Online Academic Publishing

Although new media graphic design is relatively new in Nigeria, compared to advertising, their scale, scope and immediacy have increased substantially with the diffusion of new technologies like mobile network, cable television and the Internet. This rapid development of information and communication technologies has enabled easy and rapid interaction between the graphic designer, advertiser and consumer. As a result, designers and advertisers are increasingly relying on various modes of interactive technology in new media to advertise and promote their products and services in Nigeria, thus, forcing the traditional design and advertising practices into relative obsolesce. In studying new media graphic design and advertising, this paper appraises online ads in Nigeria to highlight how designers and advertisers can effectively deliver messages to targeted audience. The major new media ad formats and their peculiar advantages over the traditional media are equally highlighted in the context of current design and advertising trend in general.

The paper shows how error statistical theory can be deployed to grasp the deeper epistemic logic of the peer-review process. The intent is to provide the readers with a novel lens through which to make sense of the practices of academic publishing.

This article commemorates a decade of discourse and published research on architecture and urbanism in ArchNet-IJAR (March 2007-March 2017). While the journal does not publish regular editorials associating each issue, it is believed that offering key highlights of growth since the inception of the journal is now due. The article presents the current position of ArchNet-IJAR within the international provision of journals in architecture and urban studies in key databases and index-bases. This is substantiated by key statistics of submissions, published contributions, and acceptance rates during the past 10 years. Coupled with analytical discussion on the global reach of the ArchNet-IJAR, the article identifies 11 research fields, which were covered in 10 volumes since the journal's inception. Analytical discussions of recent two theme issues as well as latest developments and contributions during the past few years are presented to reflect on the rigor and quality of the journal while depicting its thrust and interest. The article concludes by key aspects relevant to the future aspirations of ArchNet-IJAR while highlighting initiatives and prospective endeavours.

With a wide-ranging selection of papers, all of which celebrate alternative voice as an emerging issue in academic publishing, this edited volume reconsiders the established principles behind review criteria. Roger Nunn and John Adamson draw on their experience as journal editors to suggest an alternative approach to article reviewing. This volume challenges existing dogma in academic publishing and provides a forum for the different voices resonating throughout our community of scholars in the study of English as a Foreign Language.

Open access journals can be broadly defined as those freely available to readers online. While they are lauded by proponents for improving access to information, not all are completely open. Many offer access to some content while restricting access to other articles, and still others provide full online access after a certain time period. JALT publications, for example, are available to non-JALT members after six months.

Multiple studies indicate that open access research is significantly more likely to be cited than research published in non-open-access journals. There are two major open access models - those that charge authors to publish, and those funded under any of multiple other business models. Those charging authors are known as “gold open access”, and this article investigates the ethics of paying to publish. The primary concern is that objectivity in the peer-review process is compromised by profit motives. University of Colorado at Denver librarian Jeffrey Beall dubbed them “predatory journals,” and his account of them is discussed next.

This article is concerned with developing a philosophical approach to a number of significant changes to academic publishing, and specifically the global journal knowledge system wrought by a range of new digital technologies that herald the third age of the journal as an electronic, interactive and mixed-media form of scientific communication. The paper emerges from an Editors' Collective, a small New Zealand-based organisation comprised of editors and reviewers of academic journals mostly in the fields of education and philosophy. The paper is the result of a collective writing process.

* I am not an author or coauthor on this document!!! I wanted to post this URL in a place for maximum exposure to it, and the only way I could figure to do it is to "upload" this .pdf. PLEASE CHECK OUT THE URL http://scholarlyoa.com!! * Open source publication is SUPER important, but we have to be wary!
Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers
The work is by Jeffrey Beall and this .pdf is the 3rd edition as of January 1, 2015.

