1. A short opening essay.
2. Peter Suber's open access newsletter
Open Access publishing is receiving a great deal of publicity as I write, with the commercial publishers beginning a fight-back by hiring a major public relations adviser. They are worried, of course, at the thought that by allowing authors to archive their publications for open access, they may be cutting their own throats. And that could be true: although, since it refers to some uncertain future, it's a hypothetical situation.
Open Access as currently understood has three modes: 1) open archiving of papers published in subscription journals - a move that requires at least the acquiescence of publishers, if not their whole-hearted enthusiasm. This mode is described by devotees of OA as the 'Green Route' to open access; 2) making openly available the content of subscription journals by charging authors (or their research funders or their institutions) for the publication of papers - this is described as the 'Gold Route'; 3) the true Gold Route (or perhaps we should call it the 'Platinum Route') of collaborative, subsidised publication of open access journals which make no author charges and charge no subscription fees. Subscription charges are a barrier to access; author charging is a barrier to publication - the only way to achieve true Open Access (TOA), is through mode 3 - Information Research is published under this model, with the main support coming from the Editor and Publisher, aided by the University of Lund Libraries and the Swedish School of Library and Information Science.
TOA (the Platinum Route) is readily achievable for niche subjects, as the publishers of the more than 800 journals using the Open Journal Systems journal management software can testify, since such areas have manageable rates of submission of papers, and publish only a small number of those submitted. It would be more problematic for subject areas that have hundreds or even thousands of submissions every year, but still, I believe, achievable. The mode of operation is similar for big and small fields: use journal management software, have several sub-editors for different areas of the field, or for submissions from different parts of the world, run a common list of referees for all editors to draw upon and recruit as many copy-editors and proof-readers as are needed to run the operation.
Using this model, Information Research now has four regional editors (and I am looking for a fifth), one of whom doubles as Book Reviews Editor and three copy-editors/proof-readers and the whole throughput of submissions (although not yet the publishing routine) is run on Open Journal Systems.
What is the motivation? you may ask. Why should I get involved? The answer depends upon your interest in scholarly communication. If you believe that research ought to be openly available, partly to ensure that what you produce is actually read by as many people as possible, which will benefit your citation rates, and, more importantly, to benefit society generally, then TOA is the only game in town. If you are interested in publishing for its own sake, rather than for any personal or public benefit, being involved in a TOA journal will give you a great deal of experience about the publishing process. If you are interested in the reported research, then you gain access to papers at an early stage of their life and can help the process by being a referee, a section editor or a copy-editor and proof-reader: all of these are valuable roles in the publishing process.
If you have views on OA and, particularly, on TOA, or if you have questions on the practicalities of TOA, please set them out here.
Information Research is running a series of case studies on Open Access publishing: the first two studies are now available, dealing with The Electronic Journal of IT in Construction and Medical Education Online.
Peter Suber produces the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, which is essential reading for anyone wishing to know what is going on in the world of Open Access. You can sign up for an e-mail versoin of the Newsletter, and the archive and current issue are also available on the Web at http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/
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