Ten questions to Open Access editors

Editors Note: The responses to the questionnaire (and the selected articles) are presented in the order they were received.

1. OA journal / 2. Name and profession

3. How long have you edited this journal?

4. Article/manifesto/editorial/guidelines:

5. Reason for selecting article/manifesto/editorial/guidelines

Thibault Daudigeos & Thomas Roulet (M@n@gement)

This recent editorial depicts the most recent challenges faced by the journal.

Larry Gross & Arlene Luck (International Journal of Communication)

The goal of IJoC has been to demonstrate that a true open access journal could succeed in meeting established criteria for success, which we have done: we are now ranked 3^rd among Humanities journals and 6^th among Communication journals by Google Scholar. The essential ingredient in our success was our ability to attract a world class editorial board and highly respected contributors from the start. This has enabled us to attract strong article submissions and to enlist the cooperation of the hundreds of peer reviewers whose unpaid labor makes the journal possible.

Daniel S. Katz (Journal of Open Source Software)

JOSS offers developers a venue to publish their complete research software wrapped in relatively short high-level articles, thus enabling citation credit for their work. Submissions should be easy for authors – we state, ‘if your software is already well documented, then paper preparation should take no more than an hour’. This article was specifically written to attract potential JOSS authors (i.e., research software developers) and to build up interest within the overall open source community.

Chris Giotitsas (ephemera)

I have selected the editorial of a special issue which examines the various manifestations of the commons in society and their incompatibility with the capitalist system. Given the nature of this initiative I find that it encapsulates ephemera’s concerns regarding openness but also provides the link to an issue which broadens the discussion beyond open access to knowledge.

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Johanna Dahlin and James Meese (Culture Unbound)

This is a fairly recent text that encapsulates many of the core concerns of CU, edited by Martin Fredriksson, the former Executive Editor.

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya (ephemera)

Via engaging with the notion of emergence, this editorial addresses some of the aspirations we have in ephemera, and their challenges. In particular, it speaks to the difficulty of finding the balance between being open and experimental, acting as a ‘good host’ to contributions, while at the same time ensuring a high quality of what we do.

L.F.R. Murillo, Jenny Molloy and Tobias Wenzel (Journal of Open Hardware)

It explains the background history of our Journal: it was a product of a community gathering of ‘Open Science’ enthusiasts at CERN who saw the need of creating a publication venue for those who were experimenting with Free and Open Source technologies for building shared research tools and infrastructures.

Mathieu O’Neil (Journal of Peer Production)

This was an attempt to move beyond the limitations of non-digital peer production projects (which have restricted participation and impact) by articulating some key messages that could serve to promote positive changes in society. I felt that after ten issues we should take stock.

6. Has editing an OA journal been beneficial or detrimental to your profession?

Thibault Daudigeos & Thomas Roulet (M@n@gement)

OA journals are beneficial to our professions – especially when they are free to access, free to submit, free to publish.

Larry Gross & Arlene Luck (International Journal of Communication)

It has been an unqualified success as it is the only truly open access broad-ranging journal in the field [there are some other, smaller and more narrowly focused OA journals in communication]. It is also the most truly international journal in the field, with submissions from 110 countries, and over 21,846 registered readers across the globe. We take book reviewing seriously and we consistently publish more book reviews [120 in 2018] than all of the other major communication journals combined. As an online-only journal we are able to encourage our authors to incorporate audio-visual contents and links in their articles, thus overcoming one of the frustrating limitations of print and commercial publishing. We are fierce upholders of the Fair Use provisions of US copyright law, and this is especially important for scholarship that addresses and analyzes media content.

Daniel S. Katz (Journal of Open Source Software)

For established researchers, probably neither – with a large team of editors, I don’t think any of us get a tremendous amount of credit for our work (the credit seems to go to the journal itself), while the amount of time spent working on the journal has been increasing as it has become more popular to submitters. For early career researchers in particular, being a member of an editorial board can be beneficial to one’s career, for example, being able to say that one co-founded/is editor of a journal is beneficial e.g. when applying for a tenure track position. Some lectureship position specifically welcome editorial board experience. In terms of an OA journal, this shows that we are forward thinking, so again for early career researchers, there could be a benefit.

