1. Full name
| Débora Maria Moura Medeiros |
2. Global Voices sections to which you contribute
| Lingua |
3. Publication date of your latest post or translation
| Date: – 13/3/2013 |
4. Title of project
| The Global Voices Journal for Citizen Media |
5. Project representative (person who will sign award agreement and receive funds)
| Débora Medeiros and Elisa Thiago |
6. Describe the proposed project as clearly as possible in five sentences or less
| This project proposes the creation of a multilingual, multicultural journal to which scholars and researchers whose work focuses on citizen media can converge. In a spirit similar to that of Global Voices, The Global Voices Journal for Citizen Media aims at being a platform for scholars and researchers everywhere, thus accepting articles written in all languages available in our Lingua sites. Housed in the same platform, the idea is that the journal will benefit from Global Voices’s identity and that it will interact with its body of volunteer authors, translators and activists, as well as with its readership, in such a way as to become a gain for all. The journal will make use of a renewed selection methodology, based on the choices made through voting, with the aim of establishing those articles that will be translated in their entirety so as to be included in the journal. With two editions per year, The Global Voices Journal for Citizen Media would be hosted on Global Voices’s servers, with an intuitive layout based on WordPress, where all editions would be made available. |
7. What aspect or need of Global Voices does your project address?
| The need to secure a journal engaged specifically with the topics related to citizen media; the need to familiarize our Global Voices audience with the academic production on citizen media and, conversely, introduce a wider scholarly public to the existing Global Voices websites, thus strengthening the bonds established with the academic community during the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2012. |
8. How would the project further Global Voices’ mission?
| In the same spirit of Global Voices, which aims at amplifying the voices of underrepresented people everywhere, The Global Voices Journal for Citizen Media would decentralize the flow of information by showcasing the work done by researchers not only in the main knowledge centers, but also in the developing nations, thus working as a bridge between scholars all over the world. |
9. What is innovative about your project?
| The project is innovative in the way it proposes to introduce a process of collaborative selection of articles to be published, with a direct choice from our readers and community members. It is also innovative in the way it would encourage the open access culture among scholars, as well as an increase in language diversity in the academic world. |
10. Which section of Global Voices would your project most benefit (if applicable)?
| All sections should benefit from the project since its ultimate goal is to improve the quality of GV’s ongoing conversation as regards the themes related to citizen media – which is, after all, the focus of the work GV does. |
11. How would the wider GV community utilize and/or participate in your project?
| The journal would introduce GV readers, as well as GV volunteer authors, translators and activists, to the academic production on citizen media thus stimulating a broader and more productive debate within the community as a whole. |
12. List the other GV community members, if any, who will be actively working on the project. Please specify what role each person will play in the development of the project.
| At the moment, the only people we rely on, as volunteers who will surely be involved with the creation and maintenance of the journal are its proponents: Débora Medeiros and Elisa S Thiago. Both proponents would take part in the process of establishing the journal and on administrative tasks, as well as observe the selection process and help with the publishing process at each new edition. |
13. What additional resources or expertise, if any, would you need to complete the project?
| The journal would require at least one senior academic expert in the field of citizen media, something essential, especially for a new journal. Similarly, the journal would welcome volunteers to carry out the following functions, (based on the manual available on http://www.doaj.org/bpguide/): Chief Editor, Associate Editor, Editorial Assistant, Managing Editor, Production Editor (requires solid IT skills), Layout Editor, Typesetter, Technical support person, Marketer (this might be a role that several or all members of the team share). These functions could all be shared among volunteers on the basis of a common, shared working agenda. All members of the GV community that feel they could fill one of these positions or bring new perspectives to the project are welcome to join us! |
14. Describe the prospects for sustainability/continuation once the innovation grant funding ends
| There should be an effort on the part of GV, and before the grant is fully spent and comes to an end, towards finding other means of financial source to sustain the journal into the future. This financial source could be sought among the regular GV supporters – or others – , a NGO or entrepreneurial initiative which would see in the journal a relevant achievement for their own practices. |
15. Please specify the timeline for the project, from start to finish
| Semester 1: Creation of the website and of the technical infrastructure (OJS platform) for publishing the first edition; registering the journal with entities such as ISSN. Semester 2: First call for papers, selection process of the articles for the first edition, translation of articles in other languages than English among Lingua volunteers, publishing the first edition (with articles in their original idioms and English) at the end of semester 2, with subsequent promotion of the journal in other academic and non-academic platforms. Semester 3: Evaluation of the first edition, improvements, call for papers for the second edition, selection process of the articles for the second edition, translation of articles in other languages than English among Lingua volunteers, publishing the second edition (with articles in their original idioms and English) at the end of semester 3, with subsequent promotion of the journal in other academic and non-academic platforms. Semester 4: Call for papers for the third edition, followed by the same process involved in the production, publishing and promotion of the previous two editions. With just one more year of budget assured by the grant, the journal will start to reach out to new partnerships and financial alternatives for the following years. |
16. Provide a detailed budget of up to US$5,000 for project costs. (Please try and present as accurate a budget as possible: applicants are encouraged to submit budgets for less than the maximum amount as smaller grants allow us to fund more projects)
| The guide “Starting an Open Access Journal: a step-by-step guide” (https://www.martineve.com/2012/07/10/starting-an-open-access-journal-a-step-by-step-guide-part-1/) describes the following yearly costs: • Web hosting: $60/year (in case the journal cannot be hosted on GV’s servers) • DOI numbers/CrossRef membership: $275/year. Alternatively, it is possible to join the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and get CrossRef membership included in their fee of €75/year (including 50 DOI numbers) • Staff work to set up the journal; • Administrative work to keep the journal running: management of the publication system, technical support, networking and publicizing of the journal in academic and non-academic circles. These costs should be multiplied by three, in order to ensure a three-year budget for the journal, sufficient not only for its creation but also for its maintenance, while other funding alternatives for the subsequent period are considered. |
Yay! Happy you got this grant, good luck to the Cit J Journal!