Abstract: This paper demonstrates that advanced technologies and the increasing acceptance of academic open access e-journals offer an opportunity to reconsider their form and function as a medium to enhance scholarly communication. The academic open access e-journal is envisioned as a platform and a portal within the context of an open source community including a format and functions that enable it to achieve that objective. A working model for academic open access ejournals is presented. This model is intended for open source communities involved in designing, developing, and/or improving open access academic e-journals.
From the body of the paper:
History indicates that scholars will seek alternative methods of communication and alternative organizational structures when they perceive that existing media and existing structures no longer provide the support scholars need to most effectively engage in scientific inquiry and to communicate their findings. Pedersen (1996, pp. 470- 474) for example recounts that during the 16th and 17th centuries many of Europe’s most gifted scientists made an exodus from the universities to the first institutes for scientific research. Similarly, Ruegg (1992, pp. 465-467) argues that book-publishing and foundations became the “ally” of humanism and augmented its initial wide-scale diffusion throughout Europe during the late 15th Century. The academic open access e-journal is yet another manifestation of that historic process....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/24/2007 02:49:00 PM.
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.
