On December 5th, 2018 at 10 AM EST Scholastica is hosting a free webinar—“How to Start or Flip an Open Access Journal: Publishers and editors share their stories.” Click here to register to attend the webinar and receive a link to the recording!

Are you working with an academic institution or groups of scholars to start an open access journal or transition a paywalled journal to an OA publishing model? You’re in good company!

Today, academic-led publishing initiatives are on the rise with many examples of learned societies, universities, and groups of scholars publishing OA journals. With the transition to online publishing, the introduction of affordable digital publishing tools and services, and mounting community support there has never been a better time for academy-owned journals to thrive. And with Article Processing Charges (APCs) rising fast, now averaging $2,000, the need for more affordable OA publishing models rooted in the interests of the academy has never been greater. By starting academic-led OA journals and flipping paywalled journals to OA models, the scholarly community is taking back control of research copyright and costs, and introducing much-needed competition into the publishing landscape.

On December 5, 2018 at 10 AM EST we’ll be discussing the benefits of academic-led publishing as well as the ins and outs of running academic-led journals during our free webinar “How to Start or Flip an Open Access Journal: Publishers and editors share their stories.” Throughout the webinar guests will share:

  • Examples of how they successfully launched and flipped journals
  • Key considerations for flipping a journal to OA
  • How to pick an OA funding and publishing model
  • Free resources to help you publish academic-led journals

The webinar will feature the following guest speakers:

  • Jaclyn Sipovic, Digital Publishing Coordinator at Michigan Publishing
  • Sean Guynes, Journals Coordinator at Michigan Publishing
  • Hugh Thomas, Co Editor-in-Chief of Algebraic Combinatorics

We share some details about the academic-led publishing initiatives that each of our guests will be discussing in the sections below.

Starting OA journals at Michigan Publishing

In the first half of our webinar, Jaclyn Sipovic will share her experience working with new journals at Michigan Publishing, a scholarly publishing program run by the University of Michigan Library. Michigan Publishing works with scholarly publishing initiatives in multiple formats, including academic journals. They support journals using various publishing and funding models and offer a flexible menu of services based on each publication’s individual needs - from journal hosting and preservation to copyediting, typesetting, and print on demand. As explained by Jason Colman, Michigan Publishing’s Director of Publishing services, Michigan Publishing operates with three main goals: “increasing the impact of existing publishing programs at U-M, supporting new publishing ambitions of the U-M community, and providing space for experimentation in scholarly publishing.”

Jaclyn works in the trenches of the Michigan Publishing program building out Michigan’s service offerings and supporting those who use them, including many OA journals. During the webinar, she’ll be sharing examples of journals started at Michigan as well as different OA publishing models and approaches to consider.

Journal flipping from the editors’ perspective

In the second half of the webinar, Hugh Thomas will discuss journal flipping. The term “journal flipping” refers to transitioning a paywalled journal to an OA publishing model. In recent years, there has been a rise in journal flipping as shown in the “Journal declarations of independence“ list on the Open Access Directory website.

Hugh worked with the former editorial board of the Springer-owned Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics to start a new equivalent OA title Algebraic Combinatorics. During the webinar, he will discuss the benefits of flipping existing journals and how to approach “flipping” a title that’s owned by a corporate publisher. You can learn more about Hugh’s experience on the SPARC Declaring Independence website.

Register for the webinar and submit questions

Be sure to register for the upcoming webinar to receive the viewing link as well as a link to the recording!

Do you have specific questions about OA journal publishing that you’d like the speakers to address during the webinar? Let us know by using the hashtag #AcademicLedOA! You can tweet your questions to us at @scholasticahq with the hashtag #AcademicLedOA before and during the webinar. The guest speakers will be fielding questions after the main presentations.

Flip OA Webinar