Linguists to Publish Journal Articles in ‘Fair’ Open Access

A group of leading international linguists are aiming to make accessibility to academic research results less dependent on expensive commercial publishers. The editorial boards of various academic journals in linguistics are in the process of leaving their publishers or are renegotiating their collaboration. They will soon be publishing their articles on a universal free access basis at extremely low costs. Supported by the Dutch universities, this unique initiative will be launched under the name of LingOA and is a significant step on the road towards open access.

LingOA is pioneered by the editorial boards of five prominent journals in the field of linguistics. This Dutch initiative will promote the publication of articles in accordance with ‘fair’ Open Access. This means that the authors retain copyright to their articles, editorial boards will own the titles of their journals, and the publication platform charges considerably less for its services than commercial for-profit publishers currently do. In addition, the publication costs are transparent and linked to the actual services rendered. The linguists expect that their initiative will also encourage other journals to move towards affordable Open Access.