Science Commons Announcements

[Kaitlin Thaney <kaitlin AT creativecommons.org>]

Harvard University Press releases first OA journal

February 3rd, 2009 by Kaitlin Thaney

At noon today, Harvard University Press, in partnership with the John M. Olin Center at Harvard Law School released its first Open Access (OA) Journal. The Journal of Legal Analysis marks HUP's first major foray into CC-licensed material, with all content freely available on the Web at the time of publication under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.

From their press release:

"With the emergence of online journal publishing and Open Access, the cost of entry into journal publishing is lower than it's ever been," says [HUP's Editor-in-Chief Michael] Fisher. "With an online OA journal a publisher does not have to spend start-up money recruiting subscribers, does not need a subscription-fulfillment operation, does not even have to print the journal. The fact that we can work with the Law School to jointly further the University's scholarly mission while spending less in the current economic climate is very, very exciting for us." [...]

This is the first time in three decades that Harvard University Press has published an academic journal. Online publishing models offered a way back into this arena, with lowered costs and higher dissemination of high-quality content, reasons stated to be aligned with the University's overall mission.

OA advocate Stuart Shieber, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and current Faculty Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication at Harvard, stated in the press release:

"Harvard University Press's reentry into journal publishing through the/ Journal of Legal Analysis/ represents an exciting development in the burgeoning world of Open Access journal publishing.  HUP's efforts are to be applauded for both their quality and their accessibility."

Kudos to HUP and the Olin Center for choosing to make their content more open with a CC license. The Journal also joins a host of other journals under our Open Access Law Program. For more information about the Open Access Law Program, click here.

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http://sciencecommons.org/weblog/archives/2009/02/03/harvard-university-press-releases-first-oa-journal/

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Kaitlin Thaney
Program Manager
Science Commons, a project of Creative Commons
http://sciencecommons.org
http://creativecommons.org
kaitlin AT creativecommons.org
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