internally consistent is one of the most common stumbling blocks in DOAJ applications. Contradictions — like one page saying CC BY and another implying authors transfer all rights — are a frequent cause of rejection.
Step 6 — Register Your ISSN
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is the unique eight-digit identifier for your journal. It’s a basic requirement of legitimacy, and indexing bodies will not consider a journal without one.
You apply for an ISSN through the ISSN National Centre in your country (for example, the relevant national library or ISSN authority). If your journal is published only online, you’ll request an electronic ISSN (e-ISSN); if you publish in both print and online, you’ll need separate ISSNs for each format.
Apply once you have a confirmed journal title, a functioning website, and a genuine commitment to regular publication. National centres typically want to see that the journal is real and intended to publish on an ongoing basis — some expect to see evidence of initial content or a clear publication plan. Build the ISSN application into your pre-launch timeline rather than treating it as an afterthought, because some downstream steps (including DOI registration and indexing) depend on it.
Step 7 — Set Up DOIs with Crossref and Get Your Metadata Right
A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a permanent, unique link to each article that never breaks, even if your website changes. DOIs are essential for citation, discoverability, and indexing — many databases require them, and they’re central to how the modern scholarly web links research together.
For academic journals, the standard route is to register your DOIs through Crossref, the principal DOI registration agency for scholarly content. The process involves becoming a Crossref member (which carries an annual fee scaled to organisation size), then depositing each article along with its metadata so that Crossref can mint the DOI and register the article’s details.
Here’s the part that’s easy to underestimate: the DOI is only as valuable as the metadata attached to it. When you deposit an article with Crossref, you’re not just creating a link — you’re publishing structured information about the article (title, authors with ORCID iDs, affiliations, abstract, references, funding, licence) that discovery services, search engines, and indexers read and rely on. High-quality, complete metadata directly improves how easily your articles are found and cited. Incomplete or sloppy metadata quietly suppresses your reach.
As a Crossref Ambassador, I’ll put this plainly: getting your metadata pipeline right — depositing complete references, ORCID iDs, funding data, and licence information with every article — is one of the highest-leverage things a new journal can do for its long-term discoverability and indexing prospects. It’s also one of the most commonly neglected. If you take one technical lesson from this guide, let it be that metadata quality is not optional.
Step 8 — Run Your First Peer-Review Cycle and Publish Your First Issue
With your platform, policies, board, and identifiers in place, it’s time to actually publish.
Start by issuing a call for papers through your editorial board’s networks, relevant academic communities, social media, and direct outreach to researchers in your field. New journals rarely receive strong submissions passively, so in the early days you’ll often invite contributions directly — editorials, commentaries, and articles from respected scholars who can lend the first issue credibility and signal what kind of work you’re looking for.
As submissions arrive, run them through your full editorial workflow: editorial screening for scope and quality, plagiarism check, assignment to peer reviewers, collection of review reports, an editorial decision, revisions, and finally acceptance. Resist the temptation to lower your standards just to fill an issue — the quality of your first articles sets the tone for everything that follows and is exactly what indexers will scrutinise.
Once articles are accepted, they move to production: copy-editing, typesetting into clean article files (PDF and, ideally, HTML and full-text XML), assigning DOIs, depositing metadata, and publishing on your platform. Then you decide your publication rhythm — many modern journals publish articles continuously as they’re ready and group them into periodic issues, which gets research out faster and is perfectly acceptable.
A realistic early target is to build up a consistent, genuine publication record. Remember that DOAJ generally expects a journal to have published a handful of original research articles before it will consider an application, so your first cycles are laying the foundation for indexing.
Step 9 — Get Indexed: DOAJ, Then Scopus and Web of Science
This is the stage everyone asks about first — and the one that must come last. Indexing is the recognition that your journal meets established quality standards, and it dramatically increases your visibility, submissions, and reputation. But it follows a sequence, and you have to earn each step.
Start with DOAJ. For open-access journals, the Directory of Open Access Journals (doaj.org) is the natural first target. It’s respected worldwide, and it will consider journals relatively early in their life — typically once you’ve published a small number of original research articles and have all your policies, licensing, and identifiers properly in place. A successful DOAJ listing is both valuable in itself and a strong foundation for later applications. Most DOAJ rejections come down to incomplete or contradictory information, unclear licensing, or missing policies — all things you can get right in advance.
Then work toward Scopus and Web of Science. These are the major citation databases, and indexing in them is significantly harder and slower. Scopus evaluation, through its independent Content Selection and Advisory Board, assesses the quality and consistency of your published content, the standing and diversity of your editorial board, your publishing regularity, citation patterns, the quality of your abstracts and metadata in English, and your adherence to publication ethics. You’ll generally need a track record of consistent, quality publication over a meaningful period before applying — there is no shortcut and no legitimate way to fast-track it.
Don’t overlook other relevant indexes. Depending on your field and region, databases and services such as PubMed/PubMed Central (for biomedical journals), regional and national indexes, and discipline-specific databases can be valuable and sometimes more attainable early on. A sensible strategy targets the indexes that genuinely matter to your authors, in a realistic order, rather than fixating only on Scopus from day one.
The honest timeline: DOAJ may be achievable within your first year or two if you’ve built things properly; Scopus and Web of Science typically take several years of consistent publishing. Anyone telling you otherwise is not being truthful.
Step 10 — Promote Your Journal and Attract Quality Submissions
A journal nobody knows about receives no submissions, and a journal with no submissions cannot build the record it needs for indexing. Promotion isn’t optional — it’s part of the core work, especially in the early years.
