Scholarly Publishing: The Institution of Engineering and Technology Launches Open Access Engineering Megajournal

From Today’s Announcement:

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is to become the first engineering, not-for-profit publisher to adopt an open access model with the launch of a comprehensive, online-only open access journal. Open access options will also be added to its existing 26 journals.
[Clip]
The IET, which has 150,000 members in 127 countries around the world and has published engineering journals since 1872, will be inviting submissions for its new open access megajournal from autumn 2012, with the online-only publication expected to launch in 2013. As a broad-based engineering journal it will accept papers on a wide range of engineering topics, rather than focusing on a single specific field. The title and editor-in-chief of this new publication will be announced later in 2012.
From 2013, authors will also be able to choose to make their research free to view in any of the IET’s 26 existing engineering journals, which include well-known titles such as Electronics Letters and the newly launched IET Biometrics. Currently all research papers published by the IET’s journals are available in print and online to paying subscribers only.
The IET’s decision to adopt the open access model comes after a major global review with over 35,000 engineering researchers from academia and industry to gauge their appetite for open access. This research found that 87% of engineering researchers said they would continue to submit articles to a journal if it converted to an open access model, and around a third of them had previously published in an open access journal.

Read the Complete Announcement

Filed under: Journal Articles, News, Open Access, Publishing