Sociological Science just published their first set of Open Access articles this morning. In a short time this journal has made headway in proving that scholars can control the process of scholarly communication themselves, while at the same time doing high-quality peer review at an unusually fast speed. I'm left thinking - will this journal (and others that it may inspire) change the status quo among scholarly journals? For example:
- Journals questioning whether they actually need to work with publishers to disseminate scholarly communication, or if they can it themselves.
- Shortening article review times. Currently, it's not unheard of for people to wait more than a year to know if their article has been published, but Sociological Science does it in 30 days!
- Increased transparency. A few weeks ago, Sociological Science shared visualizations of their submission statistics that showed that the average day to decision for their manuscripts was 11 days. By using their Twitter account, the journal has been able to publicize how fast their review process is as well as emphasize their "no revise and resubmit decision" policy.
Jesper Sørensen (Stanford) and the deputy editorial team of Delia Baldassarri (NYU), Stephen L. Morgan (Cornell), Olav Sorenson (Yale), Sarah Soule (Stanford), Kim Weeden (Cornell University), and Ezra Zuckerman (MIT) have shown that not only can scholars disseminate quality Open Access scholarship - they can do so at a tremendous speed and with a greater transparency than is normally seen.
What do you think? Do you see journals like Sociological Science changing the status quo? Would you be encouraged to submit by the speed and transparency of a journal?
