From Vision to Impact: Building a Sustainable Open-Access Peer Reviewed Medical Journal
Presentation Type
Presentation
Relevant Website
https://mds.marshall.edu/mjm/
Start Date
9-4-2026 2:55 PM
End Date
9-4-2026 3:25 PM
Description
The Marshall Journal of Medicine (MJM) was created to strengthen scholarly exchange, clinical innovation, and health professions education in rural Appalachia while making that work openly accessible to readers worldwide. As West Virginia’s first fully open‑access, online, peer‑reviewed medical journal, MJM illustrates how a mission‑driven publishing effort can evolve from an initial idea into lasting scholarly infrastructure—and how publication activity can translate into measurable impact.
MJM’s development centered on three strategic pillars:
- a clearly articulated scope focused on clinically relevant and educationally innovative scholarship
- rigorous peer‑review and editorial practices that ensure credibility and quality
- operational partnerships—especially with academic library experts—to support sustainable workflows, broad discoverability, and long‑term preservation
Between 2015 and 2025, MJM sustained strong full‑text readership and engagement among clinicians, educators, researchers, and healthcare organizations, demonstrating ongoing demand for accessible, practice‑oriented scholarship.
Impact expanded through enhanced discoverability and citation tracking via Crossref and indexing in platforms such as DOAJ and Google Scholar, enabling global access without subscription barriers. MJM also incorporates article‑level indicators; including usage data and altmetrics, to complement traditional citations, offering more immediate insight into dissemination, educational adoption, and community influence. These data guide continuous improvements in editorial processes, author support, and reviewer engagement.
This presentation outlines MJM’s full trajectory, from concept and development to outcomes and demonstrated impact, offering practical guidance for institutions aiming to launch or strengthen open‑access journals, particularly in rural or resource‑limited contexts. MJM provides a replicable model: mission clarity, credible peer review, strong library partnership, and transparent impact assessment can translate open‑scholarship values into sustainable academic and community benefit.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
From Vision to Impact: Building a Sustainable Open-Access Peer Reviewed Medical Journal
The Marshall Journal of Medicine (MJM) was created to strengthen scholarly exchange, clinical innovation, and health professions education in rural Appalachia while making that work openly accessible to readers worldwide. As West Virginia’s first fully open‑access, online, peer‑reviewed medical journal, MJM illustrates how a mission‑driven publishing effort can evolve from an initial idea into lasting scholarly infrastructure—and how publication activity can translate into measurable impact.
MJM’s development centered on three strategic pillars:
- a clearly articulated scope focused on clinically relevant and educationally innovative scholarship
- rigorous peer‑review and editorial practices that ensure credibility and quality
- operational partnerships—especially with academic library experts—to support sustainable workflows, broad discoverability, and long‑term preservation
Between 2015 and 2025, MJM sustained strong full‑text readership and engagement among clinicians, educators, researchers, and healthcare organizations, demonstrating ongoing demand for accessible, practice‑oriented scholarship.
Impact expanded through enhanced discoverability and citation tracking via Crossref and indexing in platforms such as DOAJ and Google Scholar, enabling global access without subscription barriers. MJM also incorporates article‑level indicators; including usage data and altmetrics, to complement traditional citations, offering more immediate insight into dissemination, educational adoption, and community influence. These data guide continuous improvements in editorial processes, author support, and reviewer engagement.
This presentation outlines MJM’s full trajectory, from concept and development to outcomes and demonstrated impact, offering practical guidance for institutions aiming to launch or strengthen open‑access journals, particularly in rural or resource‑limited contexts. MJM provides a replicable model: mission clarity, credible peer review, strong library partnership, and transparent impact assessment can translate open‑scholarship values into sustainable academic and community benefit.
https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/ato/2026ato/presentations/19