The open access journal that I am going to talk about is called Journal of landscape architecture (JOLA), as I am a researcher in the landscape architectural field, this journal would be an excellent source of information and a place to publish papers and articles.
It is considered as an academic journal of the European Council of landscape architecture schools; thus, it is internationally oriented. Their publisher is “Taylor and Francis” where many articles from different journals published there.Although, I am interested in cultural landscape, and I have published in other journals of the Geo heritage aspect; this journal interests me the most as it is an open access, where its aim to support and stimulate scholarly debate in landscape architecture and any related field. Another interesting feature of this journal that they publish three issues a year, which gives the scholar more opportunities to publish and obtain more knowledge.
Their goal is to seek and contribute to global perspectives through four sections, as they describe it “ the articles” which features the work and research of both the academic and professional practice world; the “Under the Sky” which fosters research of critical analysis of built projects; the “Thinking Eye” focus on work of experimentation; and the “Review” section presents reflection on recent literature and conferences relevant to landscape architecture. Each section tackles an aspect that influence the field in its own way. the most valuable for me, that they categorize the scholarly work within these four sections to make the search easier, in addition to their point of view that all work is important and should be featured.
Open access concept (OA) refer to the process of making peer-reviewed scholarly research freely accessible to everyone without having to pay for it. As this journal do, their goal to give the option for the author and the reader the free open access to any article or information for better practice through their publisher. Nevertheless, to help you maximize the reach and impact of scholar’s research. Where the best goal is to help policymakers put the research into action. All within keeping their quality while processing the work of, peer review, through anonymous expert referees.
I do believe in the power of an open access journal, as a researcher from the Middle East, where access to such research works and information is harder compared to the easiness of access as a student at Virginia tech university at the united states. This privilege encourages me to approach only open access journals for publishing to benefit my fellow colleagues in other unfortunate countries with minimal access and to spread knowledge and experience through it.