For more information on predatory publishers, including lists of
publishers and standalone journals that meet these criteria,
please visit http://scholarlyoa.com

This volume of work is intended as a natural successor to Accepting Alternative Voices in EFL Journal Articles (Nunn & Adamson, 2009) in which we looked into the possibilities of challenging the standard evaluation criteria and review procedure for EFL journal submissions to the Asian EFL Journal. Continuing this exploration into issues impacting upon academic publishing in EFL, chapters 2-6 pursue the issue of authorial voice where there seems to be an increasing consensus that a first person voice has a legitimate role beyond the humanities field. In chapters 7 to 9, the focus shifts to the wider perspectives of the journal reviewer or editor as researcher, exploring issues which directly shape their academic world views. This is an essential step in recognizing that research is necessary to both raise awareness of journal staff about authorial voice in publishing, especially those of non-Anglophone scholars, and also about how reviewers and editors construct their own identity, how they perceive their responsibilities and how they position the journals for which they work.

In this paper, prepared as a keynote for the 'Selling (critical) finance: Getting your work published' Early Career Researcher Workshop,(Warwick University 3rd – 4th September 2018), I revist and reflect on the issue of open access academic publishing, picking up issues that I have raised in earlier publications. The paper sets (albeit breifly) the 'standard' model of academic publishing, analyses its costs & benefits, and then asks why there is not more open access publication in (International or Global) Poltical Economy. It concludes by inviting the reader/listener to re-exmaine their own practice(s) [also includes a short discusison of this site - Academia.edu].

Taylor, Paul Michael. 2014. The Online Publication of Archaeological Records and Other Archival and Museum Collections on Cultural Heritage. Pp. 9-11 (Plenary Session), in: «Arheologiża Tapyndylaryny Öwrenmekde We Muzeżlesdirmekde Türkmenistanyn Tejribesi». Atly Halkara Ylmy Maslahatżn Nutuklarynyn Gysgaēa Beżany (2014-nji żylyn 12-14-nji nożabry) = «Experience of Turkmenistan in Research and Museumification of Archeological Findings». Abstract of Reports of the International Scientific Conference (November 12-14, 2014) = Opit Turkmenistana V Dele Izucheniya I Muzeefikatsii Arxeologicheskik Nakhodok. Tezisi k Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (12-14 noyabrya 2014 goda). Ashgabat, Turkmenistan: Türkmen döwlet nesirýat gullugy. [In Turkmen, English, and Russian.]

Various initiatives are taken globally to make knowledge repositories more accessible to researchers by exploiting the internet platform and developing a model that allows free access. India is also actively participating in this new initiative. Open access to scientific knowledge is an integral part of India’s S&T policy intervention. Some of the major international and Indian national initiatives are highlighted. Further efforts that would be required to make Indian participation more fruitful are also brought out.

Das, Anup Kumar (2014). Open Access to Scientific Knowledge: Policy Perspectives and National Initiatives. In: CSIR-NISTADS (ed): India - Science and Technology, volume 3. Delhi: Cambridge University Press India, ISBN 9789384463045, pp.292-299.

African scholarly research is relatively invisible globally because even though research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms. In addition, traditional metrics of visibility, such as the Impact Factor, fail to make legible all African scholarly production. Many African universities also do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication to broaden the reach of their scholars’ work.

To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.

SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by their universities
• produce outputs that are often interpretive, derivative or applied due, in part, to institutional rewards structures and funding challenges
• do not utilize social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.

All of these factors impact Africa’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.

“Seeking Impact and Visibility” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts. It not only analyses these four universities’ scholarly communication ecosystems, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of their scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of African research.

This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organizations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers.

Tasmeem (Arabic both for "design" and "sense of purpose") adds to Adobe InDesign a series of functions that are essential for Arabic typesetting and publishing. It takes the form of a user interface to handle DecoType's Advanced Composition Engine or ACE (previously known as Arabic Calligraphic Engine) and any font that is compatible with it. Tasmeem returns to the sources of the Arabic script traditions, to liberate the new generation of high-tech savvy designers and offer them a real Arabic-friendly environment.
Tasmeem-based typography and typefaces feature in New York University's seminal Library of Arabic Literature.
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/book-review-the-new-library-of-arabic-literature-is-a-monument-of-state-of-the-art-scholarship

African scholarly research is relatively invisible globally because, even though research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms. In addition, traditional metrics of visibility, such as the Impact Factor, fail to make legible all African scholarly production. And many African universities also do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication to broaden the reach of their scholars’ work.

