The Seismica Initiative: towards a community-driven, Diamond Open Access journal for seismological research is a post on the European Geosciences Union blog that describes a response to a tweet from Nature announcing their author processing charge of €9,500/article (roughly $11,400) to publish open access. By contrast, Volcanica is a fully open access journal that has published 37 peer reviewed articles in the past 2 years without charging any author fees. Seismologists were inspired to create a task force to replicate this model for a diamond open access journal in their discipline. The post includes an excellent graphic (though not Creative Commons licensed) that illustrates the diamond open access space: free to authors, authors retain copyright, free to users and peer-reviewed. In the case of Seismica, the journal will be managed by members of the seismological community and “in the absence of any financial incentives, we ensure that the journal serves the needs of the community before anything else.” A researcher-driven, inclusive process is designed:
“to map out a route towards launching the journal that ensures a sustainable future. Core tasks include finding an administrative/financial host (a library or university press), identifying technical requirements for the manuscript submission platform and journal website, and acquiring the necessary funding.”
Volcanica, and potentially Seismica, give us examples of platforms for non-profit scholarly communication as envisioned by Jean-Claude Guédon.
