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This list is a helpful tool for authors who are publishing their work in Open Access Journals. It is also helpful for librarians who are acting as advisors for Open Access publishing. Beall's List: Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers. This is a list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers. It is recommended recommend that scholars read the available reviews, assessments and descriptions provided here, and then decide for themselves whether they want to submit articles, serve as editors or on editorial boards.

The long list of predatory publishers and journals by Beall is quite daunting. Is this another indication of how cynical a person has to be in every aspect of life - even scholary pursuit? Thankfully there's a record to alert stakeholders of potentially unscrupulous publishers and unvalidated journals.

As I was working on my final project I found myself only able to name 1 OA Journal: PLOS. I wanted to know if there were any other big players in the game, much like the top commercial journals. As a result, google came up with the above site, which works like an index or directory for OA Journals. It's good to see in light of the difficulties that closed access journals have been causing in countries that are digitally divided from affluent ones. Hopefully with the growth of open access titles we will see the digital divide and information gap close. Happy browsing! And please post any other open access titles you have come across! Lets popularize them in our network! One more: http://doaj.org/

For a broader class of publications, which include scientific journals, see Academic journal. "Science journal" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Science (journal), the scientific journal named "Science". In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research.

Their stories open my head every time I have the opportunity to read. Being a layman in this matter made ​​me see it more closely now! Thank you!

Their links open my head so easily. Although I did not know it, I noticed a subtle difference about it!

from website: "Bioline International is a not-for-profit scholarly publishing cooperative committed to providing open access to quality research journals published in developing countries. BI's goal of reducing the South to North knowledge gap is crucial to a global understanding of health (tropical medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology, emerging new diseases), biodiversity, the environment, conservation and international development. By providing a platform for the distribution of peer-reviewed journals (currently from Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, India, Iran, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda and Venezuela), BI helps to reduce the global knowledge divide by making bioscience information generated in these countries available to the international research community world-wide." The site offers a range of journals, with full text access. Areas include zoology, health, agriculture, and nutrition. There aren't a lot of journals so the site is manageable. Good source if you are a scientist seeking data/information from areas other than the west.

Of the 255 papers that underwent the entire editing process to acceptance or rejection, about 60% of the final decisions occurred with no sign of peer review. For rejections, that's good news: It means that the journal's quality control was high enough that the editor examined the paper and declined it rather than send it out for review.

This article is certainly controversial, and I believe in some way did a service to the Open Access community by highlighting the practice of predatory journals. However, the irony of Bohannon's article, being an example of the kind of "bad science" he describes in his own article is inescapable. First, there is no randomization of his "experimental group", and there is no control group; second, there was elimination of non-responders; third, there was no application of the intention to treat principle in the analysis; and finally there were no inferential statistics and no references! Using his own standard, there is nothing that can be concluded from his study. For the criticism regarding Bohannon's targeting of OA journals exclusively, it is important to note that this experiment has been done before with 'traditional' journals as well- and many of them failed the test of peer review. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/27/how_nonsense_papers_ended_up_in_respected_scientific_journals.html

I think Bohannens "study" should be considered more "investigative journalism" than scientific study. While it may have some flaws if held against the standards of a scientific study, as a journalistic piece it goes a long way to justify its central accusation that there are predatory open access journals. He does not claim that there are no or evwen less predatory journals in the tradional sector (although it seems reasonable to believe that it might seem easier to predatory publishers to dupe unsuspecting scientists rather than subscription paying librarians). It demonstrates that open access is not a cure for all the problems besetting acacemic publishing. I think more deeply about it, it shows that author fees for publication may create a buisiness model just as open to abouse as the traditional subscription system. One answer might be to make the peer-review process more transparent, i.e. name the reviewers But that of course has other drawbacks.

The African Journal Archive is a retrospective digitisation project of full-text journal articles published in Africa. Journal articles hosted on the Archive extend back to the first issue (if available) and end with the last pre-current issue (determined by the publisher). The website comprises over 700 issues and 150,000 pages of journal archives of academic, scholarly, institutional, museums, and professional research organizations in Africa. Online access to the archive is free of charge to Africa and the world.

