Progressing the Overlay Journal Model – COAR

"In June 2018, two math professors, Timothy Gowers (University of Cambridge) and Dan Kral (University of Warwick), in collaboration with Queens’ University in Canada, launched a peer-reviewed mathematics overlay journal built entirely on articles contained in the arXiv repository hosted at Cornell University. ‘Advances in Combinatorics’ is a journal that is free to read and will not charge authors to publish. The relatively low costs of running the journal are being covered by Queen’s University Library, which is also providing administrative support. As we continue our progress towards 100% open access, it is critical that we develop sustainable and quality models that have no costs to authors.

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate a collaborative community-based model for the publication of a new generation of top-class electronic journals, in which academic editorial boards are paired with libraries willing to sponsor the journals with a small but secure amount of funding and administrative support. COAR,Queens’ University and arXiv are interested in exploring the workflows and technologies involved in this model with the aim of making it more easily transferable, as well as develop an understanding of the feasibility of a more distributed approach...."