The road to OA: Starting or flipping a journal

"One theme that has emerged throughout the transition to OA, and that we see among the OA journals using Scholastica, is there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to funding. To publish a sustainable OA journal, it’s important to consider different funding avenues as well as mixed models. Options include:

• Institutional subsidies: a library publishing program or university department supports the journal
• Endowments/grants: the journal relies on contributions to cover costs (the Open Access Directory has a list of OA publication funds)
• Article processing charges (APCs): a fee is charged when an article is accepted to cover production costs
• Submission fees: a fee is charged when submitting a manuscript for peer review

University departments and libraries are good places to start to learn more about institutional and external funding options available in your journal discipline....

All new or flipped OA journals should also consider key publishing areas including:

• Editor roles and responsibilities
• How they’ll accept submissions and track peer review
• Article requirements and publication policies
• What formats they’ll publish in (e.g. PDF, HTML, repository overlay)
• Publication frequency (issues and/or rolling articles)
• Search optimization and indexing needs (e.g. rich metadata, full-text XML)..."