Open-Access Publishing and the Future of Institutional Repositories
A review of OJS-based workflows and their role in democratizing scholarly communication for emerging universities and Global South institutions. We map interoperability standards and argue that lightweight, standards-based repositories are the most sustainable path to equitable publishing.
Open-access infrastructure has matured to the point where any institution can operate a credible, indexed journal. Yet adoption remains uneven. We review the technical and policy conditions under which open-access repositories succeed.
Standards as a foundation #
Interoperability — through OAI-PMH harvesting, persistent identifiers, and consistent metadata — determines whether a journal is discoverable beyond its own website. We argue that standards adherence matters more than platform choice.
A sustainability model #
We outline a low-cost operating model in which editorial labor, not infrastructure, is the principal expense, and discuss how institutional integration (degree programs, faculty incentives) sustains a pipeline of quality submissions.
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References
- Suber, P. (2012). Open Access. MIT Press.
- Willinsky, J. (2006). The Access Principle. MIT Press.
- Björk, B.-C. (2017). Growth of Hybrid Open Access. PeerJ.