In light of Elsevier’s recent editorial resignations and Wiley’s editorial firing, the Public Knowledge Project wishes to reiterate its twenty-five-year commitment to enabling the independence and integrity of scholarly editors by providing them with high quality free and open source publishing platforms for journals, books and preprints. That is to say, there is an alternative.
Publishing under pressure to maximize share-holder value and profit margins is not just counter to the pursuit of research, it is detrimental to the ethics, integrity, and impact of those engaged in such work.
As scholar-founded within the university system, PKP remains a response to the academic community’s need and ability to provide faculty editors and societies with the means of scholarly production and publication.
The academic community is taking back scholarly publishing by employing systems that enable researchers to exercise complete editorial oversight in their pursuit of research excellence. The quality and contribution of the resulting research publications is second to none in inspiring many university libraries to offer these publishing platforms to their academic communities.
There is, in fact, nothing unproven about this alternative path to academic independence. Over the last quarter-century, as PKP has continued to develop and enhance its free and open publishing platforms – Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Monograph Press (OMP), and Open Preprint Systems (OPS). PKP software for scholarly publishing, especially OJS, has grown into the source of the world’s most widely used publishing platform.
This declaration of academic independence is being heard in the 136 countries using this software, leading to research publications in 60 languages on a globally inclusive scale that makes for a much richer return to humanity in terms of the investment of researchers worldwide.
So the next time a group of editors or the leaders of a scholarly society find their Zoom call drifting toward a discussion of the pact they have made with their publisher, here’s to one of them speaking up for the non-profit seeking motives that initially inspired them to pursue this research mission.
PKP software is build by scholars, for scholars, enabling users to take back control of their publishing. Taking control means you can publish according to your values, mission, vision, and publishing model. There are several high-quality features of PKP platforms that will empower you, from multilingual publishing, to interoperability with other sought-after functionalities like indexing, metadata, and preservation.
After all, history is full of independence movements and principled defections that, while often challenging to initiate and never guaranteed in their outcomes, have often made all the difference.
PKP publishing infrastructure is designed so you can host journals yourself. We also provide open educational resources to get it done on your terms.
But perhaps you want to take advantage of PKP platforms and concentrate on priorities other than hosting? You’re not alone, and hundreds of other community members have requested that PKP develop a hosting service — as such, PKP is pleased to offer its “PKP Publishing Services”.
