This week (21-27 October) is Open Access Week - an opportunity to join together, take action, and raise awareness around the importance of community control of knowledge sharing systems. This year’s theme is 'Community over Commercialisation' prioritises approaches to open scholarship that serve the best interests of the public and the academic community.

The International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy (IJCJSD) is an open access, peer reviewed journal that seeks to publish critical research about common challenges confronting criminal justice systems around the world. IJCJSD remains committed to making criminology research and scholarship accessible to all, without paywalls and via best practice in open access practices.

The Journal publishes four issues annually and is supported by a small editorial team advised by an international editorial board. The Journal is hosted in the School of Justice, QUT and is part of a small collection of open access journals in QUT Open Press.

Authors retain copyright and articles are openly licenced via Creative Commons to make published articles more readily available and useable.

The Journal is categorised as a ‘Diamond’ Open Access journal. Diamond Open Access (OA) refers to a scholarly publication model in which journals and platforms do not charge fees to either authors or readers. Generally publishing costs are facilitated by academic institutions, community groups or governments.

The Journal is indexed widely and included in the most comprehensive open access database – DOAJ (the Directory of Open Access Journals).  Currently the Journal is one of only ten Australasian journals awarded the DOAJ Seal for Best Practice. The DOAJ Seal is awarded to journals that demonstrate best practice in open access publishing. Around 8% of journals indexed in DOAJ have been awarded the Seal to-date.

Open Access Week 2024 https://www.openaccessweek.org/theme/en