Reinventing the Academic Journal: The ‘Digital Turn’, Open Access, & Peer Review | History Workshop

" ... The Open Scholarship Project (OSP), a project directed by the authors of this essay, is focused on creating a flexible system for publishing academic articles in the humanities and social sciences. The guiding principle is to match the technology to its function, or 1) to disseminate academic research as efficiently and broadly as possible, providing a forum for debate and exchange relevant to the academic community; and 2) to guarantee high academic standards (achieved through the process of peer review). As, such, OSP is guided by four design principles that set it apart from other approaches. 1. Diamond Open Access ...  Diamond Open Access rejects both the author-pay model as well as the paywall model. This is essential to academic freedom, removing important financial barriers that have the potential to limit free thought. But, unlike Green Open Access, the diamond model offers peer review and hosts the final version of the author’s paper. In other words, it takes the best of the Green and Gold models and fuses them ... 2. Versioning ...OSP offers scholars a place to post their work as part of their scholarly workflow. Rather than submitting a final draft version to an editor at the end of a long writing process, scholars can post their early drafts in OSP, including conference papers. While they work, they can solicit input from peers, who help them refine their ideas from first draft to final draft.  3. Open Peer Review  While some journals have experimented with open peer review, using systems such as CommentPress, journals have not integrated open peer review as part of the standard workflow. OSP allows scholars to ask for peer review on every draft of their writing on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis – in form, it is similar to digital marginalia ,,,  4. Badging  OSP takes advantage of the Mozilla Open Badges Framework which allows the project to create an entirely new model for publishing. Rather than submitting to a traditional print journal, authors who use OSP will ask journal editors, institutions, professional societies, or consortia of scholars to ‘badge’ their work. In other words, like many of the publications of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Royal Society, organizations will add their imprimatur without carrying the burden of publication costs ..."