Open Access Week: More on OA Option #2 for Authors

Yesterday, I highlighted Open Access journals that cover a wide range of subject disciplines. This post will look more specifically at OA periodicals in the forced migration/humanitarian assistance sphere. There are indeed a handful that focus on our field of study, examples of which are listed below; some are scholarly in their approach while others are more policy- and practitioner-oriented.

One note about these titles: When it comes to journals, there are degrees of Open Access. So I use "gratis OA" to refer to periodicals that remove price but not permission barriers, and I use "libre OA" to refer to periodicals that remove price barriers and at least some permission barriers. For more information about this distinction, please refer to P. Suber's discussion of the two descriptors.

These titles are libre OA:

• Forced Migration Review [access]
• Journal of Internal Displacement [access]
• Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration [access]

These titles are gratis OA (freely available online, but still copyrighted):

• Humanitarian Exchange [access]
• Journal of Humanitarian Assistance [access]
• Refuge: Canada's Periodical on Refugees [access]

These titles are gratis OA but access to the current issue is delayed:

• International Review of the Red Cross [access]
• Intervention: International Journal of Mental Health, Psychosocial Work and Counselling in Areas of Armed Conflict [access]

As you can see, there is a diversity of Open Access journals to choose from. But keep in mind that even if the journal you plan to submit an article to is not OA - i.e., the International Journal of Refugee Law, Journal of Refugee Studies, or Refugee Survey Quarterly - you can still employ the first strategy for delivering Open Access to your work: self-archiving!

Tagged Periodicals and Web Sites/Tools.