If the Journal is Owned by a Third Party Uninterested in Moving to Open Access...
If the journal is owned by a third-party that is not interested in accommodating your editorial board’s desire for open access dissemination, you will typically have little recourse beyond terminating your relationship with the journal and pursuing other publishing options.
In this case, your editorial board should review any agreement you may have entered with the journal’s publisher to determine whether you are contractually constrained from starting or participating in a competing journal. If your editorial contract has such a clause, you should seek qualified legal advice before proceeding further.
If qualified legal advice indicates that your editor’s agreement with the publisher prevents you from starting or participating in a new journal, then the editorial group’s options might be limited to:
- Renewing negotiations with the publisher in an attempt to gain partial concessions that would increase the openness of the journal short of comprehensive open access. Such concessions might include broader author rights, such as more progressive self-archiving policies.
- Resigning from the journal’s editorial board and withholding any future support for the journal (e.g., as authors, peer reviewers, etc.). Again, your behavior will need to conform with any qualified legal advice.
If these options are either unappealing, or not possible, there are still many other ways to take action for open access.