Editing and publishing of a medical journal. Success of an unconventional workflow

Regional journals often face constraints that threaten their growth, calling for novel coping strategies. This paper outlines the problems and challenges in editing and publishing the SQU Journal for Scientific Research: Medical Sciences, the only peer-reviewed medical journal in the Sultanate of Oman. These included the absence of secretarial support and the consequent need to reduce paperwork, the fact that most papers required substantial editing even after peer review, and the lack of a single workflow for creating documents for the press and the Internet. These challenges were successfully met by creating an unconventional all-electronic workflow that catered to both the print and the online versions. The paper describes this workflow and offers suggestions for journals wishing to streamline theirs.