Guide to Transitioning Journals to Open Access Publishing

"Open access (OA) journal publishing -- whereby articles in a given journal are made immediately and freely available online without any financial, legal, or technical barriers -- can dramatically increase the reach and visibility of scholarship, facilitate sharing and reuse, and position authors to retain copyright in their works. If OA fits your journal’s mission, because you would like your published content to reach its maximum audience and achieve its greatest potential impact, with time and attention you can find the right business model to make this possible. UC’s Office of Scholarly Communication would like to support your efforts to transitioning your journal to OA. That’s why we have developed this guide. This guide is aimed at anyone, but it is specifically designed for scholars (faculty, students, professional researchers) from all disciplines who are involved in editing or managing journals and are considering transitioning their affiliated journals to OA, by either: (a) Converting (sometimes called “flipping”) an existing subscription journal to OA, or (b) Stepping away from responsibilities at an existing subscription journal to create a new, open access journal in its place...."