In the digital age, open monographs, edited volumes, and scholarly editions are a proven game-changer, reaching wider and more diverse audiences and fostering broader knowledge dissemination with tangible real-world impact and enhanced public engagement.

To fully harness the potential of open monographs and academic outputs, South African (SA) publishers must master the nuances of how and what to publish. Leveraging the power of technology becomes crucial to running high-quality journals cost-effectively so that they can meet the latest industry standards without it taking up tons of time or breaking the bank.

Traditional journal management services and digital publishing solutions can be prohibitively expensive. However, a recent and important development, known as sustainable publishing, addresses this challenge. It aims to grant small, mid-sized and independent publishers access to streamlined publishing management services that feature affordable subscriptions. This empowers SA publishers to flourish in the digital landscape and contribute to a thriving scholarly community.

Uniting affordable publishing solutions

At the forefront of advancing online publishing services, Open Monograph Press (OMP) offered by Sabinet facilitates hassle-free online publishing. With a centralised publishing strategy that integrates online submission, peer review, and dissemination activities, organisations can streamline their entire publishing lifecycle. This cutting-edge platform is complemented by another relevant service - Open Journal Systems (OJS) offered by Sabinet. This cost-effective solution for academic, research, university, and independent publishers in South Africa offers a streamlined one-stop shop for effortless submission and peer review management of scholarly journals.

“Embracing these dynamic open source solutions, is helping South African publishers to usher in a new era of scholarly communication, fostering collaboration, accessibility, and broader impact for the research community and beyond,” says Sabinet Managing Director Ros Hattingh. “Sabinet is committed to providing affordable solutions to help sustain South Africa’s scholarly publishing sector. A thriving scholarly publishing industry is crucial to advancing knowledge and promoting intellectual growth. It allows researchers to share their work ensuring that new insights are disseminated, leading to progress in various fields.”

Let us take a closer look at the products.

OMP offered by Sabinet for streamlined online publishing

Monographs and edited volumes can be shared readily, discussed and debated, providing more opportunities for peer and public engagement. OMP brought to you by Sabinet is designed to provide institutions and publishers with a comprehensive online book and monograph submission and peer review management system, and a dissemination platform for both PDF and EPUB formats complete with local support and training. The service features a step-by-step submission wizard, flexible editorial workflow, and tools to track progress and success.

Benefits to institutions and publishers:

• A complete manuscript management and dissemination solution for publishing books, monographs, edited volumes, conference proceedings, corporate newsletters, and research papers with worldwide dissemination and discovery.
• A single, intuitive workflow for managing submissions and conducting internal and external reviews, supporting both blind and non-blind review processes.
• A platform for societies, publishers, presses, and individuals looking to publish their eBooks and monographs.
• An integrated PayPal payment system, opening the market for academic publishers to sell their books locally and internationally.

Publishers can distribute book and chapter metadata in machine-readable formats and integrate with industry standards such as DOIs, ORCID authentication, and ROR affiliations. The software offers multi-language support and enables publishers to retain ownership of their data without any lock-ins or limitations. This means publishers can easily use import/export plugins to deposit their data wherever necessary. Sabinet adds value by assisting with the remapping of XML metadata for various indexers.

Using OJS offered by Sabinet to manage journal content

The OJS offering brought to you by Sabinet helps academic professionals, editors, research institutions, and universities to manage submissions and the peer review process of journals, ensuring credibility and best practice can be followed effortlessly and saving you time with the various automations.

In addition to providing the technical infrastructure for the presentation of journal articles, the offering features an editorial-management workflow that includes article submission, peer-review, and indexing. The platform is highly configurable, but relies upon individuals fulfilling distinct roles, such as journal manager, editor, reviewer, author, and reader. These roles can be tailored to suit specific journal requirements and with automated notifications and archiving anyone will save time on admin tasks.

Because the software has been developed collaboratively, it features a plugin architecture that allows new features to be integrated without changing its core codebase. OJS by Sabinet also seamlessly integrates with Sabinet African Journals allowing your content to be discoverable both locally and internationally.

OJS by Sabinet, these are the benefits for journal publishers:

• A sustainable solution with competitive pricing in local currency.
• There is help when needed. Sabinet provides local support and training throughout the process.
• Export tools allow the user to deposit content on other systems such as CrossRef, DOAJ, iThenticate and ORCID.
• The platform seamlessly integrates with the SciPris, SciProof and Sabinet African Journals for an end-to-end journal solution.

 Sabinet facilitates access in one place to what is described as the most widely used publishing software in the world—OJS is being used by at least 25 000 active journals worldwide. Why not get started today?

With a longstanding partnership spanning over two decades with South Africa's scholarly publishers, Sabinet eagerly anticipates assisting more academic publishers in launching their online journal and eBook programmes. The company stands ready to assist organisations to roll out the new offerings, ensuring a steady flow of quality research to enhance academic excellence, foster international collaboration and drive societal impact. With other products to assist with managing publication fees and the entire production and conversion workflow, Sabinet aims to become an end-to-end online publishing solutions provider that adds value during every phase of the publishing value chain.

Together, we can propel the scholarly community towards a brighter and more influential future.