Open access publishing pioneer checks in - SFU News - Simon Fraser University

“John Willinsky, a pioneering open-access advocate who founded and still directs the internationally acclaimed Public Knowledge Project (PKP), is the SFU Library’s new Distinguished Scholar in Residence. The PKP, which has been based at SFU since 2005, produces free downloadable software for creating, managing and publishing peer-reviewed academic monographs or journals. The non-profit research initiative, which stems from Willinsky’s philosophy that knowledge should be free, has placed the SFU Library at the forefront of e-publishing throughout the world... With assistance from contract programmers, the team has developed a suite of free publishing tools including Open Journal Systems, Open Conference Systems, Open Harvester Systems, and the PKP Web Application Library. Users around the world have installed the tools and SFU hosts more than 350 international academic journals on its servers... ‘In 2005 when we started, there were about 250 known installations of Open Journal Systems,’ says Owen [PKP’s managing director]. ‘As of January 2012, that number has passed 11,500 and appears to be growing at the rate of seven to 10 new sites every day....’”