Open Access Publishing

The majority of academic journals are now published online and make their articles available by means of a paid subscription or via membership arrangements (for example, an academic library). Over the last two decades a new scholarly publishing model known as Open Access (OA), enabled by the wide adoption of the internet, has emerged and grown rapidly.

The benefits of OA have been embraced by the academic community, particularly in the science disciplines. Boston College Libraries summarises the totality of the benefits of OA to academia:

In addition to benefiting consumers of scholarly information, open access also benefits scholars, increasing the visibility, influence, and potential benefit of their research. It helps redress global inequity of access to scholarship by dismantling cost barriers to research dissemination. And it returns research results more swiftly and readily to the public, who provide much of the funding for scholarly work. (http://libguides.bc.edu/openaccess)

There are also various ‘types’ or models of open access (mainly green, gold, diamond, bronze and hybrid). Open Access Australasia has developed a set of templates that describe each type

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy is a free to read, free to publish, institutionally supported journal.

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

IJCJSD defines open access according to the definition provided by Open Access Australasia:

Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of cost or other access barriers. Through licensing via an open license (usually a Creative Commons License), freely available outputs can also be legally shared and reused. Hence, open access is more than just free access.

Additionally, the Journal recognises the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) principles and recommendations for open access (updated in March 2022) which note that “…OA is not an end in itself, but a means to other ends, above all, to the equity, quality, usability, and sustainability of research.”

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy is included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and has the DOAJ Seal for best practice in open access.

A DOAJ Membership is a clear statement of intent and proves a commitment to quality, peer-reviewed open access. DOAJ is co-author of the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Principles) and DOAJ members are expected to follow these principles as a condition of membership

The International Journal for Crime Justice and Social Democracy DOAJ membership

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license to all submissions published. This license enables open access – specifically, free immediate access to original works of all types. Under this license, authors agree to make articles legally available for reuse, without permission or fees, for virtually any purpose. Anyone may copy, distribute or reuse these articles, as long as the author and original source are properly cited.

Additional Resources and Links

SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication - See more at: https://sparcopen.org/

What is Open Access? Open Access Australasia https://oaaustralasia.org/2021/05/25/what-is-open-access/