ACADEMIA Letters

The Evolution of Academic Journal Publishing

Haven Allahar, Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business - UWI

Introduction
This article traces the evolution of academic journal publishing from its early beginnings of
over 300 years to the introduction of the recent system of open access publishing which is still
at a developmental stage and an issue of contention among academics. The publication of
academic journals dates back to around 1665 at which time the purpose was the exchange of
research findings among academic colleagues and their society members operating within a
tight circle of scholars. This method of information sharing remained the dominant system of
communication among academics up until the 19th century. Beginning in the 1960s, a shift
occurred in the system of publishing with the introduction of commercial publishers who
acquired journals previously published by non-profit academic societies (Peters et al., 2016).
Thereafter, the dissemination of research was by way of journals paid by way of subscriptions
to the commercial publishing houses (Lariviére et al., 2015) and considered the first major shift
in the journal publishing business. The cost of subscriptions was usually met by libraries and
universities and this model became the dominant mode for transmitting academic knowledge
which contributed to considerable growth in earnings and profitability by the large publishers
and the dominance continues to the present (Forgues and Liarte, 2013).
In the mid-1990s, with the development of the internet and the digital age, the publish-
ing industry witnessed the introduction of open access journals as a new model for transmit-
ting academic knowledge. Such journals were published over the internet offering immediate
access to readers and judged as disruptive of the traditional subscriptions journals (Weeks,
2015). This was considered the second major shift in the evolution of the publishing industry.
The third and latest shift in publishing is the creation of institutional and subject reposito-

Academia Letters, December 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Haven Allahar, havenallahar4@gmail.com

Citation: Allahar, H. (2021). The Evolution of Academic Journal Publishing. Academia Letters, Article 4395.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4395.

1
ries by libraries for hosting research articles (Chadwell and Sutton, 2014); and the operation
of academic social networks, such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate, for dissemination of
research articles (Laasko et al., 2017).
In the current publishing environment, it was foreseen that regular system changes and de-
velopment of new innovations in publishing will occur. Perhaps, the introduction of Academia
Letters as an experiment in journal publishing can be viewed as one such innovation. Several
theoretical perspectives were applied to the field of publishing including the theory of knowl-
edge built on processing, converting and sharing knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). More recently,
journal publishing has come to be viewed as a ‘public good’ meant to be shared freely with
the dissemination of academic knowledge (Suber, 2009), and open access was deemed the
best way of achieving global knowledge sharing (Chan & Costa, 2005). In its current profile,
open access is viewed by some researchers as an example of disruptive innovation through
the introduction of a new dynamic business model to the publishing industry (Allahar, 2018;
Christensen et al. (2015).

Open access publishing demystified

The introduction of open access journals was not accepted widely by the academic community
because the traditional journals were controlled by major publishers with established reputa-
tions for quality publications. Open access journals were viewed as low quality whose creden-
tials were far from acceptable (Ren, 2015). Further, the major issue was the requirement for
authors to pay for publication of articles that was a major departure from the norm and con-
sidered a suspect practice suggesting that low quality articles could be accepted in exchange
for payment. The mystification of open access publishing was increased by the publishers
offering different options of open access to authors such as:

• Gold - where the full content of the article is immediately available to any reader with
Internet access regardless of the journal’s business model. This is considered direct
open access, but may involve the payment of some charges such as pay-to-read.

• Diamond - which refers to open access journals that are totally free of charges because
costs are met by societies, sponsors, and universities.

• Green or delayed - is publishing an article in a subscription journal which is subse-

quently deposited in a repository becoming accessible after a publisher-imposed em-
bargo period of usually six to twelve months.

Academia Letters, December 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Haven Allahar, havenallahar4@gmail.com

Citation: Allahar, H. (2021). The Evolution of Academic Journal Publishing. Academia Letters, Article 4395.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4395.

2
 • Hybrid - where a journal operates on a subscription basis but offers the author an
open access option for a processing fee referred to in the literature as ‘double-dipping’
(Fecher and Wagner, 2016; Rodrigues et al., 2016).

