Special Issue: Open Access
Alex Holzman, co-editor
Robert Brown, co-editor
Marguerite Avery, guest co-editor
Deadline: March 15, 2017
Send all submissions to: jsp@utpress.utoronto.ca
Open access has evolved into a social movement and gained traction in the scholarly community as an important cause. Yet its impact has so far been limited due to its fragmented messaging, inconsistent policies, and sometimes fractious discussions. Although open access stands to affect scholarly publishing as a whole, its proper implementation and cost-benefit effect on scholarship remain unsettled
issues. Before we can agree on the viability of open access, we need more input from all parties with a stake in its outcome.
For a special issue of the Journal of Scholarly Publishing (volume 48, number 4, October 2017), the co-editors invite submissions from those engaged with open access who can shed light on this economic and moral concept now playing out across the scholarly communication ecosystem. We welcome submissions from anyone with insight into how open access publishing works, or could work: that includes publishers, librarians, scholars, editors, lawyers, technologists, university administrators, and government employees.
Suggested submissions include the following:
- case studies of open access projects, initiatives, and ventures
- analyses of open access policies and practices across disciplines and publication types, publishers, and users
- discussions of the push for open access from public policy mandates (e.g., NIH, NEH, NSF), private foundations, libraries, and authors
- critiques of access to scholarly content and higher education, e.g., the global geography of unequal access to knowledge
- considerations of how open access affects methods of assessing research impact (using traditional metrics and altmetrics) or evaluating candidates for tenure and promotion
- legal and historical inquires into intellectual property, copyright, and the commons as pertaining to open access and Creative Commons licensing
- evaluations of the impact of open access options on the distribution and marketing of books and journals
- assessments of sustainable business models
- proposals for changes to the ways scholars, librarians, and publishers work together, both within and across these professional categories
- reviews of books or other publications about open access
Submissions may be from 1500 to 6000 words, excluding references, tables, and figures. The co-editors and one outside referee will review all submissions, and those reviewed will be sent back to the authors with queries for revision. Publication will be contingent on
authors satisfactorily resolving all queries. Other requirements for manuscript preparation are available at http://www.utpjournals.press/
The Journal of Scholarly Publishing has been published since 1969 by the University of Toronto Press. It is indexed by Project MUSE, Academic Search Complete, and Computers & Applied Sciences Complete.
