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Guides for OpenAIRE Services

Episciences

Overlay Journal Platform

What it is

A complete editing and publishing platform

Episciences is an overlay journal platform to host and disseminate diamond open access publications from all disciplines. The journals adhere to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

Supported by the Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe, a support and research unit created by the CNRS, joining Inria and INRAE, Episciences offers technical and editorial support to journal teams from all over the world.

Preprints and articles published by Episciences overlay journals are hosted by open repositories such as arXiv, HAL and Zenodo.

Episciences is available through the OpenAIRE Service catalogue and the EOSC. The platform is connected to many OpenAIRE services, such as Zenodo, OpenAIRE Research Graph, ScholeXplorer, OpenCitations and UsageCounts.

Episciences in summary:

  • Platform for publishing Open Access scientific journals
    • New or transformative journals from other publishers
    • Articles can be in all languages
    • Scientific communities can create and operate high-quality Open Access journals
  • Diamond Open Access (no fees, neither for authors nor for readers)
    A mix of:
    • Gold Open Access (OA journals)
    • Green Open Access (self-archiving in OA repository)

The hosting and operation of the journals is free of charge.

Who is it for?

Episciences is for researchers:

  • as authors and readers;
  • as editors, reviewers and copy editors.

Journals have a non-exclusive right to publish the contents; by using Creative Commons licences, authors retain their rights.

Episciences allows researchers to save time, money, and effort, so they can focus only on their research.

Episciences is also open to anyone interested in reading sciences thanks to the diamond open access model that provides all content open access.

What it does

Episciences offers an overlay journal model

  • Operating on top of Open Access repositories
  • Allowing peer-review preprints
    • single-blind review
    • open peer-review
  • Ensuring that all versions remain available online
    • During the whole publication process
    • If the journals disappears or moves, updates are still possible on journal/repository

Editorial support services

Episciences is a complete journal editing and publishing platform combined with an editorial support service.

Users can benefit from the following associated services:

1) Creation of a personalised site for the journal:

  • Creation and hosting of a website dedicated to the journal;
  • Configuration of the web site according to the editorial policy of the journal;
  • Suggestion of an adapted graphic charter and creation of a header;
  • Allocation of DOI.

2) Technical support

Episciences offers daily support in the use of the software:

  • Bilingual English/French documentation;
  • Training, by video call, on request of the editorial teams;
  • Technical support by email / help desk system;
  • Feature/Bug reporting service via GitHub;
  • Specific technical support offered by Inria (for computer science and applied mathematics) and the Institut Fourier (for mathematics).

3) Help with the publication and distribution of the journal

  • ISSN request;
  • Assistance in the choice of Creative Commons licences and a copyright assignment contract;
  • Editorial advice and information on open access publishing requirements including the FAIR criteria;
  • Advice and assistance in applying for institutional support;
  • Advice  in selecting service providers for copy-editing.

4) Indexing

Episciences takes care of the procedures for indexing journals in the reference databases of each discipline and in interdisciplinary databases.

How can we use it?

Workflow

episciences schema

1 An author deposits a preprint in an open repository such as HAL, arXiv or Zenodo.
2 Then he submits it to an overlay journal.
3 The editorial board of the overlay journal examines the submission and entrusts its expertise to reviewers.
4 The expertise received - which can be rejected, accepted subject to modifications, or accepted as is—is transmitted to the author.
5 The revised article gives rise to a new version that is deposited in the open repository: This new version will be reviewed once more by the reviewers before being accepted or leaving for a new round of evaluation.
6 Once the article has been definitively validated by the journal’s editorial board, then copy-edited and deposited in the open repository, it is published on the journal’s website and receives a DOI.

Demonstration: How to use Episciences

Video tutorials

 

 

More information

Support & Training:

 Resources:

 Contacts:

  • Contact: contact [at] episciences.org
  • Support: support [at] episciences.org
  • User Feedback