Open Access... but Professionally

1 Content Open Access... but Professionally. OA journals need not be poor cousins of commercially published journals. Open Access has become a valid electronic publishing option for institutions that own academic journals. Many of them however still believe that because they offer their content at no cost for the reader they can publish their journals at no cost. As a result, most open access electronic journals look and work like the poor cousins of the modern online journals. OA journals should and can enjoy the same sophisticated online publishing technology and powerful marketing tools used by the journals of large international publishers which make their paid-access journals available at thousands of libraries for millions of users. Readers do expect OA journals to offer the same range of functionalities, and journals should respond to these expectations so as not to be regarded as inferior, also in terms of scientific merits. For this paradigm shift, first the journal owners must change their mindsets and acknowledge that without professional technology and marketing, their journals will fail to make an impact. If you want to have a journal, be prepared to pay for it few OA journals want and very few can cover their costs with article processing charges. Journal owners can choose from a wide selection of e-publishing technology solutions and e-marketing services. The technology solutions range from online hosting and distribution platforms, online manuscript submission, peer-review systems through to online production tracking, content management systems, and plagiarism detection systems. The marketing services for journals include indexing by A&I databases, full-text repositories, open access journal directories, metadata distribution to such databases and indexing by Thomson Scientific and PubMed. Last but not least, editorial services including copyediting, proofreading and manuscript file composition can also be used. There are a number of vendors offering the above mentioned services, including Versita Open, the only Open Access publisher which offers the worlds leading technologies and proven marketing techniques for electronic publishing. Versita Open already publishes over 200 third-party journals, from various countries and subject areas.