Innoconflux Publications
Case study

A publishing home that looks as credible as the research.

Innoconflux publishes peer-reviewed journals, runs international conferences and publishes academic books. We built the platform that holds all three: a public site researchers can browse and submit to, and an editorial back office that lets a small team run many journals.

Client
Innoconflux Publications
Industry
Academic publishing
Services
Web design, Full-stack development, CMS & admin, Content migration
Platforms
Web
publishing lines: journals, conferences and books
3
levels of hierarchy, journal to article
4
admin for every journal
1
articles read in the browser
PDF
01

The challenge

Credibility is everything in academic publishing. Researchers judge a publisher by its site before they trust it with their work, and indexing bodies look for clean, consistent archives.

  • Many journals, one small team

    Each journal has its own ISSN, editorial board, volumes and issues. Managing that by hand across static pages didn't scale.

  • Archives that must stay correct

    Articles are cited for years. Volumes, issues and article metadata had to be structured and permanent, not loose files.

  • A clear path to submit

    Authors needed one obvious way to submit a manuscript to the right journal, and editors needed every submission in one place.

  • Three businesses, one brand

    Journals, conferences and books each needed their own browse and detail pages under one consistent identity.

02

Our approach

We modelled the publishing structure properly first, then built the site and the admin on top of it.

  1. 01

    Structure before pages

    Journal, volume, issue, article: a relational model in Prisma so every article has a permanent, correct home.

  2. 02

    An editor-first admin

    Editors add journals, boards, issues and articles through forms, not code, and move issues from current to archive in one step.

  3. 03

    Read without downloading

    Articles open in an in-browser PDF viewer, keeping readers on the site and making every paper one click away.

  4. 04

    Submission as a funnel

    One manuscript form, reachable from every page, that routes submissions to the editorial team by email.

03

What we built

A public site for researchers and a back office for the editorial team.

Researchers & readers

05
  • Browse journals with ISSN, scope and subject areas
  • Current issue and full archive per journal
  • Article pages with authors, dates and DOI
  • In-browser PDF reading
  • Conference and book catalogues with detail pages

Authors

04
  • Manuscript submission with file upload
  • Author guidelines
  • Submission notifications to editors
  • Contact and enquiry forms

Editorial team

06
  • Journal management with hide/show
  • Editorial board members per journal
  • Volumes, issues and article uploads
  • Current issue to archive in one step
  • Conference and book management
  • Manuscript inbox

Architecture and stack

A straightforward, maintainable stack the client's team can host and extend.

Frontend
  • React
  • Vite
  • React Router
  • Tailwind CSS
  • react-pdf
API
  • Node.js
  • Express
  • JWT auth
  • Multer uploads
Data
  • Prisma ORM
  • Relational database
  • Structured file storage
Services
  • Nodemailer
  • EmailJS
04

The details

Data model

An archive modelled like a library

Journals own volumes, volumes own issues, and issues own documents, each with slugs, timestamps and unique ISSNs. An issue's status (current or archive) drives what readers see, so publishing a new issue is a data change, not a redesign.

  • 01Prisma schema with relational integrity
  • 02Unique journal titles, slugs and ISSNs
  • 03Issue status enum: current or archive
  • 04Rich 'about' content stored as structured JSON
Reading

Papers that open where readers are

Instead of sending readers off to download a file, articles render in the browser with react-pdf and pdf.js. It's faster to skim, easier on mobile, and keeps readers on Innoconflux.

  • 01Inline PDF rendering with pdf.js
  • 02Article metadata alongside the paper
  • 03Direct PDF link for citation managers
Operations

A back office a small team can run

One admin area covers every journal, conference and book, protected by JWT sessions. Uploads are organised by type on the server, and submissions arrive by email through Nodemailer, so nothing gets lost.

  • 01Role-protected admin with hashed credentials
  • 02Typed upload storage for manuscripts, books and papers
  • 03Email notifications on every submission
05

How it came together

  1. Step 01

    Model the catalogue

    Mapped every journal, board, volume and issue into one schema before touching the interface.

  2. Step 02

    Design the public site

    A calm, academic interface with a strong hero and clear paths to journals, conferences, books and submission.

  3. Step 03

    Build the back office

    Admin forms for every entity, so the editorial team could run the site without developers.

  4. Step 04

    Launch

    Set up the journals and issues, checked every archive page, and launched at innoconflux.com.

06

The outcome

Innoconflux now runs its journals, conferences and books from one platform, and publishes new issues without a developer.

  • A credible front door

    Researchers find a professional, consistent publisher across every journal and discipline.

  • Self-serve publishing

    The editorial team creates journals, updates boards and publishes issues on their own.

  • One pipeline for submissions

    Every manuscript comes in through one form and reaches the editors, whichever journal it's for.

Our journals finally have a publishing platform that looks as credible as the research we put out.
KiranDirector, Innoconflux
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