Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

Mathematician David Roberts has pointed me to a useful new five-part series by Martin Paul Eve, entitled Starting an Open Access Journal. It’s well worth a look, for how it engages with so many practicalities and how tractable he makes it all seem.

• Part 1 — planning and social issues.
• Part 2 — Open Journal Systems, ISSNs, DOIs, CLOCKSS
• Part 3 — Launching, editorial/review procedures
• Part 4 — Copyediting, proofreading, typesetting
• Part 5 — After you publish the first issue

We’re actually pretty well served for open-access journals in our field (Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, Palaeontologia Electronica, PalArch’s journal of vertebrae palaeontology, soon PaleoBios, and of course PLoS ONE). But for scientists in other fields that have fewer options, starting their own journal may well be the single most effective thing they can do to advance open access. (It’s going to look pretty good on the CV, too!)