Open Access Journals Morag Greig

Outline OA journals - definition OA journals - advantages How do people find OA journals? Publishing in existing OA journals Setting up an OA journal Publisher OA options

OA journals: what are they? Scholarly journals that are available to the reader without financial or other barrier other than access to the internet itself. OA journals perform peer review in the same way as subscription journals OA journals cover their costs in various ways – some are subsidised ; some charge author fees OA journals are published by e.g. publishers, institutions and by scholarly organisations

OA journals - advantages Worldwide audience Studies have demonstrated that freely available journals are read and cited more often that those requiring a subscription Increased likelihood of journal being included in international bibliographies and in citation indexes

How do people find OA journals? By searching the Internet Via OA harvesters such as OAIster Via the Directory of Open Access Journals ( Via publisher sites such as Bioline International ( Via sites such as Free Medical Journals ( Increasingly via abstracting and indexing library databases plus library catalogues

Publishing in existing OA journals Articles are peer reviewed in the normal way Some OA journals charge a fee to publish articles ; others do not Some OA journals may not charge a fee depending on the country of origin of the author(s), e.g. authors in this country can submit articles to BioMed Central journals free of charge

Setting up an OA journal An alternative may be to set up an OA journal An existing print journal can be turned into an OA journal or a new journal can be established A funding model will need to be established Both will involve choosing the appropriate software to deliver the journal online Open source software is available and can provide journal management (e.g. manuscript submission, peer review etc.as well as delivery of the journal to end users

Software for journal management C = charged F = free AllenTrack, (C) BenchPress (HighWire), (C) EdiKit (Berkeley Electronic Press), (C) Editorial Manager (Aries Systems Corporation), (C) eJournalPress, (C) ESPERE, (C) Open Journal Systems, (F) Rapid Review (Cadmus Professional Publication), ScholarOne, (C) XPress Track, (C)

Open Journal Systems

Useful articles Willinsky, J. & Mendis, R. (2007). "Open access on a zero budget: a case study of Postcolonial Text" Information Research, 12(3) paper 308. [Available at

Useful links OSI Guide to Business Planning for Launching a New Open Access Journal: ness_planning.htm ness_planning.htm OSI Guide to Business Planning for Converting a Subscription-based Journal to Open Access: ness_converting.htm ness_converting.htm Public Library of Science ‘Publishing open access journals’:

Publisher OA options An increasing number of publishers now offer paid OA options to authors Publisher response to OA movement and mandates from funding bodies to make articles resulting from grants freely available Result is that individual journal articles can be OA within a subscription journal Expectation is that such charges will be paid by funding bodies or institutions