11. Transition the CJS/CCS to an “Open Access” format. This is the most fundamental change, and it can be captured in two propositions: 1. Starting in January 2008, the journal will no longer publish a hard copy edition, and 2. The journal will be freely available to anyone with an internet connection....
[N]ew articles will also be indexed by all of the major indexing services. The difference is that new articles will now also be available free of charge online.
Open access electronic journals are no longer idiosyncratic ventures existing at the margins of scholarly publishing and at the bottom of the hierarchy of journals. When the New England Journal of Medicine began to offer open access to all its contents, six months after articles had been initially published, it ended any notion that journals providing open access were of a lesser quality or prestige....
There are multiple reasons for this change. For authors, it means that your articles will have a greater impact....
There is also the principled position that open access ensures that a larger segment of the public can easily access research — research which the public has often helped to fund through taxes. As such, it advances current efforts to nurture a form of “public sociology” in Canada. Major institutions are increasingly expecting that researchers will publish in open access journals. Canadian Institutes of Health Research, for example, is about to release its policy requiring grant-holders to make a copy of any published work freely available within six months of publication and it seems likely that SSHRC will soon follow this open access mandate policy. The Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie is excited to be among the path-breaking journals providing authors with the opportunity to publish their works in an established quality high-profile venue that is also open access. Indeed, we expect that it is only a matter of time before all of the major journals follow our lead.
Another advantage of the electronic format is that it loosens the degree to which editorial decisions are structured by financial considerations....
The financial implications of this move remain somewhat opaque, and I have agonized over this issue....Retiring the hard copy version of the journal eliminates subscription revenue, which is one of our major sources of funding. That said, mimicking wider publishing trends, the journal’s subscriptions have been substantially declining at the same time that our electronic readership (through Project MUSE and other venues) has increased dramatically. Moreover, it was always the case that most of our subscription revenues went to cover the costs associated with producing a hard copy volume, such as printing, subscription management and postage.
Ultimately, this move means that we are now more centrally dependent on SSHRC funding, but in practice that has been the case for some time. There is, however, reason for optimism about the funding situation. SSHRC has emerged as a major proponent of open access publishing and is now supporting open access journals. Given the prominence and reputation of the CJS/CCS I expect that we will continue to receive such funds....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/21/2007 11:04:00 AM.
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.
