Overview

GSW is managed by its founding organizations and other participating publishers.  These publishers are not-for-profit scientific societies or organizations, university presses or commercial entities who agree to work within the GSW framework. The founding publishers are among the oldest and largest not-for-profit geoscience organizations in the world, with a long history of successful publication of basic and applied research results and public education materials.  

The overall goal of GSW is to continue to make geoscience and allied scientific results available to the entire scientific community and the general public. With that in mind, GSW has striven to make it as easy as possible to allow scientific publishers of any size to become part of the online digital publishing community while providing for the continued existence of GSW.

Key Publisher Benefits

All scientific publishers have the mission to disseminate information about the science as broadly as possible. GSW helps to fulfill this mission and more; it helps both individual publishers achieve online success and the geosciences as a whole to achieve a higher level of public visibility. Among the key benefits to each participant are:

• Greater journal visibility
• Increased readership & circulation
• Economies of scale for services
• Economic compensation for content
• Staying competitive in the online environment
• Attracting and retaining authors
• Participation in a broader "Earth Science Mission"

Requirements

A society or other independent publisher, including the Founding Organizations, wanting to make its journal(s) available online through GeoScienceWorld must:

• meet GSW’s standards for inclusion (i.e., relevance, quality, etc.);
• sign a non-exclusive electronic licensing agreement with GSW with an initial term of three years;
• supply a digital version of its journal(s) on a timely basis in a format specified by GSW, for which a publisher can either produce the electronic file on its own, have a GSW-approved vendor do so, or provide the links to existing posted files; and,
• be a member of the Publishers International Linking Association for CrossRef participation (enabling article links), or permit GSW to enroll them.

Each participating publisher is encouraged, but not required, to appoint a representative to the Advisory Council that elects the GSW Board of Directors and acts as a communication link between GSW and participating organizations, and to offer subscriptions to their printed journals to GSW’s online subscribers at a reduced price.

For more detailed information or questions contact:  

Don Hemenway
Executive Director, GeoScienceWorld
hemenway{at}geoscienceworld.org
703-671-4791