There's a new phenomenon in the realm of academic journal publishing, which has long been ruled by a handful of corporate publishers commanding profit margins in excess of 30%: in recent years, learned societies, libraries, and groups of scholars have begun taking back control of academic journals by flipping corporate-run journals to academic-led publishing models and launching new open access titles online.
Could enough brave academic-led publishing Davids take on Goliath publishers like Elsevier? While disparities of size may make this matchup seem near impossible, it’s important to remember that it’s not always the magnitude of a competitor that determines their success, but rather the tools they use. The internet is making research dissemination easy and affordable, so that even the leanest of publishers can prevail. Why academic-led publishing? And why now? One word: technology.
Read the full postSee why Internet Mathematics transitioned to an academic-led journal publishing model after their publisher decided to discontinue the journal.
"It was a very well-ranked journal with a high-quality editorial board. But financial pressures in publishing helped dictate that decision. I was aware of what Timothy Gowers - Field Medalist and highly respected mathematician - had done during what was referred to as the Academic Spring when there was pushback on the transfer of copyright issue that many journal publishers - Elsevier and others - were involved in. [...] What I’ve said repeatedly, including when I pitched this to our managing editors, is that what researchers want is access to papers. [...] They’re less concerned about the publisher, but more concerned with the editorial quality of the journal."
Get started by checking out Scholastica's free publishing resources and resources from scholarly organizations, including the ones featured below.
Björn Brembs, Professor of Neurogenetics at the University of Regensburg and OA advocate, discusses why he believes academic journals should switch to service-based publishing models.
“What we have now is a status quo that is a potential threat to the entire scientific endeavor, both from an access perspective and from a content perspective, and the three models being pushed as potential solutions are not sustainable, either. The need for drastic reform has never been so pressing.
Only the existing model of Scholastica, Ubiquity, etc. is sustainable, as it allows for switching publication services, without interruption of service or access to content. Publishing in the future will be a service, not a content-hoarding-and-extortion business.”
Are you working with an institution or group of scholars that is starting an open access (OA) journal, or that is planning to transition an existing journal to an OA publishing model? You’re not alone. More and more academic institutions and scholars are launching academy-owned journals and flipping paywalled titles to OA models.
Whether you’re launching a new journal or flipping an existing one, we know there is much to consider. In this blog post, we break out all the steps you need to know to get a publication up and running.
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