Open Research Conversation - Scholars are doing it for themselves: The challenges and opportunities of open access scholar-led publishing

<p dir="ltr">Recording of the following session, part of the 'Open Research Conversations' seminar series at the University of Sheffield (organised by the University Library, Scholarly Communications Team):</p><h2>Open Research Conversation - Scholars are doing it for themselves: The challenges and opportunities of open access scholar-led publishing</h2><p dir="ltr">Scholar-led publishing - publishing which is managed and led by academics rather than commercial publishers or other institutions or bodies - provides an opportunity for researchers to determine the conditions under which academic work is circulated. Consequently, it can present a range of opportunities for the open, equitable, diverse and inclusive circulation of knowledge.</p><p dir="ltr">In this session, we explore a range of perspectives from researchers operating in and engaged analytically with this space, including Toby Steiner (<a href="https://flavoursofopen.science/" target="_blank">Flavours of Open</a>), <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/english/people/academic-staff/meredith-warren" target="_blank">Meredith Warren</a> (co-editor-in-chief of the open access scholar-led <a href="https://jibs.hcommons.org/" target="_blank">Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies</a>) and <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/architecture/people/academic-staff/emma-cheatle" target="_blank">Emma Cheatle</a> and <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/architecture/people/academic-staff/luis-hernan" target="_blank">Luis Hernan</a> of the open access scholar-led architecture journal <a href="https://www.field-journal.org/site/about/" target="_blank">Field</a>.</p><p dir="ltr"><b><i>Luis Hernan and Emma Cheatle:</i></b><b><i> </i></b><i>In this talk we share our experience in editing field:. The journal launched in 2007 as the first open-access publication in the field and, in the following decade, it gained a reputation for its ability to attract rigorous research whilst providing a forum to a diverse set of voices and disciplinary traditions. We took over the journal a few years later, facing the multiple challenges of updating its infrastructure and rethinking its ethos and editorial processes in the face of an evolving landscape of open-access publishing.</i></p><p dir="ltr"><b><i>Meredith Warren</i></b><b><i>:</i></b><i> </i><i>This talk will focus on the development of the Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, the flagship journal of the Sheffield Centre for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies. This open-access, scholar-run journal published its first issue in 2018. I will discuss the origin story of JIBS, featuring the challenges and benefits of 'DIY' open access, including database indexing, DOAJ acceptance, and promoting a small journal in the vast ocean of corporate publishing.</i></p><p dir="ltr"><b><i>Toby Steiner</i></b><i> </i><i>-</i><i> </i><i>Collaboration over competition: On the role of scholar-led publishing and Open Access in the Humanities and Social Sciences - This presentation will provide a bit of a closer look at the practice of scholar-led publishing within the Humanities and Social Sciences, with a particular focus on Media Studies. Following an introductory framing of what is meant by 'scholar-led' in this context, the presentation will take a diachronic approach to showcase early proponents as well as recent open access initiatives that focus on providing scholar- and community-led alternatives to publishing via large commercial entities.</i></p>