The International Journal of Wellbeing: An open access success story

Abstract

Academics have long had the advantage of access to university libraries and their expensive subscriptions to scholarly journals. Critics of traditional journal publishing have complained that placing science and scholarship behind a paywall limits its potential. One solution to this problem is the emergence of open access journals. In this chapter, authors Weijers and Jarden offer a case study of a platinum open access journal they founded: the International Journal of Wellbeing. In their discussion of this new journal they offer both philosophical and practical insights that guide their work. They also point to often overlooked issues regarding open scholarship. One of these is the huge numbers of unaffiliated faculty or faculty from non-Western universities, all of whom suffer barriers to access to expensive journals. The authors look to increasing openness of journals to solve this and other problems.