There are many concerns regarding for profit academic publishers realizing huge profit margins for distributing research products that cost them no money. That is, I conduct my research with my own resources and submit a manuscript detailing my results to a journal, but the journal did not incur any costs for my research. There are also many concerns regarding open access journals that charge high author processing fees (or APCs). A lot of the debates about all of these concerns seems to boil down these two options being the ONLY two options for publishing academic research. Just goes to show that no matter how many people with PhDs get involved it doesn’t mean that the problem will get solved. So, how might any one of us start our own peer reviewed open access journal with no APCs? A few different options it seems. Here are a few of my thoughts after thinking about this for a few hours one morning.  

First, a little bit about my background with academic publishing. I am a social psychologist that has been publishing my research in academic journals for over 20 years. I have been a reviewer, an associate editor, and was the editor of Personal Relationships (Masthead Editor between 2010-2014, but started processing new submissions in July 2008). As the editor of PR I put together a team of associate editors, worked with the for profit publisher to move the submission/review process to manuscript central (up to that point the submission/review process was run entirely via email and excel spreadsheets), and processed approximately 160 submissions per year for four years. That said, I am not up to date with using current publishing software and technologies and I do not have skills relevant to creating these technologies.  

So, with only my current working knowledge of available free online platforms and technologies, and not being in the publishing industry, I attempt to MacGyver (that should give some hints of my time here on earth, and means “to make, form, or repair (something) with what is conveniently on hand”) a new open access academic journal that has no author processing fees and has minimal expenses for the people operating the journal. My research has typically focused on close relationships (particularly romantic relationships), so I will create here a new journal called Close Relationship Science ™. Here is what I came up with, but I would love to hear how this could be improved or even replaced by something better. 

Getting Set Up

• Write a proposal for the new journal (here are some things to consider)
  • Executive summary that outlines the vision of the new journal, including why it is being introduced, aims and scope, and so on
  • A longer plan that discusses each of the above points in more detail
    • Include a discussion of existing journals that publish similar material and their current status as “open vs. closed” re access and open science practices, controlled by society and/or for-profit publisher, and
    so on
    • Include a consideration of the growth of the journal in the first five years of operation
• Share the proposal with a few others that you would like to recruit to help get the journal started
  • Have some meetings and establish a temporary board of directors for the establishment of the new journal
• With the board establish some preliminary operating procedures regarding governance of the new journal as well as policies for the submission/review/publishing process
• With the board decide on the initial editor (likely one of the board members, but who knows)
• Set up the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform for the journal (see next section below)
• Register domain name for the new journal (~$15 / year based on a few quick searches) and put together a basic website for the journal
  • I have limited technical skills, but even I at this point can put together a basic website and make it viewable by the world
• Use the new website to advertise the existence of the new journal, its aims and scope, the board of directors, and the new editor
• At the same time establish a social media presence for the new journal on various platforms
• Put out a call for people to be part of the editorial board to review new submissions via various sources, such as social media outlets, society chat/email groups, personal emails from the editor/board members
• When the team has been assembled, advertise that the journal is now open for new submissions

The submission/review/publishing process

• One good option seems to be the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform. The open access journal Meta Psychology uses this platform, and my own University (Western University, in London, ON, Canada) “offers a no-fee local publication facility for students and faculty who wish to publish an online open access journal” (link here)
  • A list of journals here that Western University currently helps host/manage using the OJS platform
  • Because this is my fantasy, I will use the OJS platform and seek guidance from the librarians at Western to get the process started
• Use available resources (e.g., librarians, web links, real people that are kind) to get the journal completely set up on the OJS platform. Here is one such resource.
  • Do as many trial runs with the website as needed with mock submissions to make sure it works properly for submitting authors, the editor, and reviewers
• Use this system to accept submissions, assign reviews, and see submissions through to publication
• All publications will appear online only and be assigned a DOI
• Use the social media sites created for the journal to share news, insights, and publications

Overall it seems possible for one person to begin the process to create a new academic journal that is free to authors and has minimal expenses otherwise. Now imagine if one of the societies you are a member of put together a task force to look into creating their own open access journal that is free to authors and used some of your yearly membership fees (or some of those massive conference fees) to support the journal? It’s easy if you try.