To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.

In the University of Cape Town’s Faculty of Commerce, SCAP found that scholars:
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• tread a fine line between their quest for (academic) prestige and their quest for (social) relevance
• show little interest in producing “alternative” outputs (e.g. policy briefs, reports, etc.) that non-academic audiences would find more accessible than traditional journal articles
• seldom utilise social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.

All of these factors impact UCT’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.

“Scholarly Communication at the University of Cape Town” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts at UCT’s Faculty of Commerce. It not only analyses the faculty’s scholarly communication ecosystem, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of its scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of the university’s research as a whole.

This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organisations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers.

ESBB is a not-for-profit academic circle - This is a fully reviewed open access journal issue that may be freely downloaded or published on your site under the assumption that you do not charge or restrict access in any way.

Contents
Roger Nunn Foreword
Sivakumar Sivasubramaniam A Working Funeral for One Right Reading: Joining a Confederacy of Readers   
                                     
Naeema Hann Beyond Pastoral: the Role of Family in Second Language Learning Experiences of Adults

John Adamson & Roger Nunn Exploring Open (Non-blind) Review: Insights from ESBB Review Practice

Silvaana Maree Udz Standard Englishes: Perceptions and Pedagogical Implications

The papers of this book comprise the proceedings of the conference mentioned on the title and the cover page. They reflect the authors' opinions and, with the purpose of timely disseminations, are published as presented and without change. Their inclusion in these proceedings does no necessarily constitute endorsement by the editors. ISBN-10: 1-934272-23-X (Collection) ISBN-10: 1-934272-25-6 (Volume II) ISBN-13: 978-1-934272-23-7 (Collection) ISBN-13: 978-1-934272-25-1 (Volume II) COPYRIGHT Airola, Denise University of Arkansas USA

Rhetorical scholarship, if it is to remain relevant, must be actively applied to current events. This essay proposes an alternate mode of scholarship, one that takes advantage of the online medium and integrates the speed of journalism with the rigors of scholarly analysis. Such a mode of scholarship dissemination is not meant to replace the current journal system; rather it serves a different end—that of providing scholarship to the public as a whole. I argue that scholarly analysis of current events will enrich the dialogue that is already taking place in the public sphere and help citizens to more fully take part in democratic practice.

African scholarly research is relatively invisible globally because, even though research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms. In addition, traditional metrics of visibility, such as the Impact Factor, fail to make legible all African scholarly production. And many African universities also do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication to broaden the reach of their scholars’ work.

To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.

In the University of Namibia’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by the university
• produce outputs that are often interpretive, derivative or applied due, in part, to institutional rewards structures and funding challenges
• do not utilise social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.

All of these factors impact UNAM’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.

“Scholarly Communication at the University of Namibia” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts at UNAM’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. It not only analyses the faculty’s scholarly communication ecosystem, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of its scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of the university’s research as a whole.

This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organisations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers.

"African scholarly research is relatively invisible globally because, even though research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms. In addition, traditional metrics of visibility, such as the Impact Factor, fail to make legible all African scholarly production. And many African universities also do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication to broaden the reach of their scholars’ work.

To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.

In the University of Botswana’s Faculty of Humanities, SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by the university
• produce outputs that are often interpretive, derivative or applied due, in part, to institutional rewards structures and funding challenges
• do not utilize social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.

All of these factors impact UB’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.

“Scholarly Communication at the University of Botswana” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts at UB’s Faculty of Humanities. It not only analyses the faculty’s scholarly communication ecosystem, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of its scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of the university’s research as a whole.

This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organizations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers."

"African scholarly research is relatively invisible globally because, even though research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms. In addition, traditional metrics of visibility, such as the Impact Factor, fail to make legible all African scholarly production. And many African universities also do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication to broaden the reach of their scholars’ work.

To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.

In the University of Mauritius Faculty of Science, SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• feel positive about the merits of open access communication, but neither they nor the university has an OA dissemination strategy that would capitalize on this sentiment
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• tend to engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by the university
• do not utilize social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.

