The journal has just published Vol. 3 Issue 1; the final print issue will be published in November. From Volume 4 the whole journal will move from print only to online – the editorial board made this decision as there are print subscriptions to honour for 2011.
Because the journal has never had an online version, we have been busy adding PDFs and metadata to the University Repository for all of the back issues. There was a slight complication in doing this, which caused us to stop adding the full text. At the same time, the University Press investigated the feasibility of joining CrossRef as a publisher. The decision was taken over the summer to do this, however, this means that we have to go back through the PDFs and add DOIs to each article. We are currently discussing how we build our DOIs before assigning them, however, we are confident that the full text for all the issues will be available by the end of the project.
Of course, things are never quite that simple! One of the membership rules states that:
Members have an obligation to link references in the journal articles they deposit via CrossRef. The Membership Agreement states that a Member has an obligation to actively maximize and maintain its own Cross-Linking to other members of PILA or other qualified users of the PILA System. Members who have not informed CrossRef within 18 months of joining that they have instituted outbound linking will have their accounts suspended. Members are encouraged to link references in other content types for which DOIs are deposited but are not currently required to do so.
We will attempt to do this as part of the project, but it will take time to complete, however as CrossRef Publishers we are now committed to do this.
Another impact of moving from a subscription model to an open access model is the need to review the notes for contributors. The current print version requires the authors to assign the copyright to the Press, but this goes against the ideals of open access.
We now have a new ‘notes for contributors’ section, which will appear on the journal pages when completed. This also includes a new ‘Licence to Publish’ (LtP), which replaces the previous copyright transfer agreement. The LtP now lets the author retain the copyright under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (cc-by). This allows the University Press to publish the article first in the journal, but allows the author to add the PDF into their institutional Repository and to re-use their work as they see fit without having to ask the Press for further permission.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The LtP has been approved and amended by the University Secretary who also sits on the University Press Technical Advisory Board. This LtP is freely available for other to use and adapt as they see fit.
Once we confirm the URL for the journal landing pages we will request a new ISSN for the British Library in order to reflect the change in format.
Finally in preparation for the open access launch, we have become a member of the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE).
COPE is a forum for editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals to discuss all aspects of publication ethics. It also advises editors on how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.
The Press will cover the membership costs of CrossRef and COPE in future years, we’ll post a blog about the sustainability of the project in the next few weeks.
