...JTLU embraces the open-content movement. Most academic publishing, especially in the “traditional model” that comprises most of the journals launched prior to the late 1990s, can be described as a “walled garden.” Inside are the beauties of rich information, but to enter, the costs are steep. Such a model made sense in an age when journals were primarily distributed on paper, and publication costs were high. Today, however, most readers of nominally paper-based journals access the articles online, and the costs such as communications and server space are small enough as to be inconsequential for a single journal.
The main costs —those of writing, reviewing, and editing articles— have historically been gratis (at most, the participants earn social capital which perhaps can later be monetized), while copy-editing and layout do entail real costs and have historically been recovered by charging either readers (through libraries) or authors. But the prices charged by journals publishers to access these journals have increased dramatically, forcing many libraries to cancel subscriptions. In economic terms, these for-profit journals are a privately owned club good, and as the number of club-members decreases, the price per member increases to maintain the facility —a vicious cycle familiar to any analyst of transit ridership.
The model for JTLU differs from that described above in that we see scientific knowledge as a public good best provided without profit by public-minded institutions. The open-content movement is gaining ground throughout scientific literature. In biology, for example, the Public Library of Science (PLoS) has led the way in legitimizing this new model of distribution.
JTLU is open-content, subscription-free, and free to contribute. All of this is enabled by generous financial and administrative support from the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/21/2008 09:34:00 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.
