Wikiversity Journal/Starting a journal

A major task in creating and maintaining a journal is to keep it easy for authors to get important subjects published, but at the same time having quality assurance such as peer review in order to make the journal reputable. Reputation then attracts further authors, as well as peer reviewers.

Wikiversity Journal of Medicine provides a model for how a journal can be designed in a wiki, allowing for editing content directly online from a web browser. Its texts and templates can be copied into new pages with its title replaced with that of the new journal.

A domain name of the journal title on the Internet provides a direct URL to the journal (such as www.wijoumed.org for Wikiversity Journal of Medicine). This facilitates all mentioning of the journal in external sources. Providers include godaddy.com where the cost for .org domains can be purchased for 8 USD per year, provided the service is limited to redirecting the URL to a page in Wikiversity.

Acquiring an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) constitutes a basic certification as a journal. It is acquired from a national center, which can be found at issn.org. Wikimedia Foundation may be stated as the "publisher". An ISSN is required in order to become a member of CrossRef and thereby have Digital Object Identifier (DOI) codes assigned to articles.

Eventually, a reputable journal should generally have an editorial board and peer reviewers who are independent of each other, as well as independent of the authors. However, during early experimentation, some overlap between the roles may be necessary, such as in trying out publication processes. Still, articles published during such circumstances may need to be withdrawn from the journal in the future if the minimal standards for article processing increases.