This article employs queer theory and challenges the notion of fitting emergent open access practices within current frameworks of academic success. While I was partially surprised by some of the assertions made early on in the article regarding open access journals being perceived as not as valuable as more traditional journal models, I think in part I may just hang out in academic circles that gravitate towards open access (hence... this course). But, I am very compelled by the conclusions made by Gurfinkel. That is, rather than trying to figure out how to systematize open access models to be respected within current academic standards, open access (as informed by queer theory, in this article) challenges us to investigate and question our standards in a more radical way. For example, in open access peer review models or post-publication review, the notion of a "peer" and thus who are considered credible and worthy sources of knowledge--and consequentially, what "knowledge" is-- are put into question. So, more than trying to figure out how to systematize and make more "legitimate" open access models, Gurfinkel wants us to ask what about the academy currently excludes open access models from being meaningful and legitimate practices in the first place.

This recently published book, by a University of British Columbia journalism professor named Alfred Hermida, questions how the new culture of sharing and collaboration-and the pace of change that sharing enables-changes our lives. It's particularly interesting for us because it doesn't back away from the challenges that open access poses for us: how does being both creator and consumer change us? How does blurring the lines between these two change the way we think about the balance between copyright and the public good? Hermida doesn't tackle these last questions directly, but he provides a useful lens for thinking about our changing roles and how open knowledge and sharing need to reflect that. Considering the book's focus on sharing, it's somewhat ironic that it's not open access, but I highly recommend checking it out. It's received significant attention in the Canadian press and is exactly the kind of mainstream attention that can get conversations about open access started.

Not everything can be shared. Aside from the 14 reasons what makes people share knowledge is because they are trust each one with the knowledge that they will share will be beneficial to the receiver of the knowledge or learning. Knowledge is power when shared.

Compares the cost of articles from society and non-profit publishers to those of the major commercial publishers.

Its crazy. The numbers (of profit and control) for the publishing companies is astronomical!

Universities have received a poor deal from the system of private, subscription-based access to knowledge production since the port WW2 commercialization of the scientific publishing industry. It is absurd that the university or research funder supplies the content (the research), pays for the authoring (the time of the researcher writing the article), and provides and pays for the time of peer reviewers and academic editors. In addition, it often pays page charges or formatting charges to publishers. It then cedes copyright and finally buys back its own research at prices that have escalated at four times the rate of inflation in the past decade and a half! Considering most of this research is conducted using public funds, it becomes a moral argument when public resources are used once again to purchase access to the outputs of this research. The commercial model of disseminating research does not obey the rules of supply and demand. A relatively small number of 'core' journals occupy monopoly positions, in that university libraries have to subscribe to access their content, whatever the cost, because these journals have been established as 'must-have' resources. While the practice of 'bundling' offers the advantage of bulk pricing, it reduces room for choice, as bundles consume large chunks of library budgets, making it difficult to subscribe to smaller, individual titles. In addition, the inflexibility of indexing systems makes it difficult for new journals to establish themselves; thus compromising the potential for smaller niche subjects and newer interdisciplinary areas. Thankfully the global inequalities engendered by the commercialization of scholarly publishing are being challenged by open access.

"The Norwegian Electronic Health Library - information in English The Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no) is a publicly funded online knowledge service for healthcare professionals and students in Norway. 02/01/2014 | Hans Petter Fosseng Prof. Magne Nylenna MD is editor-in-chief for the Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no). Photo: Hans Petter Fosseng The Norwegian Electronic Health Library is accessed online through the website www.helsebiblioteket.no. The website provides free access to point-of-care tools, guidelines, systematic reviews, scientific journals, and a wide variety of other full-text resources for health-care professionals and students."

"The Norwegian Electronic Health Library - information in English The Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no) is a publicly funded online knowledge service for healthcare professionals and students in Norway. 02/01/2014 | Hans Petter Fosseng Prof. Magne Nylenna MD is editor-in-chief for the Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no). Photo: Hans Petter Fosseng The Norwegian Electronic Health Library is accessed online through the website www.helsebiblioteket.no. The website provides free access to point-of-care tools, guidelines, systematic reviews, scientific journals, and a wide variety of other full-text resources for health-care professionals and students."

This is an international, peer- reviewed journal that aims to investigate information literacy in all its forms to address the interests of diverse Information Literacy communities of practice. This journal provides open access!! to its publications, and it is possible to download them as well. You can find here articles, projects, book reviews, conference corner, and archive. The journal is published twice a year. Great resource with such a wide scope!

