About

View the Khulisa Journals 2024 Brochure

All Khulisa Journals are indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

Mission and vision

To support good-quality, peer-reviewed, open-access South African journals to adhere to best practice and to enhance their reach through optimising accessibility, discoverability, indexability, interoperability and visibility.

ASSAf’s vision for the Khulisa Journals platform is to sustain and grow the hosting service in the long term, and maintain and develop the functionality provided on the platform in line with best practice and ASSAf’s mission.

Criteria for inclusion on Khulisa Journals

In line with ASSAf’s mission and vision to provide assistance to journals and grow the platform, eligible journals are welcome to apply to join. Eligible journals are those that:

  • are included on the SciELO SA Collection OR
  • have received a recommendation from an ASSAf peer review panel for inclusion on SciELO SA and meet the criteria for inclusion on SciELO SA.

Benefits for journals

Journals hosted on the Khulisa Journals platform benefit in many different ways. 

  • ASSAf is merely a host, and the journal/society/organisation continues to be the publisher.
  • Copyright is not transferred to ASSAf, and the journal/society/organisation/author/s continue to remain the copyright owner/s, as specified in the journal policy.
  • Each and every journal is unique, and we therefore encourage journals to add their own branding, unique policies, and more. 
  • Journals share a federated platform, and therefore all journals benefit when new feautures or functionalities are added.
  • Association is of importance in the scholarly environment. Only established and ASSAf recommended journals are considered for inclusion.
  • Comprehensive training is available, and we take pride in the fact that we work with individual editors and individual journals, supporting them and acknowledging them as partners which are part of a motivated, energetic, and knowledgeable team. We also do not hesitate to learn from one another, and to challenge ourselves.
  • ASSAf through its Scholarly Publishing Programme and SciELO SA, is in itself a leader on the continent in scholarly publishing best practice. Not only is ASSAf mandated by the DHET to conduct independent peer-reviews of South African scholarly journals, but we also direct scholarly publishing on national level through the SA National Code of Best Practice in Scholarly Journal Publishing, Editing and Peer-Review. Editors therefore have access to a spread of experts in this field, being part of Open Access since the early 90’s, when the Internet took off. Collectively we come a long way!
  • The automated e-workflow assists editors with keeping track of all editorial activities, and at the same time all activities are recorded for auditing purposes.
  • Journals are indexed by Google and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), which make them highly visible. 
  • We take pride in staying in touch with our journal editors through two bi-annual editorial meetings, a monthly newsletter, as well as one-on-one communication.
  • And many more!

Included in the Khulisa Journals service offering

  • IT support - 1st and 2nd level (business hours).
  • Full hosting of the journal, combining a website and journal content management system 2-in-1.
  • Full autonomy over the journal, within the Khulisa Journals framework/policies/vision/mission.
  • Regular system and plugin upgrades, as well as back-ups.
  • Crossref integration for the depositing of DOIs.
  • Automated deposits with Protico (digital preservation).
  • Automated export of metadata to DOAJ.
  • Citaton export.
  • Publishing of ORCIDs.
  • Social share buttons.
  • Altmetric (for non-citation metrics).
  • Dimensions (for citation counts).
  • iTenticate plagiarism checker.
  • Recommendations on best practice, and expert scholarly publishing advise.
  • Initial setup of the journal, and upload of one retrospective issue. Upload of further backfiles for the account of the journal owner (Nason Bimbe will be able to provide a quote).
  • Registration with Google Search Console, Google Scholar and Google Analytics.
  • Article and review reports.
  • User training, continuous support, and webinars on new developments.
  • Regular e-news communication, staying in touch with the Khulisa Journals community.
  • Benefit from a lively and innovative scholarly journal community.

Excluded from the Khulisa Journals service offering

  • The journal has to be included in SciELO SA first.
  • Registration and annual renewal of domain name (see costs at https://xneelo.co.za/domain-name-registration/). We prefer for the journal to own their own domain name, so that it accompanies the journal wherever it goes - now and in future. It is similar to a physical address - an asset to the journal.
  • Migrating backfiles from another platform to Khulisa Journals (request a separate quote from nasonbimbe@gmail.com).
  • Banner (masthead). We can do a basic design as we did for AJIC and IJTL. Otherwise the journal can outsource it.  
  • Online ISSN. If the journal does not have an online ISSN yet, it is for them to register and pay for.
  • Update details with other indexes. It is the responsibility of the journal team to update any changes eg in domain name, editors etc with other indexes, such as Sabinet, SciELO SA, et al.
  • Honouring contracts with indexes/current publisher. It is the responsibility of the journal owner to verify that the journal is not in bridge of any current agreements in place.
  • Managing the workflow from submission to publication.
  • Layout/copyediting of articles by a 3rd party.
  • Plugins for which there is a fee payable.
  • Advertisements are allowed to generate income, provided it does not overshadow the scholarly content, nature and branding of the journal. Advertisements will be the responsibility of the journal itself.
  • It remains the responsibility of the journal owner to keep the journal website and information up to date, to regularly review it, and to report any problems to the Khulisa Journals platform manager.

Become part of Khulisa Journals

South African scholarly journals are encouraged to get in touch and discuss the possibility of being included on this platform. Send an email to ina@assaf.org.za