As Open Access advocates, we are excited to launch FlourishOA, a new online service that helps put “open” into action.

The rapid growth of Open Access (OA) publishing presents novel opportunities and challenges for researchers and publishers alike. There is a growing demand for quantitative tools to assist users in assessing the reputation, cost-effectiveness, and overall publication quality of OA journals. FlourishOA provides a data-driven web app that enables authors to discover relevant and reputable OA venues and thus maximize the impact of their scholarly work. As of today, the FlourishOA database contains information on nearly 6,000 journals, and is growing daily.

By aggregating information on article publication charges (APCs) and quantitative measures of journal impact, we empower researchers to identify credible OA journals that best fit their publication needs. Our goal is to provide members of the OA community with the tools they need to separate legitimate OA publications from unethical and predatory publishers. Our interactive data visualization demonstrates our algorithms in action, and provides valuable insight for researchers and funding bodies seeking to evaluate the merits of alternative OA venues.

In addition to helping scholarly authors find appropriate OA venues, FlourishOA will provide researchers in the area of scholarly communication with an unprecedented depth of data on Open Access journal pricing and impact. Our entire database is freely accessible through an easy-to-use API. By providing ready access to detailed economic and impact data, we aim to foster quantitative approaches to OA journal evaluation, and help solve the problem of information asymmetry in the burgeoning OA marketplace. Additionally, we hope that by creating a new level of transparency regarding the prices and impact of OA journals, FlourishOA will encourage price competition among OA publishers, further lowering the costs that authors face to make their work openly available to the world.

Check out our website and spread the word! If you have questions, please feel free to contact us at: FlourishOA@gmail.com

FlourishOA is funded by a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The members of the FlourishOA team are Jevin West, Carl Bergstrom, Dale Coleman, Ashley Farley, Bree Norlander, and Patrick Spieker.