[Air-l] print and online journals

[Richard Smith]

As the publisher of CJC, I better jump in on this particular part of  
your story, Jonathan. I mainly agree, and I'm glad you're raising  
this discussion and highlighting the nuances in a debate that tends  
toward the "either or".

The Canadian Journal of Communication is *mainly* open access, with a  
"hold back" of 12 months. For now, however, we do still have  
subscriptions, both institutional and individual. The hold back,  
however, means we don't (yet) meet the definition of open access.  
We're working on it:

- In cases of urgent social matters (e.g., a recent issue in which a  
very recent article of ours had some bearing on a current public  
policy issue) we will open up an article or even a whole issue;

- When we have sponsorship (twice in the past three years, I  
believe), we open things up even sooner.

- We make the journal available online to libraries outside of the  
OECD at a reduced or free rate.

That said, it is the stated objective of the journal - and my  
personal objective - to move toward full open access. The funding  
agency for journals in Canada is generally supportive of this  
direction, and new software (like the excellent Open Journal Systems  
2.1 - see http://pkp.sfu.ca/) makes this more possible by enhancing  
the labouring part of producing journals.

And I think "online" and "prestige" are not incompatible and it will  
soon be a forgotten issue. The quality of the journal will be in the  
quality of the editor, the quality of the reviews, the quality of the  
editorial board, and ultimately, the quality of the articles.

The other element about going online, which isn't often talked about  
and isn't really connected to open access or not, is the experience  
for the authors. A journal is nothing without its authors and  
increasingly authors are demanding/expecting a fully online  
submission/review process. This is what we got with OJS - it is the  
"gateway drug" to open access for traditional journals, in my  
opinion, since it demonstrates vividly how easy it would be to go the  
next step.

And, I can confirm Jonathan's point that readership shot up. Not  
subscriptions - although they are holding steady and increasing  
slightly - but readers. People visit the site, download the articles,  
cite us in their papers. And, they submit articles - from around the  
world - so we know we're having a greater impact online.

...r
On 26-Apr-07, at 7:21 AM, Jonathan Sterne wrote:

> 4.  That said, open access is generally a good thing if your goal  
> is to
> disseminate what you write.  When the Canadian Journal of  
> Communication went
> open access (it survives through dues and -- I think -- also  
> through grants)
> their readership shot up.  http://www.cjc-online.ca/  The new  
> International
> Journal of Communication (http://ijoc.org) also has funding behind  
> it, and
> they've managed to attract some big names in the field, which should
> probably offset the online prestige issue, at least over time.