1. Strategic Considerations for Launching or Repositioning a Journal Mary Rose Muccie Director, Current Journals Program JSTOR

2.  Growth in the number of scholarly journals described in various forums as “exponential,” “explosive,” “extreme,” “egregious,” etc.  Some stats  Estimated 50M+ scholarly research articles in existence 1  ~1200% increase in number of journals included in the Science Citation Index, 1964-2009 2  ~59% increase in number of journals included in the Social Science Citation Index, 1998-2009 2 The Landscape 1 Arif E.Jinha, Article 50 million: an estimate of the number of scholarly articles in existence. Learned Publishing, 23(2010), pp. 258-263. 2 Peder Olesen Larsen and Markus von Ins, The rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation Index. Scientometrics, 84 (2010), pp. 575–603.

3.  Couple this with the decline in institutional library acquisitions budgets  State-funded institutions particularly hard hit  Per the 2012 EBSCO Library Collections and Budgeting Trends Survey (Feb 2012) of 395 academic libraries  69% had reduced or flat budgets that year  52% expect flat budgets next year  22% expect reduced budgets next year  Cuts will come from print journals (80%), p+e journals (63%), print books (55%) 3 The Landscape 3 http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/04/funding/coping-with-the-terrible-twins- periodicals-price-survey-2012/

4.  Why launch a journal?  How might an existing journal be repositioned? Given All That…

5.  New fields are developing constantly  Renewable Energy Engineering  Sustainability Science  Proteomics  Social Learning  Digital Culture and Communication  Food and Energy Security  Multi-scale Modeling and Simulation Research Areas Are Growing

6.  Data on 4200 ScholarOne client journals shows significant increases in submissions from 2005 to 2010 4  Overall submissions increased 215+%  China: 484% increase  India: 443.21% increase  Japan: 127.50% increase  US: 177.44% increase  Relative portion from developing world increasing as well  China: 6.1% of 2005 total subs; 11.3% of 2011 total  India: 2.9% to 4.9% of total  South Korea: 2.5% to 2.8% of total  Iran: 0.7% to 2.1% of total  Yet acceptance rates decreased by ~3% Submissions Are Increasing 4 http://scholarone.com/media/pdf/GlobalPublishing_WP.pdf

7.  Access models  OA  Subscription  Hybrid  Freemium  Format and presentation  Multimedia as content, not just as supplement  User interaction  Commentary, blogging, social features  Post-publication peer review Models and Options Are Evolving

8.  Mission support  Dissemination  “This field is increasingly relevant in [Asia] [Africa] [the UK] and we need to get the information out.”  Perception of publisher  On the cutting edge, experimental, traditional  Cost recovery  Which costs? Goals Are Expanding

9.  Launching a new journal  Charismatic and connected champion essential  Build network of supporters at all levels  Ensure a submission pipeline  Set clear and realistic goals  ID the business model  No wishful thinking  Considerations  Is field mature enough to support new title?  Is author base/content unique enough/separate enough to support new title?  Is format/editorial model/publishing flow different enough to warrant new title? Launch or Reposition?

10.  Repositioning an existing journal  Modify the editorial policy  Change the editorial board  Introduce new article types/sections/formats  Market, promote, rinse, repeat  Expect it to take a while to sink in  Considerations  Is field undergoing evolution rather than radical change?  Will solicitation of papers in key areas of focus achieve sustained expansion in new areas?  Will changes in article types/sections/formats address new needs?  Is the journal brand strong enough to sustain a content/format revamp or to support spin-off titles? Launch or Reposition?