By Wikus Van Zyl, Manager of UJ Press
UJ Press is an open access scholarly book and journal publisher based at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. The press publishes both gold and diamond open access books and journals in a variety of formats, including print, PDF, EPUB, XML and Audio formats.
The press was founded in October 2021, starting with a journal program. The book publishing programme was added in 2022. The press publishes 40 titles per year on average and has 26 journals on its platform. The press publishes titles in a variety of disciplines and languages, highlighting its commitment to inclusion and accessibility.
The press currently has one full-time staff member and an intern. An administrative staff member will join the press later in 2026, and a publisher in 2027. The Press recently became a Pty Ltd, and a Board of Directors has been appointed to govern the running of the press. The press has been running sustainably for the past four years without an annual budget allocation from the University.
Open Access was a clear choice for UJ Press, as it is committed to making publishing and published content available to as wide an audience as possible. Therefore, its commitment to open access, publishing in a variety of formats and publishing in a variety of languages. The press also partnered with the South African Library for the Blind, Blind SA and Tape Aids for the Blind to make its titles available to visually impaired readers.
To ensure our publications are of the highest quality, we have established a rigorous peer-review process. Submission criteria are strict and require authors or editors to confirm that the manuscript has been screened for plagiarism, that ethical clearance has been obtained if relevant, that Generative AI use has been declared and that all images used have been cleared for copyright. Discipline Editors do an initial screening of each submitted manuscript or proposal and recommend an Internal Reviewer. The Internal Reviewer does a preliminary review of the manuscript or proposal, and either approves it for review or recommends rejection. The complete manuscript is then submitted to a double-blind peer review process. All recommended changes need to be considered and addressed to the reviewers’ satisfaction before a manuscript is approved for publication. From 2026, we will also publish the anonymised peer review reports and the proof of publication and peer review from the press alongside the manuscript. This will outline the peer review process followed and demonstrate that it was transparent and thorough. We lastly maintain a high rejection rate, ensuring that only the top publications get published.
Regarding the prestige of the press, we are a member of the Publishers Association of South Africa, the Academy of Sciences of South Africa’s National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum, the Association of University Presses, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association and the Library Publishing Coalition. These memberships give the press international visibility and exposure.
We measure the success of each publication by its impact and reach. We link each book to the UN SDG that it contributes to and ensure that our titles are reviewed in journals and submitted for awards. We have several prize-winning titles in our catalogue, further enhancing the press’s status. We also measure the impact of our titles through Crossref, Google Scholar, the Open Monograph Press Statistics and Google Analytics. These metrics show authors and editors the value of open access publishing.
Our authors are very satisfied with the reach and availability of our titles. We distribute through a variety of platforms, and our titles are available internationally in print, electronic, and audio formats. We also offer authors royalties on print copy sales. One of our most successful titles on the DOAB, Healthcare Ethics for Healthcare Practitioners, has had 5,587 visits in one year and has been translated into Persian and Arabic since it became Open Access, opening up the title to a completely new audience.
The most challenging aspect of publishing in open access is ensuring sustainability whilst not excluding any authors or editors due to unaffordable Book Processing Charges (BPCs). Our publication decision is based on the merit and quality of the publication, rather than on funding availability. We assist emerging researchers who do not have access to funding by helping them find funding or by waiving the BPC or offsetting it from royalties. Despite this challenge, it is very rewarding to publish open access titles and see them make an impact.