International Journal of Secondary Computing and Applications Research

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IJSCAR Publishing Workflow

Step-by-step guide for assembling and publishing a new issue from accepted manuscripts to live website.

Overview

A finished issue requires these components, in order:

  1. Cover page (PDF)
  2. Editor-in-Chief letter (PDF)
  3. Table of contents / index page (PDF)
  4. Individual article PDFs (compiled from author LaTeX)
  5. Merged issue PDF (volN-issueN.pdf)
  6. Individual article HTML pages on ijscar.org/pubs/
  7. DOIs registered with Crossref

Step 1 — Collect Final Author PDFs

  • Ask each author for their final compiled PDF (or compile from their LaTeX zip yourself via Overleaf).
  • Confirm the first page shows: two-column ACM format, line numbers, CC BY 4.0 license block in the bottom-left footer, and the correct conference/volume/issue/year metadata.
  • Rename each PDF clearly, e.g. 01_punuru.pdf, 02_omar.pdf, etc., numbered in publication order.
  • Place them in pubs/papers/vol<N>-issue<N>/.

Step 2 — Create the Cover Page

  • Design in Canva, Adobe InDesign, or Google Slides.
  • Must include: IJSCAR logo, volume number, issue number, month and year, ISSN.
  • Export as a single-page PDF: pubs/components/vol<N>-issue<N>/cover.pdf

Step 3 — Write the Editor-in-Chief Letter

  • Write in Google Docs or Word, then export to PDF.
  • Typical content: welcome note, brief description of each article, acknowledgments.
  • Save as: pubs/components/vol<N>-issue<N>/editor-letter.pdf

Step 4 — Create the Table of Contents Page

  • List all articles in publication order with author names and page ranges.
  • Page ranges must be finalized before this step (count pages in each article PDF).
  • Export as PDF: pubs/components/vol<N>-issue<N>/toc.pdf

Step 5 — Merge All Components into One Issue PDF

Install pypdf if you haven’t already:

pip install pypdf

Edit merge_issue.py (in the pubs/ directory) with the correct volume, issue, and file paths, then run:

cd pubs
python3 merge_issue.py

The script (pubs/merge_issue.py):

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Merge all components of an IJSCAR issue into a single PDF."""

from pypdf import PdfWriter

# ── Configuration — update these for each new issue ───────────────────────────
VOLUME = 3
ISSUE  = 2
OUTPUT = f"vol{VOLUME}-issue{ISSUE}.pdf"

# List PDFs in the order they should appear in the final issue.
# Paths are relative to pubs/.
COMPONENTS = [
    "components/vol3-issue2/cover.pdf",
    "components/vol3-issue2/editor-letter.pdf",
    "components/vol3-issue2/toc.pdf",
    "papers/vol3-issue2/01_punuru.pdf",
    "papers/vol3-issue2/02_omar.pdf",
    "papers/vol3-issue2/03_goel.pdf",
    "papers/vol3-issue2/04_mehra.pdf",
    "papers/vol3-issue2/05_raghavan.pdf",
]
# ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

writer = PdfWriter()

for path in COMPONENTS:
    writer.append(path)
    print(f"  added: {path}")

with open(OUTPUT, "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

print(f"\nDone — wrote {OUTPUT}")

Move the output PDF to the correct location in the repo:

mv vol3-issue2.pdf /Users/mariahwang/Github/Ijscar/pubs/vol3-issue2.pdf

Step 6 — Record Page Numbers and Update articles.csv

Now that the issue PDF is assembled, count the page ranges for each article and fill them into pubs/articles.csv.

Open articles.csv and fill in page_start and page_end for each new article row. Pages refer to the page number within the merged PDF file (not the printed number on the paper).

Then regenerate the individual article HTML pages:

cd /Users/mariahwang/Github/Ijscar/pubs
python3 generate_article_pages.py

Step 7 — Register DOIs with Crossref

  1. Log in to Crossref at doi.crossref.org.
  2. Prepare the metadata XML deposit (or use the web form) for each article.
  3. Each article needs: title, authors, affiliations, abstract, volume, issue, year, page range, ISSN, and the URL of its individual article page on ijscar.org — this is the DOI’s “resource URL” and must be the article’s own HTML landing page, not the merged issue PDF (e.g. https://ijscar.org/pubs/articles/vol3-issue2-punuru-drone-navigation.html, not vol3-issue2.pdf). Crossref recommends DOIs resolve to a metadata landing page rather than a bare PDF.
  4. Submit the deposit. DOIs are typically activated within a few hours.

Step 8 — Add DOIs to articles.csv and Regenerate Pages

Once Crossref confirms the DOIs, fill in the doi column in pubs/articles.csv for each new article (format: https://doi.org/10.XXXXX/...).

Then regenerate again:

cd /Users/mariahwang/Github/Ijscar/pubs
python3 generate_article_pages.py

This also writes the Google Scholar metadata (citation_* fields) into each article’s front matter; _includes/citation-meta.html turns them into <meta name="citation_..."> tags on the page. Put each article’s own PDF in pubs/articles/ (named <slug>.pdf, same as its .md) before running the script, so citation_pdf_url is included — Google Scholar needs a PDF of just that article, not the merged issue. To check after the site rebuilds, open an article page, View Page Source, and search for citation_title.

Step 9 — Commit Everything to GitHub

cd /Users/mariahwang/Github/Ijscar
git add pubs/vol3-issue2.pdf pubs/articles.csv pubs/articles/ pubs/index.md
git commit -m "publish Vol. 3 Issue 2"
git push

GitHub Pages will rebuild automatically. Allow 1–2 minutes, then verify at ijscar.org/pubs.

Quick Reference — Files to Update for Each New Issue

File What to update
pubs/articles.csv Add one row per article; fill pages and DOI once known
pubs/index.md Add new ### Volume N, Issue N section with article links
pubs/generate_article_pages.py Add entry to ISSUE_PDF dict; add slug overrides if needed
pubs/merge_issue.py Update VOLUME, ISSUE, and COMPONENTS list
pubs/volN-issueN.pdf The merged issue PDF itself