University of California Press’s Open Access Mega-Journal Collabra Publishes First Article

Note: infoDOCKET first shared info about Collabra and again when the journal was formally announced in January of this year. Links to our three posts (incl. video) are found below.
From UC Press:

University of California Press’s open access (OA) mega-journal, Collabra, has published its first article in the field of social psychology—Implicit Preferences for Straight People over Lesbian Women and Gay Men Weakened from 2006 to 2013.
The article’s authors—Erin Westgate of the University of Virginia, Rachel Riskind of Guilford College, and Brian Nosek of the Center for Open Science—opted for open peer review, which means that the peer review correspondence is also published along with the article.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better first article,” says Dan Morgan, Publisher of Collabra. “The publicity and downloads following the article have proven that this is a compelling and important research topic, and it showcases many of the features and principles that we are promoting—open data, open review, and reviewers signing their reviews. The authors also shared additional measures, codebooks, and reported all data exclusions, manipulations, and how they determined their sample sizes, leading to far greater transparency. As such, it is a model of ‘open science.’”
As a nonprofit publisher and a member of the academic community, UC Press designed Collabra to ensure that the value generated by editors and reviewers can be channeled back into the research community. Collabra reduces barriers to high-quality open access publishing by offering a low author processing charge (APC) of US$875, and a waiver fund to cover APCs for authors unable to pay. Unlike other OA journals, Collabra invites editors and reviewers to share in the value the journal creates through the work they do. They have control over what they earn; they can (1) pay it forward to the “waiver fund” at Collabra, (2) pay it forward to their institution’s OA fund, or (3) elect to pay themselves.
“Researchers give away so much of their time and expertise to journals both by choosing where to publish their work and by reviewing for free,” says Senior Editor Simine Vazire, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California Davis, and the editor who oversaw Collabra’s first article. We must reflect on who we want to give that time to, and what kind of journal and publishing model we want to support.”
Collabra launched with a distinguished group of senior editors and editors who are organized around each of the journal’s three core disciplinary areas—life and biomedical sciences, ecology and environmental science, and social and behavioral sciences. Each editorial team ensures that the respective discipline has a voice at the journal. Although Collabra is a mega-journal, the aim is to foster identi(Jfiable disciplinary communities under the overarching Collabra banner.

Direct to Collabra Web Site and Blog
Background

• New Open Access Publishing Programs: University of California Press Formally Launches Collabra and Luminos (January 20, 2015)

• New Open Access Journal From U. of California Press Will Pay Peer Reviewers (January 12, 2015)

• U. of California Press Announces Plans to Launch a Open Access Mega-Journal and New Monograph Program in 2015 (October 24, 2015)

Filed under: Data Files, News, Open Access, Publishing