The role of open access in a changing academy: reflections on a new publishing paradigm

Open to whom? Open-access publishing and global knowledge networks

“…This compares very favourably, and often significantly exceeds, download metrics from more established social science journals covering similar fields. It also reconfirms our initial feeling that if we launched an open-access journal there would be an audience for it (Rae et al, 2017). However, the question of who and where is one we have not fully explored until now.…”

“…However, as editors, we feel it is also a good time to reflect on our experiences to date and where we sit in relation to open-access publishing in the context of wider global knowledge networks. We also think it is a useful exercise to reflect upon who we might be 'open to' in terms of the topics we cover, the types of papers we publish and where our authors and readers are based, building on some of the observations we made in a previous editorial for this journal (Rae, Hincks, & Stephens, 2017).…”

Online Visibility, Social Networks and Glamorous Scientific Publications

“…This model is being built also with political support and is increasingly used, despite the consideration of various aspects and the existence of some weaknesses, such as quality control and who pays for the publication, as well as the existence of salami publications (Burchardt, 2014;Silva & Al-Khatib, 2017). It seems that this Open Access model will become the dominant model of scientific publishing, notwithstanding deep quality differences between publications (Rae, Hincks, & Stephens, 2017). Hence the importance of using bibliometric indicators in the assessment of scientific production, which we will address hereafter.…”