In the context of the emergence of open access journals, an assessment of the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of this new publishing model was conducted to high-
light the main issues with the following results:
Strengths: reduced operating costs; new public policies in support of open access initia-
tives e.g. Plan S; promotion of digital archives; a more flexible peer review system. Thus, the
main strengths of open access were reduced production costs because it was internet-driven,
growing support from governments such as the promotion of Plan S in Europe (described
later), and the willingness to try more flexible peer review methods such as open review.
Weaknesses: requirement that an author or institution pays article processing charges
for publication; slow adoption by academic researchers; less profitable than subscriptions
model; emergence of predatory journals. The main weaknesses of the open access publishing
system are the pay-to-publish system which raises quality questions, and the slow acceptance
by university researchers tied to the notion of prestige associated with the traditional journals.
Opportunities: new technology applications for dissemination of research; higher ed-
ucation institutions and governments introduce support policies and systems; expansion of
retrieval services; new peer review methods. The clear opportunities presented by open ac-
cess are enhanced knowledge dissemination systems, and the growth of retrieval systems, such
as google scholar and institutional and subject repositories, that permit greater accessibility
to articles consistent with the theory of knowledge as a public good.
Threats: commercial publishers heighten competitive actions; flawed technology man-
agement utilized in preserving archives; restrictions imposed by copyright law and major pub-
lishers; questionable practices pursued by new journals seeking market share.
Despite these developments, the anticipated disruptions of traditional publishing by open
access journals are likely to be slow-moving, because of the response of the major publishers
of subscription journals to consolidate their influence based on prestige value as viewed by
authors, connections to universities, expanding digital repositories, and increased dependence
by universities (Ponte et al., 2017). However, it was anticipated that, with the increasing
adoption of open access publishing by the major journals, gold open access will become the
dominant model as an evolutionary step (Schimmer et al., 2015).

Academia Letters, December 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Haven Allahar, havenallahar4@gmail.com

Citation: Allahar, H. (2021). The Evolution of Academic Journal Publishing. Academia Letters, Article 4395.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4395.

3
The future of open access journals
This process apart, it is acknowledged that open access publishing is still at a developmental
stage and its disruptive potential will likely be an area of future research by academics (Allahar,
2017). In this context, an assessment of the impacts of technology on the publishing industry
produced interesting conclusions by researchers as follows:
Publishing technologies: Most journals still utilize the print mode but publishers are ex-
perimenting with semantic publishing technologies which facilitate openness and usability
The economics of publishing: Journal articles are subsidized while conference proceedings
are gaining in importance, and the use of institutional repositories and academic social net-
works are also growing
Liberation of knowledge: Politicians are demanding that publicly funded research be free
to readers and an example was the adoption of Plan S in Europe that became effective in
2020 and dictated that such publications be immediately available to readers and not protected
behind paywalls (Andersson, 2019)
Knowledge distribution as a disruptive force: The distribution of knowledge within the
social web will be viewed as disruptive of traditional values and systems
Globalization of knowledge: Journal publishing is increasingly rapidly in developing coun-
tries and open access will facilitate visibility of this publishing mode Mega journals: The rise
of interdisciplinary journals (mega journals) as opposed to discipline-based journals will pro-
vide greater disruption of the traditional publishing industry (Wellen, 2013)
Collaboration in knowledge creation: The facility provided to authors and readers through
online commentary on articles, such as Academia letters, will heightened cooperation in the
production of knowledge.
(Cope and Kalantzis, 2014; Eve, 2015; Fecher and Wagner, 2016; Lasko et al., 2017).

Conclusions
The article traced the evolution of the development of the journal publishing industry from the
stage of scholarly societies freely sharing knowledge; to the entry of commercial publishers
who acquired society journals as business propositions; to the rise of publishers of subscrip-
tion journals the cost of which were subsidized by universities for readers; to the emergence
of open access journals several of which impose fees on authors for making the articles free to
readers; and the discussion of future scenarios. The publishing industry is dynamic and many
open access models have arisen that present a menu of options for access, but the traditional
journals continue to be preferred by researchers for their prestige value. However, open ac-

Academia Letters, December 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Haven Allahar, havenallahar4@gmail.com

Citation: Allahar, H. (2021). The Evolution of Academic Journal Publishing. Academia Letters, Article 4395.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4395.

4
cess journals are gradually increasing in importance and credibility with great prospects for
growth. In this context, traditional journals are increasingly embracing the gold open access
publishing mode by offering authors the option to pay to for their articles to be published
as open access as well. This option mimics the open access author-pays system while also
publishing as a traditional journal and is not an innovation in the journal publishing system.

Academia Letters, December 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Haven Allahar, havenallahar4@gmail.com

Citation: Allahar, H. (2021). The Evolution of Academic Journal Publishing. Academia Letters, Article 4395.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4395.

5
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Corresponding Author: Haven Allahar, havenallahar4@gmail.com

Citation: Allahar, H. (2021). The Evolution of Academic Journal Publishing. Academia Letters, Article 4395.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4395.

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Academia Letters, December 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Haven Allahar, havenallahar4@gmail.com

Citation: Allahar, H. (2021). The Evolution of Academic Journal Publishing. Academia Letters, Article 4395.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4395.