All of these factors impact UoM’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.

“Scholarly Communication at the University of Mauritius” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts at UoM’s Faculty of Science. It not only analyses the faculty’s scholarly communication ecosystem, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of its scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of the university’s research as a whole.

This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organizations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers."

The 2012 Amendment to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature allowed electronic publication for nomenclatural purposes, but it neither explicitly dealt with electronic versions published or posted online before being integrated into a journal issue, nor did it define what a preliminary version is. This has resulted in controversy as to whether electronic ‘pre-publications’ are available for the purposes of zoological nomenclature. Here I propose a definition of ‘preliminary version’ in line with publishers’ NISO guidelines. The nomenclaturally relevant version is the Version of Record which is the final, immutable, published version. All versions of an article previous to the Version of Record are preliminary
and not published for the purposes of zoological nomenclature. The immutability of the Version of Record refers only to content. Bibliographical metadata (volume, issue
and page numbers) are not considered content; when those get added or changed with the inclusion of a document into a journal issue, the content of the document does not change, hence the version remains the same: the Version of Record. Following those guidelines, the Version of Record is available for nomenclatural purposes even if the page numbers later change. The online ‘pre-publication’ models of the major
publishers are analysed as to which are available for zoological nomenclature. Electronic supplements should not contain nomenclaturally relevant information as they generally are neither immutable, nor permanent, nor published in the sense of the Code.

In the last decade a new way of communicating archaeology is taking place, due to the developing of the web and the diffusion of on-line journals and forum dedicated to anthropology and archaeology. The meeting “Dalla nascita alla morte: antropologia e archeologia a confronto” has in the Poster and Forum on-line section some of his main peculiarities, both intended as tools for the improvement for an innovative way of dialogue between archaeologists and anthropologists.

There are surprising differences among the prices that university libraries must pay as subscriptions to academic journals, as well as among the fees that authors, or their institutions, should pay as Article Processing Charge (APC) in the author-pay model being increasingly used by the Full Open Access journals. In both “reader-pay” and “author-pay” publishing models, the differences in the subscription prices and in the authors’ fees are startling. We will try, in this article, to briefly describe these differences, by reviewing some of the most widely known studies on this issue, and to try to identify the real costs in scholarly publishing. Our purpose is to provide new publishers and editors, especially those planning to publish an Open Access Journal, with some general guidelines and basic references with regards to the processing costs, so they can take an adequate decision in regards to the Article Processing Charge (APC) of their planned journal. We will also try to present the different business models related to Open Access journal publishing.

***Description of this Reading***:
This is chapter six of my dissertation with only eleven pages available for preview here on Academia.edu.  It chronicles the beginning of Bethune's NCNW.  Readers gain a sense of her organizing principles, why she felt it was necessary to "pool" Black feminine political energy at this time, in the mid 1930s.  You will also get a sense of the friction she encountered from other Black activist women--an aspect of her political career that has not been properly examined.  In my narrative, archival/primary source research takes precedence.  Pulling particularly from newspapers of that era lend a more complete picture of the dynamics between these particular Black women activists.


***Near Future Plans for this Chapter***:
I am in the process of redeveloping this chapter to self-publish as part of a three-book series, "A Passion For Social Equality," covering Bethune's political activism during the 1930s and 1940s.  POLITICAL ADVOCACY FOR JUSTICE is the title of the third book, forthcoming.

POLITICAL ADVOCACY FOR JUSTICE will include an expanded narrative, interpretation, and analysis of Bethune's activism during the prewar period, from 1940-1941, and material regarding her activism during WWII.  (Some of the former material has already been published in my chapter two of THE ECONOMIC CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT; see http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415537360/.)

***On Book Series: "A Passion For Social Equality"***
The first book of this series has been published, entitled PUSHING THE LIMITS OF THE COLOR LINE: MARY McLEOD BETHUNE AND THE NEW DEAL.  It can be viewed at: https://www.createspace.com/4283303  or the Amazon link on this page.