This does look good -- thanks for sharing it.

This blog examines open data that is provided by the New York City government. It is written by a visiting assistant professor at Pratt College in Brooklyn NY. He uses the open data in his statistics and city planning course there. The interesting thing is that every open data set has a story to tell. Journalists are realizing this and are starting to analyze this open data to write stories, it is called data journalism. If you are interested data journalism, there is a course offered on the canvas network titled Doing Journalism with Data: First Steps, Skills and Tools (link provided) https://www.canvas.net/courses/doing-journalism-with-data The great thing about this in my opinion is that with open data the world starts to become more transparent. Everyone with some statistical knowledge can access these data, analyze them, and answer questions.

This journal needs authors. I was thinking of collaborative writing, iteration, article building.

A digital journal of learning, teaching and technology. You can read interesting articles on MOOCs, digital writing, peer review and other relevant topics, as well as future of open knowledge.

"This paper interrogates and situates theoretically from a Marxist perspective various aspects and tensions that inhere in the contemporary academic publishing environment. The focus of the article is on journal publishing. The paper examines both the expanding capitalist control of the academic publishing industry and some of the efforts being made by those seeking to resist and subvert the capitalist model of academic publishing. The paper employs the concepts of primitive accumulation and alienation as a theoretical register for apprehending contemporary erosions of the knowledge commons through the enclosure effects that follow in the wake of capitalist control of academic publishing. Part of my purpose with this discussion will be to advance the case that despite a relatively privileged position vis-à-vis other workers, academic cognitive labourers are caught up within and subject to the constraining and exploitative practices of capitalist production processes."

"Showing "The World of Science", the map below portrays global research production as expressed through science journals' publishing in the early 2000s. It makes a dramatic point about the complexities of global inequalities in knowledge production and exchange. What would it take to redraw the knowledge production map to realise a vision of a more equitable and accurate world of knowledge?"

The research environment in the global South faces many pressing challenges given resource inequality. Technical and financial issues aside, Laura Czerniewicz asserts it is the values and practices shaped by the Northern research agenda which contribute just as much to the imbalance.

Knowledge seeking and sharing within organisations. Doesn't deal with progress of this in a wider context.

Nature Communications has announced it will go open access only from 20 October in a bid to show the world that quality papers do not have to be paid for.

I've chosen to link to the article on Wired which discusses the move as the explanation is easier for those who (like me!) have little experience of academic journals to understand. One of the most important points I've taken from reading this article (and the PDF study explaining the reasons for the move to Open Access, which is linked from the article) is that to date, articles which have previously been published to Nature Communications using the OA model have earned more citations than those published under a subscription model. I'm interested to learn more about the mentioned Creative Commons 4.0 license, which I'm not yet familiar with. If anyone with experience using (or publishing to) academic journals would like to add any relevant points to the potential impact of the magazine's choice to go OA, I would really appreciate the insight!

' Pirate Philosophy' explores how the development of various forms of so - called internet piracy is affecting ideas of the author, the book, the scholarly journal, peer review, intellectual property, copyright law, content creation and cultural production that were established pre - internet. To this end it contains a number of contributions that engage with the philosophy of internet piracy, as well as the emergence out of peer-to-peer file sharing networks of actual social movements- even a number of political 'Pirate Parties' Culture Machine Journal of Culture and Theory Vol 10 (2009)

The wonderful blog, Hack Library School, has recently posted a piece on open access publishing. This piece is a great overview, which covers many of the basic concepts covered in Module 6. The article discusses what open access is (and what it isn't) and some of the biggest discussion points on the issue today. It's a great overview and well worth the read if you want an overview or a refresher on the topic!

This blog covers a lot of relevant concepts related to OA, but a finer point need to be clarified. Regarding Google Scholar, not everything retrieved from GS is OA. GS is a web crowler, it crows wherever it is allowed, including references and citations to articles behind paywalls. On the other hand, many librarians are working to make their paid journals subscriptions available to their faculty and students via Google Scholar. So when faculty/students are on their universities' network, they can search GS, find articles from journals. If their library subscribes to that journal, there is a good chance a link to the full text will be available.

I agree with the point that "findability" for green OA articles is a current problem. We need a PubMed or Web of Science for green OA articles!