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Abstract

Human Technology is an interdisciplinary, scholarly journal publishing innovative, peer-reviewed articles exploring the issues and challenges within human-technology interaction and the human role in all areas of our ICT-infused societies.Human Technology, published by the Agora Center, University of Jyväskylä, is distributed without a charge online. (Björk & Solomon, 2014) and providing important alternative routes to researchers' access to the literature in many disciplines. This editorial only discusses the gold model of open-access publishing, not the green model (traditional journal publishing and a parallel repository). 1One of the reasons for the spread of open-access academic journal publishing in the last decade or so undoubtedly is technological development. Without the printing and fulfillment costs associated with a tangible journal, digital journal publishing is less expensive because the necessary infrastructure already exists at many universities and research institutes. More significant, however, are the recent policies of universities and funding agencies recommending or even mandating open access to results from funded research. For instance, the European Commission recommends wide dissemination of publicly funded research by means of open-access publishing. 2Another reason for the increasing popularity of open-access publishing involves commercial and economic forces. Although university libraries have always had to be fiscally selective in the journal titles available to their patrons (see, e.g., Harnad et al., 2004), recent years have seen librarians making difficult choices regarding which journals to carry. Rising subscription prices for traditional journals have resulted in many universities-even in wealthy, developed countries-no longer being able to afford to offer in their libraries all the journals that researchers need or that have been available in past decades.Thus, open-access publishing is available to a large number of researchers, students, and those interested in research. Open access makes it possible for researchers who work in developing countries to participate in the worldwide community of researchers communicating and collaborating globally. Pertti Hurme Department of Communication University of Jyväskylä FinlandAcademic Journal Publishing and Open Access 95As a result of growing interest in improving widespread and easy access to research reporting, traditional journal publishing can be regarded as being in a crisis (Van Noorden, 2013), with a certain tension being felt between the traditional business model of journal publishing and academia. At a time when profits of commercial publishers are high (Björk & Solomon, 2014), researchers can feel that their voluntary work, both as authors and as reviewers, is used for the benefit of publishing houses. Open-access journal publishing can be a solution to some of the concerns regarding the traditional model of publishing in an era of immediacy brought about by technology. Models for Funding Open Access JournalsFundamen...