Nearly a decade ago I ruminated on the place open access publishing might have in political studies, and by extension International Relations and suggested that the future of open access publishing was in the hands of the academic community. As a community the academy has always utilised academic publishers of journals as external guarantors of quality and so any change in these practices is up to us; the question is have we actually chosen to move our work into the realm of open access? In this short comment, I reflect on my own experience and wider developments to suggest movement towards open access is actually slower than its champions might have hoped.

A short discussion on peer review, the fundamental process that preserves quality and relevance of the scientific production, and its economic sustainability. It starts with an excursus through the first steps of a journal workflow from the article submission to its acceptation, and then proceeds with a brief introduction to the peer review types, its benefits and critiques and alternative approaches to it. This article ends up pointing out the essential factors to consider when choosing an evaluation system, and lists a few misconduct cases in academic publishing.

El crecimiento de la población, la desaparición de fronteras, la facilidad de transporte y sobre todo las redes de telecomunicaciones han dado lugar a que las personas interactuemos mucho más y se acentúe nuestro carácter de sociedad humana dentro de un contexto general de globalización. Por otra parte, el uso de los medios de comunicación y de las redes sociales ha propiciado un mayor intercambio de información, y una mayor cooperación, incluso entre personas desconocidas. Estos fenómenos tienen implicaciones psicológicas importantes para los individuos en general, y en especial para los bibliotecarios-documentalistas, unos profesionales que deben tener importantes dotes y habilidades para tratar con sus usuarios.

Abstract
Population growth, disappearance of borders, ease of transport services, and particularly telecommunications networks have led people to interact much more with each other and to accentuate the social aspect of humankind within the general context of globalization. Moreover, the use of media and social networks has led to greater information exchange and closer cooperation, even among strangers. This phenomenon has important psychological implications for individuals in general and especially for librarians and information scientists, professionals who must have good skills to deal with users.

The 2012 Amendment to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature allows electronic publication for nomenclatural purposes if certain requirements are fulfilled. We here explain these simple requirements, including what needs to be registered in ZooBank and when, which version of an electronic work is potentially Code-compliant (only the final, immutable version), and what is the correct date of publication (that of the final, immutable version; pre-final versions posted online are
preliminary and as such always unavailable). We advise registration in ZooBank of publications that are issued in both electronic and paper version to secure the nomenclatural priority of the generally earlier electronic version. Failure to update a ZooBank record after publication will not have any impact on availability under the Code but will keep the registered information hidden from public view. Publishers
may want to consider automated registration as an integral part of the publishing process; this has already been shown to be feasible and would ease the burden of manual registration for editors and authors.

For many years, the dissemination of academic research has been controlled by commercial publishers. However, in light of the continuing inflation of subscription prices for scholarly journals, many academics are investigating open access publishing over the Internet. Although most advanced in the natural sciences, given its essentially political character, open access publishing should also be carefully considered by political scientists (and associated disciplines). This article explores open access publishing and suggests the reputational pay-off of 'normal' publishing can easily be maintained in the open access realm.

JournalGuide – a free tool created by Research Square to help researchers choose the best journal for their manuscript – has added a new designation to its database to help authors identify the most reputable publishing options.

Journals with this new Verified status are confirmed to be included in at least one high-value index or vetted by more than one subject-specialized index, saving researchers time and energy comparing multiple websites and formats to validate the coverage of a journal. In addition to viewing this status on the journal’s profile page, users can filter their search results to only display Verified journals.

Instead of creating a new set of criteria to evaluate journals, JournalGuide builds on the work of the specialists and scholars who already select materials for scholarly indexes or research assessment, making the Verified tag a concert of voices – collected and filtered by JournalGuide into a centralized source. Because JournalGuide is intended to be comprehensive rather than selective, we adopted a positive “whitelist” approach to this process that highlights legitimate journals instead of attempting to exclude “blacklist” journals or publishers.

While intended to be inclusive, the list of Verified journals is not exhaustive, and the absence of the Verified tag on a journal’s JournalGuide page merely indicates that we were not able to verify its acceptance as a source of validated content in its field at this time. Therefore, journals lacking a Verified designation are not necessarily predatory. It is also important to note that the Verified list is non-tiered, and that a journal’s impact and reputation were not considered as part of the inclusion criteria. JournalGuide will continue to expand their survey of scholarly indexes to identify additional journals that are accepted sources of validated research in their communities.