Chris Giotitsas (ephemera)

It has, definitely, been beneficial in a personal and professional level. I joined ephemera as a fresh PhD student and was exposed to multiple and diverse academic stimuli both through the rather large editorial collective as well as the journal’s community and events. This osmosis informed my own research interests and ultimately helps me improve my academic work.

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Johanna Dahlin and James Meese (Culture Unbound)

Both. In the sense that you learn a lot from the process of editing, which can translate into an important experience making you a better researcher, it is also very time-consuming work and might at times come at the expense of other things.

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya (ephemera)

I would say it has been beneficial to my profession, but not that valued by the institutional structures of academia. The years with ephemera have been an important scholarly and political commitment for me. It is intellectually stimulating and enriching to be part of a like-minded non-hierarchically organised collective and it is here that I have dived into some very exciting topics, some of which were a continuation of what I was doing while others were completely new. I’ve also learnt a lot about the production and coordination side of things, the knowledge I often find myself mobilising in other academic and non-academic spaces. On the other hand, engagement in ephemera is often not seen as a ‘valuable’ academic activity, but as some extra work that you choose to do. Instead, scholars are pushed to publish in particular – usually more mainstream and paywall – journals or being an editor of those.

L.F.R. Murillo, Jenny Molloy and Tobias Wenzel (Journal of Open Hardware)

It has been beneficial for the community of researchers working to create alternatives to IP maximalism in the sciences. But, quite frankly, our disciplines of origin could not care less about the work we do for the Journal. We can foresee the change, however, as they become more and more dependent on information technologies for their research work, easier it should become for us to explain why creating, maintaining, and sharing Free and Open Source-based tools and infrastructures is crucial for knowledge-making.

Mathieu O’Neil (Journal of Peer Production)

Until a year ago I would have said ‘clearly detrimental’ as I receive little institutional recognition for this work and the long hours copy-editing and working on the website have often been at the expense of developing my own research and publications. However in the last year, much like F/OSS developers who get hired by firms (except I didn’t plan it this way), the labour of love has somehow led to a grant to investigate the relationship between firms and F/OSS projects, a contract to edit a book, and invitations to workshops. So, there you go.

7. What are the most challenging aspects of running an open-access journal?

Thibault Daudigeos & Thomas Roulet (M@n@gement)

It’s a bit of a DIY process! We do a lot of things in-house. But most of those activities are not recognized by our institutions.

Larry Gross & Arlene Luck (International Journal of Communication)

In truth the biggest challenge has been living with our success: in 2018 we received more than 1000 submissions, and published 151 articles, 120 book reviews, and 3 Feature articles. We also published 8 Special Sections (for a total of 71 special section articles). In consequence, there is a heavy editorial load of screening, recruiting reviewers, and copy-editing in addition to the work of editorial judgement. Because we aim to be international and encourage submissions from authors everywhere we get many manuscripts by non-native English speakers and this means that we need to undertake extensive copy-editing once an article has passed peer review. We employ professional copy-editors and this is one of our largest expenses.

Daniel S. Katz (Journal of Open Source Software)

Because JOSS is different from most journals, the most challenging issues are related to raising awareness of both the journal and the model for potential authors and reviewers, and for fitting the published articles into the full academic publishing world (e.g., ensuring JOSS publications are captured by other tools’ workflows and indexed).

Chris Giotitsas (ephemera)

Decision-making and coordination of a large group of people scattered across the world (that are otherwise very busy and receive no remuneration) in the complex operations required to produce a high-quality journal with virtually no budget. This inadvertently leads to delays, occasionally, as well as some missed opportunities.

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Johanna Dahlin and James Meese (Culture Unbound)

Funding would be a central concern. We’re constantly searching for grants to cover basic operations. One challenge with current funding possibilities vis-à-vis journals is that it basically only covers (as stated above) the basic operations. Any more ambitious plans, for instance in terms of implementing a more advanced layout or explore digital capacities that might enhance the reading experience in new and interesting ways are difficult to fund, even though they might be essential for the development of the journal. Publicity is another challenge. There is still a reputational aura around locked journals (at least in media studies) and they also focus on particular disciplines and methodologies (i.e. qualitative or quantitative), which allows them to align better with the reputational systems that granting bodies and departments focus on. OA journals can be more innovative in our approach (i.e. our interdisciplinary focus) but the downside of this is that we can actively work against ranking mechanisms that are perceived to build careers. In terms of the day-to-day work, the most challenging thing is keeping abreast of an inflow of things, and juggling all the aspects of editing – from applying for grants to copy editing articles.

