Published as: Ševkušić M., Kosanović B. and Šipka P. (2020) Serbian Citation Index: The sustainability of a business model based on partnership between a non-profit web publisher and journal owners, ELPUB 2020 24rd edition of the International Conference on Electronic Publishing, Apr 2020, Doha, Qatar. https://dx.doi.org/10.4000/proceedings.elpub.2020.16.
Serbian Citation Index:
The sustainability of a business model based on partnership between a non-profit web publisher and journal owners
Centre for Evaluation in Education and Sciencei
Abstract: The paper presents an in-depth analysis of the innovative business model underlying the Serbian Citation Index (SCIndeks), as a local Open Access publishing platform in Serbia. It explains the role of the platform in the local publishing ecosystem and its international relevance in terms of interoperability, multilingualism, promotion of local research, development of good publishing practice and evaluation indicators, demonstrating that the only way to ensure a sustainable future of local journals is devising publishing models adjusted to the local context and needs relying on extensive research and receptiveness for global trends. The paper focuses on the period after 2015, when the business model was changed from a publicly funded project to a platform maintained in a partnership between a web publisher and journal owners, marked by extensive guidance and strict quality control. The results of the comparisons between the old and the new model and between SCIndeks and similar platforms indicate that such a model may be sustainable and even superior to the publicly funded model of journal publishing, at least in some socio-political and academic environments.
