Customer Case Study: The Journal of Marine Research
When a publisher begins to consider taking a journal online it can be a daunting task...First there's the question of how to do it, closely followed by the unknown cost implication. In 2003, the Journal of Marine Research published from Yale University found themselves in a similar position - how to create an effective presence for their journal online, when the skills and expertise of their employees revolved around publishing, not website creation.
Taking the first steps: Can we handle it ourselves?
Many publishers approach the process of moving a title online by asking, "Can we handle this in-house?" Those who have successfully undertaken a project of this kind have tended to be larger organizations with significant budgets. For Doreen Orciari of the Journal of Marine Research, this was not an option, "Our competition is Elsevier, American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society - big companies that have their own resources for internet publishing. We are a much smaller organization and needed help with this endeavor."
Evaluating the Options
The next step was to evaluate their options. "Since we were novices, we knew we needed a company that would be willing to help us as much as possible." Staff at the Journal contacted three companies, heard back from two and considered only one. "Ingenta was quick to respond and answered every single one of our questions - usually within minutes."
Once the technology services provider was agreed upon, the next question was how to present the Journal of Marine Research in an online format. From the variety of options available, the decision was made to put the full-text of issues dating back five years on Ingenta's aggregated websites, ingenta.com and Ingenta Select. These websites have more than 15,000 institutions registered worldwide and an audience of millions of academic and corporate researchers.
To enable these customers to view the full-text seamlessly, they decided to filter subscriptions with Ingenta's activation system. "This made record-keeping easy," says Orciari.
In addition, the Journal opted to have a separate journal web page, which links to the articles hosted by Ingenta. "We wanted to have maximum exposure on the Web so that researchers and librarians could find JMR quickly and easily. With two avenues (www.journalofmarineresearch.org and www.ingentaselect.com) leading to the Journal, it's hard to miss us."
Communication is Key
"Once we decided on Ingenta, things went so smoothly and worked out wonderfully." At the heart of the process was communication, "We communicated about ten times a day in the beginning," says Doreen. Working on the project team at Ingenta was a regional sales manager, a producer who organized the implementation of the project, technical engineers to handle and manipulate the data, and an account manager to oversee all customer communication. The role of the account manager is pivotal, working on a daily basis from the very beginning and throughout the client relationship. The Journal of Marine Research's account manager is Sadie Hargreaves. "I would say that Ingenta's most valuable asset and the thing that impresses me most is Sadie Hargreaves. She is a fantastic representative for your company. It was a pleasure to build our online publication with her. She is so efficient, knowledgeable and helpful."
Measuring the Results
Keeping hold of your business objectives throughout the process is important. For the Journal of Marine Research the objective was clear-cut. According to Doreen, "We realized that putting JMR online was crucial to keeping it a valuable resource for the scientific community." It was hoped that going online would increase the Journal's visibility, attract more subscribers, thus increasing revenue. Added benefits include learning more about how to market the Journal and assistance in becoming a member of the CrossRef initiative. However, as Doreen says, the bottom line is: "We have already had an increase in the submission of articles to the Journal of Marine Research and we've only been online for about six months." Staff at the Journal can also directly measure the usage of article abstracts and articles by accessing Ingenta's free, online statistics tool.
For publishers considering a similar path, Doreen's advice is simple: "Advancing to the online publishing world is a bit overwhelming at first but thanks to the fantastic staff at Ingenta, the process is easy. It is well worth the effort and money, and as an added bonus, you meet very nice people and learn a lot too. We were hesitant to enlist a company in the UK because of the distance, but it has worked out beautifully."
To learn more about the Journal of Marine Research, please visit: www.journalofmarineresearch.org. To learn more about Ingenta's online publishing services, please visit www.ingenta.com or write to sales@ingenta.com.