Philica is a new OA journal covering every academic field, charging no author-side fees, providing immediate OA to the submission, and using a form of open review with anonymous, recursively weighted reviewers. Articles in different fields are collected into sections called PsychoPhilica, EduPhilica, JurisPhilica, and so on. (Thanks to inn0vate.) From the site:
Philica was conceived by two British psychologists who had grown dissatisfied with traditional academic journal publishing. This makes profits from researchers’ efforts through strong copyright restrictions which greatly limit the free exchange of information, both between research groups and between researchers and the public. Philica gives control back to researchers, and provides an open and transparent forum where knowledge and thought can live and grow.
Crucially, Philica still provides a process of academic peer review, allowing proper critical examination of ideas and findings. However, for the very first time this process is both transparent and dynamic. It is transparent as reviews can be seen publicly; it is dynamic because opinions can change over time, and this is reflected in the review process....
You submit Articles or Observations using our submission page. Here’s the interesting bit: Your work is published to the community instantly. It is available for viewing by everyone and anonymous refereeing by any other professional researcher....And because Philica is the “Journal of Everything”, never again will you read that awful phrase, “Your work is great — but this isn’t the right place for it”....
Philica is like eBay for academics. When somebody reviews your article, the impact of that review depends on the reviewer’s own reviews. This means that the opinion of somebody whose work is highly regarded carries more weight than the opinion of somebody whose work is rated poorly. A person’s standing, and so their impact on other people’s ratings, changes constantly as part of the dynamic Philica world. Ideas and opinions change all the time — Philica lets us see this.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
