Continuing our Open Access Week interview series the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion. Responses provided by Dr. Amanda Rosini.
Why do you think it’s important for your journal to be open-access?
Open-access journals are vital within academia for two reasons. Firstly, they allow junior scholars who are starting their academic careers the opportunity to publish in academic journals, such as ours, without having to bear the burden of any financial cost. Costs that are often a barrier to publishing. Secondly, they allow for research to be easily accessible to everyone all over the world, without having to overcome the barrier of a paywall. If we want research to be more equitable then we need to allow for a greater number of scholars to have access to publication opportunities and at the same time access to scholarship should not be limited to only those who can afford it.
What are some of the challenges in running an open access journal?
The challenge we have encountered with our journal is a lack of funding support. Many of the editors who work on the journal do so for free and thus retention becomes a difficult reality.
If we want research to be more equitable then we need to allow for a greater number of scholars to have access to publication opportunities and at the same time access to scholarship should not be limited to only those who can afford it.
Can you highlight any articles/issues published in your journal that you think made an important contribution to the field?
I think one of the important contributions that the journal has made thus far is our issue dedicated to “The Uyghurs in Diaspora.” A Diaspora community that very few people in Canada know about. The issue is dedicated to field work completed by Canadian scholars on the Canadian Uyghur Diaspora community. The issue offers important data for future researchers in a variety of different fields.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.