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The Lethbridge Journal Incubator Aligning Open Access publication with the research and teaching missions of the public university The Lethbridge Incubator Research Group* (Contact: [email protected]) The Business Model Cameron Neylon (PloS), Beyond the PDF2, March 19, 2013 Incubator Model: OA Publication as Process Value derived from authorship, content, and production process Traditional Model: OA Publication as Product Value derived from authorship and content 18 months on Although on the whole the incubator has worked more-or-less as we imagined it would in the eighteen months since it transitioned into its current form, we have discovered some problems and made some refinements. By far the most important discoveries we have made are (a) Copy-editing is too hard for most graduate students to do well (needs to be done by the academic editors) (b) An office manager is essential (c) Students perform best when they have common workspace and worktimes (d) Editors need to be involved in student training. Benefit for institutions Benefit for journals Benefit for faculty Benefit for students About the Incubator The Lethbridge Journal incubator is an experiment in the sustainability of academic publishing. The incubator attempts to ensure this sustainability by aligning the publishing processes with the research, teaching, and service missions of the University. Instead of drawing resources away from these central missions, academic communication under this model become a resource that materially improves the University’s ability to carry out these core functions. How it works Graduate Students are trained in low-specialisation, highly valuable technical and managerial aspects of journal production. They are assigned a single title for which they become the managing editor (communicating with authors, editors, referees, managing the production process) while working with other students in the incubator on the technical production of all journals. *Gillian Ayers, Sandra Cowen, Kelaine Devine, Heather Hobma, Wendy Merkley, Daniel Paul O'Donnell, Jessica Ruzek, Rhys Stevens, Marinus Swanepoel, Maxine Tedesco
