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. The basic premise of the incubator is that the skills and experiences involved in contemporary scholarly journal production are both generalisable across disciplines and of significant value to graduate students whether they pursue post-graduate careers within or without the academy. The incubator works by, in essence, selling efficiency and training to institutions in exchange for ongoing in-kind and cash support. In this lecture, I will discuss the experience of the incubator as it has moved from a prototype to production model. I will also discuss some current trends in Open Access scholarly communication in the Humanities and some implications for publishers and editors in other models and disciplines.

1. The Lethbridge Journal Incubator:
A new business model for
Open Access journal publication
Daniel Paul O'Donnell
@danielPaulOD
With contributions from
Gillian Ayers, Kelaine Devine, Heather Hobma, Jessica Ruzack, Sandra Cowen,
Leona Jacobs, Wendy Merkeley, Rhys Stevens, Marinus Swanepoel, Maxine
Tedesco
February 18, 2014
Elsevier Labs Online Lectures

2. Humanities and Open Access: Two
Understandings
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“The Internet is Free”
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No or ad hoc funding streams
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Increase in the number of (relatively informal)
internet-based journals
Volunteer Professor labour
“Knowledge should be Free”
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Pressure on Societies to release journals OA
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But journals are major membership benefit

3. Good and bad
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New journals = vibrancy
Desire for OA = sense that knowledge is/could be
important to public
But humanities ≠ practical
Little sense that lack of access to humanities research is
crippling
Paradox is that Humanities research seems intuitively
accessible but harder to make the case for funding access
Public needs to pay; but case needs to be made

4. Incubator is response
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Method of funding Open Access publication of
humanities journals by aligning production with
the research and teaching methods of the
University
Turns production and publication of Humanities
research into training opportunity
–
Funding access becomes way of making
Humanities teaching and research more practical

5. Traditional Model

6. Incubator model

7. How it works

8. Benefits for students

9. Benefit for institutions

10. Benefit for faculty

11. Benefit for journals

12. Lessons learned
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Still a publisher
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Still require experts
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Lowers quality (i.e. a disruptive technology)

13. Humanities only?
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Sciences have more money and public more
willing to pay
Stronger sense that lack of access to research is
crippling
But APC introduces similar pressures
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Itemises cost of publication as overhead
Emphasises lack of scalability
Only matter of time until there is pressure on cost

14. Humanities only?
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Network of incubators transfers same benefits
to science education
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Introduces scalability into APC
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Increases training and scientific literacy
Already existing OA models set precedent
Not going to replace commercial publishers

15. Thank you
daniel.odonnell@uleth.ca