By Ivana Morić Filipović, Head of Publishing Department, University of Zadar
In 2017, the University of Zadar launched Morepress, a digital publishing platform designed to support the innovative creation and dissemination of scholarly, educational, and professional publications in open access. The platform serves as part of the university’s publishing activities and brings together publications produced within its departments and research centers.
About the press
The name Morepress reflects the platform’s mission: “more” means “the sea” in Croatian, symbolizing abundance and a vast space—like a sea of books and knowledge—while “press” refers to a publishing service where authors and editors have all the tools needed to create, manage, and distribute scholarly content within a single digital environment.
Morepress was developed in collaboration with staff and students from the Department of Information Sciences and Technologies at the University of Zadar, reflecting a strong internal partnership between publishing, technological and professional expertise within the university. The platform is now managed by the Publishing Department at the University of Zadar, which currently consists of five staff members.
The publishing of all scholarly publications at the University of Zadar is overseen by the Publishing Committee, which ensures that publications meet the University’s academic and editorial standards. In addition, the university has established a Working Group for Publishing Platforms, consisting of six members, which monitors the development and operation of the Morepress platform and proposes further improvements and directions for its development. This Working Group also contributes to the education of editors and authors in the area of open access publishing.
The Morepress platform
The Morepress platform is organized into two main sections —journals and books. Morepress Books focuses on different kinds of monograph publications, such as scholarly books, textbooks, handbooks, course materials, edited volumes and other. In many cases, books published through Morepress are used as course literature at the University of Zadar and other Croatian universities, which demonstrates their practical academic value.
Books on the platform are published through the Open Monograph Press system and, since its launch in 2017, it has published around 130 titles, which corresponds to an average of roughly 15 books per year (the number of published titles gradually increasing over time). Some of these titles were originally published in print and later made available online, while others are “born digital”, meaning they were created and published directly in digital form.
Looking ahead, the University of Zadar plans to significantly expand the collection. Over the next four years, the University of Zadar plans to publish an additional 120 book titles, all of which will be made available online through the platform, further strengthening the university’s commitment to open science. This goal is aligned with the programme agreement signed between the University of Zadar and the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth of the Republic of Croatia, the governmental body responsible for the governance, funding, and strategic development of higher education and research institutions in Croatia.
Books published on Morepress are made available in open access, ensuring users free, unrestricted, and barrier-free online access to digital scholarly information, allowing reading, storage, distribution, searching, retrieval, indexing, and other kind of lawful use, in accordance with the Croatian Open Science Plan and the Declaration on the Application of Open Science Principles at the University of Zadar.
Peer review, licensing and multilingualism
All scholarly publications of the University of Zadar, including books, undergo an independent peer-review process, ensuring that each publication meets established academic and editorial standards. This process is essential for maintaining the quality, credibility, and scholarly integrity of the publications, while also strengthening the reputation and prestige of the University of Zadar within the national and international academic community.
The Morepress Books platform interface is available in both Croatian and English, enhancing accessibility and making scholarly content easily available to both local and international readers. While most of the books are published in Croatian, a number of titles are also available in other languages, particularly English. All books and book chapters uploaded into Morepress are registered in the CrossRef database, which helps the University of Zadar strengthen its presence among an international audience and become more visible within the global scholarly community.
Publications on the Morepress Books platform are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC-ND), except in cases where the author or copyright holder requires a different licensing arrangement. Authors may deposit the online publications published on Morepress in repositories, share them via social media, and distribute them through other channels to ensure greater visibility and impact, provided that a link to the original place of publication on Morepress is always included (preferably via the DOI identifier).
To strengthen the technical aspect of our work, we have recently employed an IT specialist, which we believe will contribute significantly to the further development and stability of the Morepress platform. With this additional expertise, we hope to continue improving the platform and expanding its functionalities in the coming years.
Challenges and future plans
One challenge relates to the transition from traditional print publishing to fully digital open-access publishing. While many authors recognize the benefits of open access, for some it can still be difficult to move away from the tradition and symbolic value of printed books and embrace a fully digital model. Equally important for authors is that the publishing process remains reliable and transparent, and that the platform ensures the long-term preservation and dissemination of their work. At the same time, raising awareness about the advantages of open access—such as greater visibility, accessibility, and the long-term availability of research—remains an important part of our work.
Morepress aims to develop technological solutions or adapt existing ones to efficiently manage and distribute large volumes of digital content. This includes both digitized materials and publications that are created directly in digital form. All content is integrated within a single online platform, allowing users to easily discover and access University of Zadar publications.
As the platform continues to grow, the team behind Morepress welcomes feedback from the community. Comments and suggestions that could help improve the platform can be sent to morepress@unizd.hr.
And finally: our books!
Here are some of Morepress’s books to browse:
- Prehistoric maritime structures in Dalmatia and Kvarner | A scholarly monograph presenting newly discovered prehistoric maritime structures in Dalmatia and Kvarner in the Adriatic region
- The Toponomastic Primer: Basic Terminology and Field Research Methodology | A specialised academic book focused on methodology in linguistics and onomastics
- Rethinking Childhood II: Child and Space | An international edited volume exploring childhood studies from interdisciplinary perspectives
- 24th Psychology Days in Zadar: Book of Selected Proceedings | A collection of peer-reviewed conference papers presenting current research in psychology