What is Open Access?
Open Access allows everyone — regardless of institutional affiliation, geographic location, or financial means–to access the research relevant to their lives and communities.
Pathways to Open Access include:
- Publish in an open access journal
- Deposit a version of your article in an institutional or disciplinary repository
Who pays for Open Access?
Open access journals are financially supported in different ways. While many folks think of Article Processing Charges (APCs) as the primary means of OA publishing, less than 1/3 of OA journals listed in DOAJ charge APCs. Other means of funding OA publishing include endowments, crowdfunding, institutional or government subsidies, or association membership dues. The advantage of any of these funding models over the traditional subscription model is that the journal content is accessible to everyone, not just individual or institutional subscribers.
Selected Social Work Open Access Journals
The following are some of the open access journals related to social work. To find more OA journals, please go to the Open Access Social Work Guide, created by Kimberly Pendell, Portland State University Library.
- Advances in Social Work Peer-reviewed articles on current issues, challenges, and responses facing social work practice and education. Full open access
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health An open access, peer-reviewed online journal that provides an international platform for communication on child and adolescent mental health across different cultural backgrounds. Full open access
- Columbia Social Work Review an annual peer-reviewed journal for up-and-coming scholars in the field of social work to share their research on social work practice, education, research, policy and theory Full open access
- Critical Social Work Aims to refine ideas about the individual and community, clarifying the relationship between interpersonal relations and institutional structures and identifying actions that promote both individual and community well-being. Full open access
- International Journal of School Social Work Expanding the quantitative and qualitative research base supporting school social work services throughout the world.
- Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Policy and Practice Intersectionalities is a peer-reviewed, open access journal sponsored by Memorial University’s School of Social Work. The journal is international in scope, and publishes articles relating to social work analysis, research, polity, and practice. Full open access
- Journal of Comparative Social Work JCSW publishes articles on subjects of importance for social work with a special emphasis on comparative research. Full open access
- Journal of Family Strengths The Journal of Family Strengths (JFS), formerly Family Preservation Journal, is an open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed online journal devoted to presenting theoretical, practice, and evaluation articles on the strengths perspective in family-centered practice to improve services that promote and sustain family systems. Full open access
- Journal of Indigenous Social Development Formerly the Journal of Indigenous Voices in Social Work. JISD publishes on education, practice, research and policy making relevant to indigenous peoples’ social and economic well-being. Full open access
- Journal of Social Inclusion Publishes articles that contribute to current knowledge and understanding of the social processes that marginalize individuals, families and communities. Full open access
- Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics Examines the ethical and values issues that affect and are interwoven with social work practice, research, and theory development. Full open access
- Social Work and Society: International Online Journal: Dedicated to critical analysis of the relationship between social work, social policy, the state and economic forces. Full open access
Open Social Work 