What Does It Mean to Be Truly Open Access?
Abstract
In 2016, when my colleagues and I founded Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal, we spent several sessions making mind maps to generate and settle upon a name for the journal. “Refract” is where we landed, aptly reflecting our aim to break up and reallocate how we produce, present, and grapple with the dissemination of ideas. The element of the title that did not require extensive discussion was “open access.” We instinctively knew that we wanted the journal’s content, contributors, and readership to be as broad and inclusive as possible. Because of that, we prioritized publishing on a digital platform. Digital publishing is an inherent characteristic of open access. But what exactly is open access? How does it encourage innovative scholarship? How does it perpetuate or dissolve academic gatekeeping?