What Does It Take to Run an Open Access Journal: Panel Discussion

What does it really cost to make scholarly knowledge openly available? In recognition of the 2026 Open Access Week theme, “The Cost of Knowledge,” this hybrid panel discussion brings together three editorial practitioners to discuss the financial, human, and organizational costs of sustaining open scholarly publishing.

Drawing on their own experiences, panelists Jocelyn Dawson (Director of Journals, University of Pennsylvania Press), Nicholas Herman (Lawrence J. Schoenberg Curator at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies and co-editor of Manuscript Studies), and Oonjee Oh (Doctoral Candidate, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and past Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Nursing Doctoral Students Scholarship) will examine the often-invisible labor that makes open access possible—from administration, peer review coordination, copyediting, and production to technical maintenance, outreach, and community-building.

The discussion will consider how different models of open access distribute costs and responsibilities among editors, authors, institutions, libraries, and scholarly communities. Panelists will reflect on the tensions between the ideals of open access and the material realities of maintaining sustainable journals, as well as strategies for recognizing, valuing, and supporting the people whose work keeps these publications running.

The panel invites participants to think critically about what “free” access means—and whose labor makes that freedom possible.