Object: RFC Special Section on Open-Access Publishing for JoPP #13
2 January 2019
Dear <OA journal editor>,
Hi, Mathieu O’Neil and Steve Collins here. We are the editors of the thirteenth issue of the open-access online Journal of Peer Production. The theme of this issue is ‘OPEN’. At the root of JoPP #13 ‘OPEN’ was the fact that we now live in an era where exclusion and inequality are being justified by overtly racist, even fascist, ideas. It is therefore more important than ever for progressives to support alternatives to plutocracy and environmental destruction that highlight values such as inclusion and openness.
In this spirit we are reaching out to open-access journals suggested by members of our community on our public mailing list.* Our goals are to foster mutual awareness, public impact and cross-pollination of the great work being done by open-access journals. We also wish to gather evidence about the role open-access publishing plays in contemporary academia, and in the world more broadly: does it constitute a viable alternative to proprietary models; what are its costs and benefits? We are also interested in developing collective ideas and actions that would help to challenge the current system of paywalled mainstreamed academic publishing. Ultimately, we would like to contribute to strategies to use open-access knowledge in favour of the protection of our biosphere and against the forces which are destroying it.
To begin this process, we would like to invite you to contribute to a special section on Open-Access Publishing in JoPP #13 ‘OPEN’ featuring:
(a) one or two (depending on how many editors respond) already published pieces from your journal that express your values and purpose. These pieces could be a manifesto, an editorial, guidelines, or an article (peer-reviewed or not). This reprint could take the shape of a significant excerpt (500-1,000 words) re-formatted in JoPP style, together with a link to the original publication, or (in the case of short pieces, i.e. 500-1,000 words) the full article and a link to the original publication.
(b) your responses to our ten questions on OA publishing (see below).
We are including below a timeline, the ten questions, the titles of the journals we are contacting, and some information about the Journal of Peer Production. We look forward to hearing from you. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this initiative.
Kind regards and best wishes for 2019!
Mathieu O’Neil (University of Canberra) and Steve Collins (Macquarie University)
*https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/jopp-public/2018-September/thread.html
Timeline
OA journal editors contacted: 02 January 2019
OA journal editors’ response due: 23 January 2019
OA journal manifesto/article/editorial/guidelines reprint and editor responses to questions due: 6 February 2019
JoPP #13 issue released: 18 March 2019
Ten questions for OA journals editors
Please note. For reasons of space: maximum ten lines per question, and two editors per journal. Thanks for your understanding.
1. Name and profession:
2. OA journal:
3. How long have you edited this journal:
4. Article/manifesto/editorial/guidelines:
5. Reason for selecting article/manifesto/editorial/guidelines:
6. Has editing an OA journal been beneficial or detrimental to your profession?
7. What are the most challenging aspects of running an open-access journal?
8. How do you overcome these challenges (if you can overcome them)?
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)?
10. How can open-access knowledge act concretely for the protection of our biosphere and against the forces which destroy it?
Open-access journals contacted for JoPP #13 ‘OPEN’
Culture Unbound <https://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se/>
ephemera. theory & politics in organisation <http://www.ephemerajournal.org/>
Economic Thought <http://et.worldeconomicsassociation.org/>
Fibreculture <http://fibreculturejournal.org>
First Monday <http://firstmonday.org>
International Journal of the Commons <https://www.thecommonsjournal.org>
International Journal of Communication <http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc>
Internet Policy Review <https://policyreview.info/>
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication <https://academic.oup.com/jcmc>
Journal of Open Hardware <https://openhardware.metajnl.com>
M@n@gement <http://www.management-aims.com/index.php?l=en>
The Journal of Open Source Software <https://joss.theoj.org/>
Transversal <http://eipcp.net/transversal>
tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique <https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC>
Workplace <http://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace>
About the Journal of Peer Production
The Journal of Peer Production (peerproduction.net) is a volunteer-run peer-reviewed journal which has since 2011 both researched and put into practice some peer production principles. We understand peer production as a mode of commons-based and oriented production in which participation is voluntary and predicated on the self-selection of tasks. Notable examples are the collaborative development of Free Software projects and of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. JoPP is an open-access journal that allows readers to read, download, copy, distribute and link to the full texts of articles. Authors license works under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) and retain full copyright in their work. We have published issues exploring the interconnection of peer production with activism, political economy, bio and hardware hacking, free software, value and currency, shared machine shops, the law, state policies, feminism and queer issues, alternative infrastructures, and waged labour. Most recently our eleventh issue on peer production and urbanism was released in January 2018 and our twelfth on the institutionalisation of shared machine shops in July 2018. The full CFP for JoPP #13 ‘OPEN’ can be found here: http://peerproduction.net/journal-of-peer-production-open-eoi-cfp-issue-13/