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya (ephemera)

Timely publication of solid issues requires a lot of commitment and concerted effort of the editorial collective’s members, who are located in different parts of the world. Physical distance also makes it difficult to implement changes and make important decisions fast. The focus on smooth running of the journal sometimes distracts from broader – political and intellectual – vision. So finding a balance is a big challenge. Passing the knowledge to new members of the collective, especially when it comes to production tasks and procedures of ephemera, is another important but challenging task, ensuring there is a continuity in the journal even when members leave. Finally, despite working on a voluntary basis and running on a very low budget, we still have some costs, like maintaining and upgrading the website. We had a model where people could support us by subscribing to our issues in print, but this has proved to be costly to maintain and we’re now again going completely online.

L.F.R. Murillo, Jenny Molloy and Tobias Wenzel (Journal of Open Hardware)

We have been struggling with the creation of the sustainability structures for the Journal: finding an institutional home for it, so we can collect donations, manage contracts, and navigate potential IP issues. It has been particularly hard to count on voluntary work of already extremely busy colleagues. Everyone involved in the Journal is a volunteer, and JOH is just one of the volunteering activities we conduct in addition to our participation in other community initiatives in the space of Free and Open Source development and ‘Open Science’ activism.

Mathieu O’Neil (Journal of Peer Production)

Issues such as the sustainability of the technical and organisational infrastructure derive from the distributed nature of the editing process (see next section). The JoPP website was originally hosted by friendly organisations such as Oekonux and the P2P Foundation; it is now supported and maintained by Peter Troxler, a member of our editorial collective. JoPP is a completely DIY project which mainly exists without money (exceptions include funding to support printing the ‘Book of Peer Production’ project). We rely on the goodwill of individual volunteers so all tasks not directly related to editing and releasing an issue – whether organising technical backup plans, getting indexed in SCOPUS, etc. – depend on whether people have the time and energy to take them on.

8. How do you overcome these challenges (if you can overcome them)?

Thibault Daudigeos & Thomas Roulet (M@n@gement)

We have the support of a professional association and the CNRS (the French Science Foundation) which helps us pay to outsource some of the copy-editing activities.

Larry Gross & Arlene Luck (International Journal of Communication)

We have resources of institutional support from the USC Annenberg School that allows to employ a professional Managing Editor and the services of professional free-lance copy editors. We also benefit from USC Annenberg’s technical support team [although we employ an external tech support firm as well], and in-kind labor provided by our doctoral student assistant editors.

Daniel S. Katz (Journal of Open Source Software)

Publicity and general conversation with the overall community, and focused conversations with others in scholarly publishing and the overall publishing ecosystem.

Chris Giotitsas (ephemera)

Through unique and ever-adapting mechanisms of collaboration assisted by various web tools. A highly developed sense of community and belief in the importance of the journal’s work are also important.

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Johanna Dahlin and James Meese (Culture Unbound)

Apply for grants; perhaps thinking outside the box when it comes to strategizing and locating new funding opportunities! Increased networking and embedding the journal within particular academic conversations and relationships (like the refreshing of our editorial board!)

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya (ephemera)

To make sure the knowledge stays within collective and it is easy to integrate new members, we have created various rotating roles that people fill in, usually in little teams (e.g. layout, web, cover, managing editors), as well as various templates and guidelines on how we do things. We have developed a production process where each issue goes through the so-called ‘double-checking’ stages for formatting and layout, which aim to ensure the journal is published in a particular format and intellectual quality is not compromised by, say, poor or inconsistent formatting. Here we tried to create a process that is clear and not too complicated. Finally, some of our quarterly meetings are now devoted to longer-term vision for the journal, and we try to take more production issues in online spaces.

