1. SAGE Open: a publisher’s foray into Gold
OA for the social sciences and humanities
Jim Gilden
Senior Field Editor
Open Access Week
University of Colorado, Boulder
October 24, 2013
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2. SAGE Open: a publisher’s foray into Gold
OA for the social sciences and humanities
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What is SAGE Open
Why we launched it
What challenges we’ve faced
The future of OA at SAGE
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3. What is SAGE Open
● Broad-based Social Science and Humanities Gold
OA journal using the PLOS One model
● Submissions first accepted in January 2011
● More than 2,500 submissions from 62 countries,
100s of institutions including UC Boulder
● 300+ articles published since launch in May 2011
● 180,182 full text downloads in 2012
● On HighWire platform from Stanford University
Libraries
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4. Los Angeles | London | New Delhi
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5. Los Angeles | London | New Delhi
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7. Where are those articles?
● 2,419/3,063= 78.97% decided
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444 accepted
671 rejected by AE after peer review
80 desk rejected as inappropriate
126 desk rejected for language
1,098 given a major or minor revision decision
274 withdrawn on author request
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8. Acceptance rates
Manuscript Decision
Number of Manuscripts
Percent
Accept
440
17.8%
Accept Pending Minor Revision
444
18.4%
Immediate Accept
4
0.2%
Immediate Reject
80
3.2%
Immediate Reject (language)
126
5.2%
Major Revision
654
27.2%
Reject
671
27.9%
Total
2,419
100.0%
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9. Most-read articles through Sept
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2.
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4.
5.
Managing Workplace Diversity: Issues and Challenges
(June 2012)
The Effect of Training and Development on Employee
Attitude as it Relates to Training and Work Proficiency (Oct
2011)
Black Teenage Pregnancy: A Dynamic Social Problem (Jan
2012)
A Configuration Model of Organizational Culture (Jan 2012)
Maternal Enmeshment: The Chosen Child (Oct 2012)
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10. Most-read articles through Sept
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2.
3.
4.
5.
Managing Workplace Diversity: Issues and Challenges (June
2012) - Read 30,100 times
The Effect of Training and Development on Employee Attitude
as it Relates to Training and Work Proficiency (Oct 2011) –
20,140
Black Teenage Pregnancy: A Dynamic Social Problem (Jan
2012) – 14,578
A Configuration Model of Organizational Culture (Jan 2012) –
14,411
Maternal Enmeshment: The Chosen Child (Oct 2012) – 10,495
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12. Author feedback
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64 respondents to standard survey
73% said SAGE Open was their first choice
88% said peer review comments were good or excellent
73% said time to pub from acceptance was good or
excellent
● Comments
• The review process was a bit slow despite being an open journal
• Publication fees could have been reduced
• This is my first international paper and I’m delighted to publish with
SAGE
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13. Why launch SAGE Open?
● OA is going to be a part of the scholarly
communication landscape
● SAGE’s strength and reputation in social
sciences
● First in the water
● Part of our mission to serve social science
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15. Challenges - Marketing
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HSS less familiar with Open Access
Perception of pay to play
Spam from less reputable publishers
Concerns about reputation of journal, peer review
process
• Pricing and payment – no tradition of including
pages charges in grants
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16. Challenges - Editorial
● Tenure committee “doesn’t count” OA
publications
● Peer review
• Broad scope
• Open access still less known in HSS
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17. Challenges – Back office
● Technology
• Continuous publication
• Competitive bells and whistles
● Systems
• Subscription vast majority of transactions take
place electronically
• Open Access is about the article, not about the
journal
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