The Open Access Movement

Since I am studying Agricultural and Applied Economics, an open access journal that I found in this field is the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics. This journal is owned by Southern Agricultural Economics Association but is published by Cambridge University Press which of course is part of the University of Cambridge located in Cambridge, UK.

As for the goals and purposes of these organizations:

The JAAE is dedicated to creating “a forum for creative and scholarly work in agricultural economics and related areas.”

“The purposes and objectives of the Southern Agricultural Economics Association shall be to foster the study and understanding of agricultural economics and its applications to problems in the Southern United States; to promote unity and effectiveness of effort among all concerned with those problems; to promote improvement in the professional competence and standards of members; to cooperate with other organizations and institutions engaged in similar or related activities; and to increase the contribution of agricultural economics to human welfare”.

Cambridge University Press: “Our mission is to unlock people’s potential with the best learning and research solutions. Our vision is a world of learning and research inspired by Cambridge.” They also describe the organization to be supportive of innovation in learning and teaching and supportive of community programs around the world.

The only address to open access by the JAAE is that as of 2015 any new articles published by the journal were to be open access and became permanently accessible online which allowed people to read, redistribute and re-use the articles.

The journal does not mention any alignment or affiliation with the open access movement.

In reflection, although the journal does not specifically mention anything about the open access movement, I would have to assume that given the growth of the movement in the twenty-tens, the Journal’s move to open access in 2015 must have been influenced by the movement.

Also, moving to open access aligns more with the goals, purposes and missions of the JAAE, SAEA, and Cambridge University Press. To really provide the best learning, and research in Ag Econ to the most people, open access makes the most sense.

In addition, the JAAE describes the cost to publish as being over $1600. This surprised me and after some research it looks like the JAAE restructured a lot of things in 2015 including the cost of publishing. I would say that the restructuring and most likely increase in cost was to offset the lost subscription fees with the new open access policy.