Share your knowledge, retain your rights: starting an Open Access Journal
By Andrew Weiss, Digital Services Librarian (CSUN University Library)
Once again, it’s that time of year. International Open Access Week is upon us! At the CSUN University Library we are hosting the event Open Access 2025: Share your Knowledge, Retain your Rights – Start an OA Journal to expand the awareness of open access with a push toward those interested in starting an Open Access Journal. Join us on October 22nd, 10:00 AM, in the Library’s Ferman Presentation room.
Open access, open minds, open borders:
Each year, Open Access Week attempts to raise awareness of the issues surrounding academic publishing. This year’s overall theme is “Who owns our knowledge?” challenging us all to take a cold, hard look at the ways in which current publishing and copyright practices may have a negative impact on the sharing of important research information, not only within the borders of academia – or even our own country – but also internationally.
Clearly, seeking global standards toward openness in information, knowledge, and data sharing drives much of what the open access movement is all about. One of the main drivers of this push for openness is the acknowledgement that information doesn’t flow openly; it is, for lack of a better term, “inefficient” in its spread throughout the world.
These yearly events strive to eliminate or, at the very least, raise awareness of some of these ongoing roadblocks to the sharing of information – including knowledge and research advancements in the health sciences, public and social administration, and advances in overall quality of life via education, sociology, government and policy, and the humanities.
Barriers to openness:
There are numerous barriers to the sharing of information, not least is the assumption that knowledge must be subject to the decisions of a gatekeeper. Often this is framed in the faux-beneficence of protecting ‘prestige’ or reputations. Sequestering important information behind a paywall reduces knowledge to a commodity built on artificial scarcity, a situation exacerbated by:
- Rising costs of subscriptions & database access (increases in costs each year cost libraries $ millions.
- The loss of perpetually owned collections of materials (libraries often pay for access only, no permanent ownership of information, resulting in weaker negotiating position)
- The mass transfer of copyright from researchers and scholars to publishers (researchers sign their rights to the publisher, often, sometimes cutting off their own access to their own research)
Yet, as SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) argues, “Sharing knowledge is a human right.” The goal is to advance systems that enable all to not only access but also to contribute to and benefit from this shared knowledge. The question remains, then, how we can address this gap between the rights of humanity and the desire to prevent others from attaining these rights.
Solutions:
Open Access is seen as a viable and longstanding solution to some of the barriers presented above. As seen below, a number of different pathways provide movement forward toward a more universal adoption of open access.
The ways include:
- Gold OA: a payment (usually called the APC – article processing charge) to cover publishing and subscription costs for the publisher; now commonly used for many of the major journals and database companies, but a viable and important method for supporting journals that have no subscription fees for their readers.
- Green OA: the submission of an earlier or permitted version of a published paper into a subject repository or an Institutional Repository (such as CSUN’s ScholarWorks IR)
- Hybrid journal publishing (including Transformative agreements with publishers): Such combinations of Gold OA journals that also charge subscription fees are known as hybrid journals.
- Born OA Journals: Additionally, this also includes creating your own fully open access journals, ‘born OA’, that allow other researchers to reach your work. Starting a journal as an open access publication may be the most direct way researchers can contribute to the open movement.
An introduction to some of CSUN’s Open Access Journals:
Speaking of “Born-OA” journals, CSUN hosts and supports several open access journals published or managed by CSUN faculty, staff, and students. Some have been publishing with us for over ten years, while others are newer to the scene. But all of them provide access to their work openly and freely, helping to foster the spread of important information and knowledge across borders.
- Northridge Review [1982 – present]
The Northridge Review has been published through the CSUN English department for decades. Currently it is published in both physical form (in limited runs of handmade books) and digitally online as an open access version, hosted in both CSU Open Journals (for the current issues) and in ScholarWorks (for its extensive back issues).
Available here in CSU Open Journals: Northridge Review (CSU Open Journals); and here in ScholarWorks: Northridge Review (ScholarWorks)
- Journal on Technology and Persons with Disabilities [2013-present]
This journal is published yearly as part of the proceedings for the renowned Annual Assistive Technology Conference.
All issues are found openly online in ScholarWorks: Journal on Technology and Persons with Disabilities
- California Geography [formerly California Geographer, 1960 – present]
This journal is published through ScholarWorks each year. Starting as the California Geographer, this is a long-running journal that explores the state of California, its people, cultures, and boundaries. This journal was one of the first to be published in open access through CSUN.
All issues online in ScholarWorks: California Geography [formerly California Geographer
- The New Journal of Student Research Abstracts [1995 – present]
This journal is published to help K-12 students gain entry into the world of scientific discovery and publishing. Limited to K-12 students, the journal has been ongoing since the 1990s and is an important title in our stable of open access publications. Published in conjunction with CSUN and several publishing partners, and edited by CSUN biology emeritus faculty member Steven Oppenheimer.
All issues online in ScholarWorks: The New Journal of Student Research Abstracts
On a final note…
This is just a brief summary of the issues related to open access and journal publishing. Open access to life-improving knowledge is an important privilege worth protecting.
Please join us on October 22, 2025 for our deeper dive into these issues in our event “Open Access 2025: Share your Knowledge, Retain your Rights – Start an OA Journal”, held from 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM (Library’s Ferman Presentation Room and online). See you then!
