Read about the experiences of VIU faculty who have published in OA journals:

I found the idea of OA to be desirable so that anyone could read my published work with or without university library privileges, so that I could share my work freely to colleagues and to members of the wider public, and so that I could count on my work being easy to find using familiar search engines like Google.

I’ve had three different experiences this year with OA publication. After going through the estimator for my first article, a 40% discount still landed me at a daunting $2500USD prospect in one journal. Another experience was similar in process and prospect of cost. Since none of these articles was funded directly for publication-related costs, it meant having to explore other options. I like the idea of the VIUSpace and other ‘green OA’ options like making a version available on my own, although the journals I considered required an embargo before I can make them available this way. 

Ultimately, I found that SAGE offered a $0 Open Access route that I could take. Of my three articles, the first two are available now. The first was OA for a brief period as a gesture of the publisher for a special edition. During that period it had a steady stream of views. That slowed once it ‘closed’ again. The fully OA article has had a relatively steady view count and, importantly, has received attention from people in many less wealthy universities or academic/research environments around the world. That was particularly encouraging and nice to see.

- Dr. Ravindra Mohabeer, VIU Media Studies