This document discusses the creation and distribution of the open access e-journal SLIS Connecting by the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Southern Mississippi. It began as an e-newsletter and expanded into an e-journal to share news, information, research, and publications. The journal is hosted on the university's Digital Commons platform and has become the most downloaded journal on the site. Analytics show it has had over 13,000 page views from over 100 countries since 2012, with the highest number of international views coming from Iran, the UK, Canada, Nigeria, India, Australia, and China. The widespread reach is attributed to its open access model and inclusion in search engines and listings.

1. Creation and Distribution of
an Open Access e-Journal
Dr. Stacy Creel
stacy.creel@usm.edu
Dr. Teresa S. Welsh
teresa.welsh@usm.edu

2. Digital Commons
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1. Planned for an e-newsletter
2. Expanded to an e-journal
3. SLIS Connecting
 Connecting people,
technology, libraries, history &
learning
 ‘to share news, info, and
research.… through selected
faculty publications, student
publications, refereed papers,
columns’
aquila.usm.edu/slisconnecting/

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4. Literature: Print to Digital
 ‘The transformation from print to digital media for scientific
communication, driven in part by the growth of the Internet
and the tremendous explosion in the amount of information
now available to everybody, is creating fundamental changes
in institutions such as publishers, libraries, and universities’
(Davidson, 2005)
 ‘Web has changed the way academics share, promote, and
locate information’ (Calise et al., 2010)
 ‘In the use of electronic journals by academics, convenience,
including free access, is important’ (Tenopir & Wolverton,
2005)
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5. Bepress
 Founded in 1999 because….
 ‘academic journals were plagued by slow turnaround
times, limited access, and unreasonable
prices’(bepress.com )
 Developed online editorial management system that supports
peer-review process
 Developed Digital Commons for institutional repositories to...
 ‘support faculty in creating and editing sustainable
scholarly journals, as well as a variety of other publishing
initiatives like e-only press imprints, conference
proceedings, student research, and more’ (bepress.com)
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6. Bepress (cont’d)
 License w/Digital Commons entitles institution to:
 Setup, training, technical support, upgrades, hosting
 5 free e-journals, includes set-up design
 Digital Commons
 Includes EdiKit™ professional-grade , peer-review/
editorial management system
 Supports social networking: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter,
StumbleUpon, Pinterest, RSS, etc.
 Tracks usage data including page views and downloads by
geographic location
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7. SLIS Connecting
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 First e-journal in USM Aquila Digital Community
 1st issue – February 2012
 Most downloaded Aquila e-journal
 (Online Journal of Health Ethics is second)
 Top Digital Commons e-journal in archival science

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Downloads
How many items have been downloaded since spring 2012?
 24,723 downloads
Which items were downloaded most?
 ‘An Analysis of Little Red Riding Hood Storybooks in
the de Grummond Collection’ by Cheryl Pittman,
(Issue 2), 4,395 downloads (18%)
 ‘A Content Analysis of Cinderella Illustrated
StorybooksHoused in the de Grummond Collection’ by
Kimberly Smith (Issue 1), 3,354 downloads (14%)

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10. SLIS Connecting is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International .
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11. ISSN: 2330-2917
 International Standard Serial Number
 8-digit code used to identify newspapers,
journals, magazines and periodicals of all kinds
(worldwide) and on all media–print and
electronic.
 http://www.issn.org/services/requesting-an-issn/
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http://www.issn.org/understanding-the-issn/what-is-an-issn/#

12.  Increase the visibility
 Increase ease of use of open access scientific
and scholarly journals
 Comprehensive and cover all open access
scientific and scholarly journals
 Standard of quality to guarantee the content
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13.  Open Access Journal: right to "read,
download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link
to the full texts of these articles"
 Quality Control: peer-review or editorial
quality control
 Research Journal: report primary results or
overviews of research
 Periodical: regular interval serial without end
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14.  56 questions from the simple (like your name) to
more complex (like digital archiving policy)
 Can take 3 to 6 months
 Journal's ISSN(s) number(s), country of
publisher, and title registered at issn.org matches
the application
 An editorial board with identifiable members
(plus their contacts).
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15.  Full text of articles is free and immediately
available upon publication (no embargo)
 Open Access policy is clearly stated and easily
findable on Web site
 Uses some form of peer review
 Is open access according to BOAI definition (
http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/)
 No charges or explicitly described charges
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19. My Account/Author Dashboard
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20. Google Analytics: Page Views
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According to Google Analytics, how many page views have
there been for SLIS Connecting and what was the geographic
distribution within the U.S. and abroad?
 From first issue in February 2012 through October 2014,
there were 13,281 page views in Google
 Most, 11,000 (83%), were from within US
Greatest number in SE region, then NE, SW, NW
Spatial pattern similar to alumni location

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Google Page Views 2012 - 2014

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Page Views outside U.S.
What was the geographic distribution of page views
internationally, outside the U.S.?
 2,201 (Google) page views in 101 countries
 Top 7 countries: Iran (283), UK (232), Canada (216),
Nigeria (134), India (127), Australia (117), China (82)
 Greatest number to least by continent: North America,
Europe, Asia, Africa, South America
 Spatial pattern indicates much wider audience than
SLIS students and alums

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Page View Locations outside U.S. (Google Maps, 2014)

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Discussion
 Patterns in U.S. similar to alumni distribution
 Unexpected international reach:
 Open-access
 Indexed in Google and Google Scholar
 Announcements of new issues posted on listservs,
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
 Mix of refereed student research, essays, and columns
with news of SLIS courses, faculty, alums, students
 Great tool for recruitment, outreach to students and alums
 Promotes connectivity and community-building among SLIS
faculty, students, alums.

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References
 Davidson, L.A. (2005). The end of print: Digitization and its
consequence – revolutionary changes in scholarly and social
communication in scientific research. International Journal of
Toxicology 24, 25-34.
 Calise, M, de Rosa, R., & Fernandez i Marin, X (2010). Electronic
publishing, knowledge sharing and open access: A new environment
for political science, European Political Science 9, S50-S60.
 Tenopir, C. & Wolverton, R.E. (2005). Conference report:
Discovering the magic: Faculty and student use of electronic journals,
The Serials Librarian 49, 159-164.
 Welsh, T.S. & Creel, S. (2013). Geographic distribution of an open
access e-journal. Information Services & Use 33(3/4), 103-111.

26. Thank you for your attention….
Questions?
Dr. Stacy Creel
stacy.creel@usm.edu
Dr. Teresa S. Welsh
aquila.usm.edu/slisconnecting/ teresa.welsh@usm.edu