Increasing library involvement in journal hosting and publishing is an important topic for serialists. This installment of “The Balance Point” column presents articles that offer descriptions and analyses of the current state of ideas and activities related to libraries as publishers. Featured authors discuss the publishing and journal hosting tasks libraries can perform, programs and activities related to journal hosting, titles hosted, challenges, next steps and the benefits or drawbacks foreseen in the current paths of the libraries they represent.

This chapter examines OA emerging journals within the humanities and seeks to identify those features which might boost or threaten their information credibility — thereby posing a challenge to the OA movement itself and today’s academic publishing industry. By ‘emerging journals’, I refer to scholarly journals that are not published by mainstream publishing houses and that lack a demonstrated citation impact but aim at gaining some kind of academic reputation and becoming relevant in a particular scientific field. I begin by providing a more detailed account of the OA model and how journal credibility in the field of the humanities is established and maintained. Next, I describe the work carried out by the Spanish Foundation of Science and Technology in order to arrive at criteria for quality assessment in scientific publishing (Delgado López-Cózar, Ruiz-Pérez & Jiménez-Contreras, 2006), identifying those formal features which have, in Spain at least, come to be considered as mandatory for a quality journal — features now referred to as quality requirements [QRs]. I then go on to explore a collection of OA
humanities journals, with the aim of investigating the extent to which such mandatory QRs are met by each individual journal in the collection. I then group and discuss the results with respect to their compliance or non-compliance in terms of the information quality of the journal as a means of scientific communication, the quality of the editorial process, the journal scientific quality, and the quality of dissemination and visibility of the journal. My conclusions are intended to raise awareness of the existence of these QRs for journal assessment; findings may be helpful to both editors and researchers alike. It is hoped that they might provide insights applicable to other contexts where it is seen as desirable to establish similar quality assurance measures.

This report is the third in a series of studies conducted by OAPEN on digital monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The first report focused on the needs of users and stakeholders, and the second looked at the existing (and developing) publishing and business models. The aim of this report is to provide the different players-publishers, funders, librarians, readers, scholars and politicians-with a set of recommendations concerning the strategic issues in Open Access book publishing. For those already in the process of developing an Open Access policy, this report maps out the issues and decisions they may confront.

Purpose
The purpose of editorial to this special issue is this to introduce “We Decide”, a grassroots e-democracy learnscape. This timely collaborative initiative was conceptualized to promote the deployment of internet communication technologies (ICTs) for advancing social justice and equity in an increasingly digitized era. The special issue presents six individually selected papers delivered at the IADIS International Conference e-democracy, Equity and Social Justice held in Rome, Italy, 20-22 July 2011. These papers provide examples of unique innovations that highlight new possibilities and directions for e-democracy that are grounded in an ethos of greater equity and social justice.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors outline the mission and approach of “We Decide” and how it can be understood in the evolution of e-democracy.

Findings
The authors discuss how the six papers in this special issue suggest ways to transform e-democracy towards equity and social justice.
Research limitations/implications – These papers help researchers and practitioners extend the concept of e-democracy from a variety of perspectives, and show the importance of thinking about e-democracy as access to resources for all citizens.

Originality/value
Given the increasing policy demands for effective e-democracy and active citizenship online through new and emerging social networking technologies, the knowledge produced by “We Decide” brings together researchers, practitioners and activists from across the world. It provides a robust platform to share innovations that challenge us to rethink and re-research the core concepts and approaches necessary to transform e-democracy to realize equity and social justice.

Keywords Access, E-democracy, Equity, Social justice, Resources, Reflexivity, Innovation, We Decide

Like a good mystery, LinkedIn can be solved. Like a good mystery, it has shades of grey. Like a good mystery, it uses misdirection through its emails and premium services offered, and, like a good mystery, it can be cracked if you look, work, infer, and are willing to be bold...(and not merely in your font!).