Build visibility through a mix of channels: an active presence on the platforms your research community actually uses, regular communication of new content and calls for papers, outreach to relevant university departments and conferences, and direct personal invitations to respected scholars. Make sure your articles are search-engine friendly and properly indexed in Google Scholar, since a large share of readers will find your content through search.
Promotion and discoverability reinforce each other: good metadata and indexing make you findable, while active promotion brings the readers and authors who generate the citations that, in turn, strengthen future indexing applications. Treat building your journal’s audience as an ongoing programme, not a launch-week task.
How Long Does It Take, and What Does It Cost?
Timeline. Setting up the foundations — scope, board, platform, policies, ISSN, Crossref membership — realistically takes three to six months if you’re organised. Publishing enough content to apply to DOAJ usually means your first one to two years. Reaching Scopus or Web of Science typically takes several years of consistent, quality publishing on top of that. A journal is a multi-year commitment, full stop.
Cost. The picture varies enormously depending on how you run things. OJS software itself is free. Your real costs are hosting, a Crossref membership (an annual fee scaled to organisation size), DOI deposit fees, any platform or technical support you use, copy-editing and production, and the time of your editorial team — which, even when volunteered, is a genuine cost. A lean diamond-OA journal run by a capable team can operate on a modest budget; a journal that outsources production and technical management will spend more but save significant time and reduce risk. What matters is that your model is sustainable — a journal that can’t fund its own continuation won’t survive long enough to be indexed.
The Biggest Mistakes That Sink New Journals
Most new journals don’t fail because of bad research — they fail because of avoidable, predictable mistakes. The most common are:
- Chasing indexing too early. Obsessing over Scopus before you’ve published a single quality issue is backwards. Build the journal first.
- Inconsistent publishing. Skipping issues or publishing erratically signals instability and is a leading reason indexers reject journals.
- A weak or fabricated editorial board. Listing scholars who never agreed, or a board with no diversity, gets noticed and damages credibility fast.
- Contradictory or missing policies. Especially around licensing and copyright — a frequent, entirely preventable cause of DOAJ rejection.
- Neglecting metadata. Poor or incomplete metadata quietly suppresses your discoverability and citations for years.
- An amateurish or insecure platform. A slow, broken, outdated, or hacked website undermines trust and can sink an indexing application outright.
- Hidden or inflated fees. Nothing gets a journal labelled predatory faster than opaque charges.
- Underestimating the commitment. A journal is an ongoing operation, not a project with an end date.
Avoid these, and you’re already ahead of the large majority of new launches.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to start an academic journal?
The software (OJS) is free, but you’ll have real costs for hosting, Crossref membership and DOI fees, production and copy-editing, and any technical support. A lean, well-run open-access journal can launch on a modest budget; the bigger investment is consistent time over several years. The key is choosing a model you can sustain.
How long does it take to get a journal indexed in Scopus?
There’s no fixed timeline, but realistically several years of consistent, quality publishing. Scopus evaluates your content, editorial board, publishing regularity, citations, and ethics through an independent advisory board. Any service promising guaranteed Scopus indexing in a few months is not legitimate.
Do I need an ISSN and a DOI to start a journal?
You need an ISSN to be taken seriously and to be eligible for indexing — apply through your national ISSN centre. DOIs (registered via Crossref) are essential for citation and discoverability and are required by many indexes. Both should be part of your launch plan.
Can I start a journal for free using OJS?
You can download and use OJS for free, but running a credible journal still costs money — hosting, DOI fees, production, and the technical work to configure, secure, and maintain the platform properly. “Free software” is not the same as “free to run well,” and a poorly set-up site can do real harm to your journal’s standing.
What’s the difference between DOAJ and Scopus?
DOAJ is a directory of vetted open-access journals; it’s respected, focused on open-access quality and transparency, and will consider journals relatively early. Scopus is a large citation and abstract database with a much harder, slower, more selective evaluation. A sensible strategy targets DOAJ first, then works toward Scopus.
Should I use an APC (author fee) model?
You can, but only with a modest, transparent fee that’s genuinely justified by your services, plus meaningful waivers for authors from lower-income countries. For many new university and society journals, a diamond open-access model (free for authors and readers, backed by an institution) is more credible and sustainable.
Do I need technical help to set up OJS?
Not necessarily — if you have genuine OJS and metadata expertise on your team, you can do it yourself. But the setup, security, theming, DOI/metadata pipeline, and indexing-readiness are exactly what evaluators judge, and mistakes here are costly to fix later. If that expertise isn’t in-house, specialist help at this stage usually pays for itself.
Final Thoughts: Build It Properly, From the Start
Starting an academic journal is genuinely achievable — thousands of credible, well-run journals have been launched by small teams and single departments. But the journals that succeed are the ones built properly from the foundation: a clear scope, a real editorial board, a professional and secure platform, clean policies, correct identifiers, high-quality metadata, consistent publishing, and a patient, honest approach to indexing.
Do the work in the right order, resist the shortcuts, and commit to consistency, and you’ll build a journal that authors trust, readers find, and indexers recognise.
| About the author. Yogesh Singh Bisht is the founder of DigitalBisht, an academic publishing consultancy specialising in journal setup, OJS implementation and migration, DOI and metadata quality, and indexing-readiness programmes for DOAJ, Scopus, and Web of Science. A Crossref Ambassador, he has helped launch and index academic journals for universities, societies, and publishers worldwide. If you’re planning to launch or improve a journal, get in touch. |
