How We Open Knowledge: Scholastica users share their stories

"In the progression of the Open Access (OA) movement, it’s become resoundingly apparent that true accessibility isn’t just about making research free to read but also making publishing practices more equitable. If we are to realize the Budapest Open Access Initiative’s vision to “lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge,” all stakeholders must have an opportunity to contribute to OA models, not just those historically in positions of power.

The theme for this year’s OA Week (October 25-31), “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity,” invites the academic community to weigh the current state of OA and what’s needed to promote greater Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) throughout the research ecosystem. At Scholastica, we were particularly drawn to the phrase “how we open knowledge” as a means to elicit discourse and, more importantly, action around the various ways scholarly organizations of all sizes are and can develop more equitable OA journal models. We’re proud to work with so many scholarly societies, academic institutions, and scholar-led non-profits publishing path-breaking OA journals committed to not only opening access to research but also lowering the cost of knowledge production. In honor of OA Week, we decided to reach out to some of those journal teams to ask them to share their take on the prompt “how we open knowledge.”

Throughout OA Week, we’ll be posting a series of interviews with Scholastica users on how they’re factoring structural equity into OA publication planning and advice for scholarly organizations looking to launch fully-OA journals...."