01
Clarify authority and objectives
Establish who may make decisions for the journal, what outcome is sought and which relationships must be protected. A title may have legal owners, a society, an editorial board and a publishing team with different but legitimate roles.
02
Understand the published record
Identify where the journal is hosted, how articles and issues are structured, which identifiers and metadata feeds exist, and what preservation or archive arrangements are in place. The published record should be treated as a core dependency.
03
Identify operational dependencies
Editorial administration, peer review, production, author communication, hosting, payment flows and reporting may be handled by different people or suppliers. Map each handoff, active agreement and source of operational knowledge.
04
Prepare the communications approach
Editors, authors, reviewers, readers and suppliers may need different information at different times. A good plan identifies the sequence, owner and message for each affected group.