L.F.R. Murillo, Jenny Molloy and Tobias Wenzel (Journal of Open Hardware)

We continue to pursue partnerships to help with governance matters: we want to be able to offer a publishing venue that is free of cost for the authors, but also less time consuming for our volunteers, so we can focus on what really matters: to advance Open Hardware projects for the sciences and help better document hardware (so replicability is rendered possible).

Mathieu O’Neil (Journal of Peer Production)

We adopted early on the principle of rotating themed issues between groups of editors. This is a good way to bring in new people who can contribute their own unique interests. However this in turn raises issues, such as the heavy burden on issue editors who take on all aspects of production, from finding and chasing up authors and reviewers, to copy-editing, layout and web formatting (some have obtained grants locally and hired RAs to do some of this work). The distributed issue structure also means no long-term allocation of roles has been achieved, beyond the essential functions of website maintenance (Peter) and issue planning (Mathieu).

JoPP’s transparent system does have its benefits: reviewers may be motivated to produce excellent work because their reviews will be published in any case, and non-anonymously if they so choose. We can also rely on our public and archived mailing list, which has around 120 subscribers, to bring in new suggestions or come up with solutions to problems if the need arises.

9. What practical steps could be taken to change current academic publishing (for ex., pledges by tenured researchers to publish exclusively / more in OA journals)?

Thibault Daudigeos & Thomas Roulet (M@n@gement)

I believe that as a first thing all professional associations should make their journals open access – most of them have the revenue flows from members. We often talk about researchers having to get their papers in OA journals but there are constrained by university rules and career objectives. To change this situation we need to think about the situation with a different perspective: the ones of top journals. If top journals move to OA (and a large number top journals are supported by an association that could finance such endeavor) then it can trigger a movement.

Larry Gross & Arlene Luck (International Journal of Communication)

We believe that we are leading by example, and we have advised and assisted several colleagues in designing and launching similar OA journals in various subsections of communication scholarship. We have been in continuing conversation with the leadership of the International Communication Association, the preeminent scholarly association in the field, to advise them on OA options as they plan for a future in which the current practices of scholarly publishing will inevitably change.

Daniel S. Katz (Journal of Open Source Software)

The idea of a software paper is a bit odd. Some of us would prefer to have software itself directly published, reviewed, and cited, but the overall academic publishing system was built primarily with papers in mind, so we have to ask authors to create these placeholder papers, in addition to submitting software. If academic publishing would open itself to all forms of intellectual products beyond just papers (i.e. software and data can be intellectual products, not just supporting materials for a paper), JOSS could make the life of authors and reviewers even simpler, by just focusing on software and software documentation.

Chris Giotitsas (ephemera)

Experimenting with innovative types of academic writing and publishing. Encouraging contributions from established academics and early career researchers, and a fair review process for all. Providing the space for novel and creative approaches in academic research.

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Johanna Dahlin and James Meese (Culture Unbound)

In order of practicality: We have to be conscious of the reality of locked journals as a central part of our ecosystem. At a minimum, tenured academics should aim to publish equally in OA and locked journals. As there aren’t enough OA journals on the market, more leading scholars in specific sub-fields should feel empowered to set up relevant journals. However, this would require support from departments and schools to actually give Professors time away from their own teaching or research, and financial support from somewhere (maybe international associations?). More idealistically, members of international associations could withdraw their editorial, reviewer and authorial labor for a year in a protest against locked journals.

In terms of policy and infrastructure, incentives from stakeholders to publish OA works need to be rethought. It should motivate academics to publish in real OA journals, and not only provide an additional income for locked journals when they charge authors to ‘buy’ OA for articles.

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya (ephemera)

First of all, let me clarify the problems I see with academic publishing. It is of course the fact that journals are behind a paywall and the big publishers are crazily profiteering from it, including by making scholars pay to make their articles open access. But it is also in the very emphasis on publishing as much as possible and the problematic metrics obsession (journal rankings, citations etc). All of these have to be challenged, starting from those of us in academia trying not to reproduce these problematic logics. Pushing universities (and in particular libraries) to challenge corporate publishers (who are already finding ways to earn money from open access) and to recognise scholarly efforts in good quality open access independent journals. Perhaps a collective call with several concrete ideas around these issues could be formulated together by scholars, librarians, students, open access journals and the broader public.

