Open Access and Academic Journals in Canada: A Political Science Perspective

Abstract

The push to implement Open Access (OA) as the new standard for academic research dissemination is creating very real pressures on academic journals. In Canada, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) recently adopted a policy requiring that journals applying for its Aid to Scholarly Journals (ASJ) grant make their scholarly content freely accessible after no more than a 12-month delay. For journals such as the Canadian Journal of Political Science (CJPS) that not only publish high-quality, peer-reviewed articles to a specialized audience but also support the work of scholarly associations through the revenues they generate, the push to move to OA comes with a number of challenges. The Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) and the Société québécoise de science politique (SQSP) established a committee to chart the best course of action for the CJPS in light of this changing landscape. This article summarizes the key findings of the committee and underscores some of the challenges of OA for journals with a profile similar to the CJPS, as well as for the broader research ecosystem that they support.