LingOA (2015-2020)
LingOA was originally intended as a foundation that would provide a framework for the smooth transition from the traditional journal subscription model to Fair Open Access publishing. LingOA aimed at developing an affordable and sustainable business model for Diamond Open Access publishing in linguistics.
Between 2015 and 2020, the journals Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, Laboratory Phonology, Italian Journal of Linguistics, and Journal of Portuguese Linguistics were transferred from their current traditional publisher to a new Open Access publisher. This open access publisher complies with the following conditions:
- The editorial board owns the title of the journals.
- The author owns the copyright of his articles, and a CC-BY license applies.
- All articles are published in Full Open Access (no subscriptions, no ‘double dipping’).
- Article processing charges (APCs) are low,
transparent, and in proportion to the work carried out by the publisher.
The Center of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Leiden monitored the quality and reception of the journals during the transition. The Radboud University Library provided editorial support between 2015 and 2020, which we gratefully acknowledge.
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO and the Association of Dutch Universities (VSNU) pledged considerable financial guarantees to cover the article processing charges between 2015 and 2020. The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) also endorsed LingOA.
The journals Glossa, Laboratory Phonology, and Journal of Portuguese Linguistics were published by Ubiquity Press between 2015 and 2020, and transitioned to the Janeway platform of the Open Library of Humanities in 2021. LingOA will work with any publisher who complies with the Fair Open Access principles. To ensure long-term sustainability, LingOA has partnered with the Open Library of Humanities. OLH, who has guaranteed the continued publication of the journals associated with LingOA after the first five years through its consortial library funding model. OLH is a charitable organisation dedicated to publishing Open Access scholarship with no author-facing APCs (https://www.openlibhums.org). This provides long-term sustainability for these Fair Open Access journals, ensuring that no researcher will ever have to pay for APCs out of their own pocket. We are grateful to all institutions mentioned for their support.
LingOA was officially launched at the EU workshop ‘Alternative and New business models for gold open access’ on 12 October 2015.