L.F.R. Murillo, Jenny Molloy and Tobias Wenzel (Journal of Open Hardware)

In our case, publishing in OA journals is unfortunately not enough: we learned from practical experience that big corporate players are now very much involved in ‘Open Access’, so we have competition from corporate OA journals… Larger commercial publishers have many advantages including a marketing budget and a supply of articles ‘trickling down’ from other journals held by the same publisher, we have none of that.

We think the front is actually expanding in the sense that now we have to also dispute the usage of corporate research platforms, not only to debate OA matters. Naturally, OA policies are very beneficial, especially if they are accompanied by proper funding structures to make the Journal a sustainable enterprise—without proper sustainability plans they can become yet another task to make the academic work of many of us more precarious.

Mathieu O’Neil (Journal of Peer Production)

There has been a lot of focus on the role of associations but clearly universities (and not just their libraries) could do more to support open access values, through incorporation in their metrics for example. That said I agree with Ekaterina’s proposal above. One of the aims of this initiative (reaching out to fellow OA journals) was to practically advance the cause of OA.

10. How can open-access knowledge act concretely for the protection of our biosphere and against the forces which destroy it?

Thibault Daudigeos & Thomas Roulet (M@n@gement) Our journal has always been fully online – we do not believe in producing paper version, which are mostly a waste of energy and resources. We encourage other journals to do the same – at the moment, most papers are accessed online anyway,

Larry Gross & Arlene Luck (International Journal of Communication)

At the very least, online publishing reduces paper use, printing, snail mail and other practices that increase carbon footprint.

Daniel S. Katz (Journal of Open Source Software)

Knowledge is knowledge – it cannot act, and we choose how to use it, so I don’t think that knowledge by itself, whether open access or not, can help here. This is one of many places where our challenges are primarily social, not technical.

Chris Giotitsas (ephemera)

The current push for more openness in publishing leaves much to be desired, with attempts that protect the interests of the publishing industry (through green, gold, etc publications). In this context, independent, free, open access journals may be perceived as bastions of free knowledge in (an online) environment rife with barriers and misinformation.

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Johanna Dahlin and James Meese (Culture Unbound)

The honest answer is that we simply have no idea. No doubt, this is a huge question that we tried to address in a recent project with OHP. The point of departure was that climate change is posing a challenge for science and academic publishing that needs to be met with new modes of knowledge production and dissemination. OA platforms are ideally more agile and often more collectively based, making them perhaps more suitable to take up this challenge. They are also, evidently, open access and does not lock research behind pay walls. The question feels slightly ‘off’ in respect to the previous questions, which are quite different in tone and approach. The rhetoric here is such that is risks putting an enormous weight on OA that it cannot, and perhaps even should not, be asked to carry.

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya (ephemera)

By providing content of high quality that addresses these issues (e.g. socio-ecological transformation), challenging corporate publishing and corporations more generally, recognising the limits of academic knowledge (which is engaged with by a fairly narrow group of people), connecting to social movements and acting politically. I also cherish the non-hierarchical ethics of the way ephemera is organised as a collective and the ethics of care that – I hope to think – applies to the way we work with the different people contriuting to the journal. So more of this kind of organising is definitely a way to protect the biosphere and build alternatives.

L.F.R. Murillo, Jenny Molloy and Tobias Wenzel (Journal of Open Hardware)

In our case, documenting hardware well and creating a pool of ‘prior art’ to block patent enclosures is a way for increasing reproducibility and reuse of scientific instruments worldwide. Many of these instruments are used for environmental monitoring, conservation projects, and other vital scientific research for sustainability. Resource sharing and providing openly documented and repairable equipment is also one of the key mechanisms for reducing waste, particularly waste electronics. As one of the key contemporary philosophers of science, Isabelle Stengers, puts it, ‘another science is possible,’ if we also create the conditions for it to be collaboratively made (and not corporate-driven) with Free and Open Source-based tools and infrastructures. This is, in sum, the cosmopolitical horizon we work towards with the Journal of Open Hardware.

Mathieu O’Neil (Journal of Peer Production)

It is perhaps a bit unfair to place the digital and non-digital commons on the same level. At the same time saving the biosphere is the fight of our time, so open-access knowledge can’t really afford to be neutral in this fight; it will have to take a side.