About
About Aperio
Aperio, a venture of the University of Virginia Library, draws upon the strengths of the University to increase open access to knowledge for a global audience in a variety of formats—journals, monographs, open educational resources, etc.
Aperio publishes discipline-leading, high-quality open access journals that are freely and immediately available online. By removing price and permission barriers for readers everywhere we increase the dissemination, visibility, accessibility, and impact of research and scholarship across the disciplines.
We recognize that no institution can afford to provide access to all the literature that readers need. The high cost of journal subscriptions not only functions to artificially limit the accessibility of articles, it also decreases their potential research impact. Therefore, we make all of our articles freely available with little or no restrictions on reuse. This will increase the dissemination and impact of our authors' work, foster collaboration among researchers and scholars, and promote further inquiry.
Aperio’s transdisciplinary Advisory Board, comprised of well-respected UVA scholars, bolsters the academic integrity of our press. Journals are edited by distinguished experts in their respective fields. These publications are held to disciplinary standards including rigorous peer review.
Goals
- Aperio publishes open access journals that reflect the various fields of knowledge represented at UVA, including new and interdisciplinary lines of inquiry.
- Aperio works towards the decommodification of research and scholarship; our journals have no author-facing charges and are published under a Creative Commons license, making them free for readers everywhere to access and use.
- Aperio maintains high academic standards for our journals and ensures that they are edited and produced in a rigorous manner that adheres to disciplinary norms.
- Aperio supports both experimental and traditional forms of scholarly publishing. Our publications are professionally produced, widely disseminated, and digitally preserved.
Diversity Statement
Aperio, as a service of the University of the Virginia, shares the university's core values of ethics, integrity, academic excellence, and diversity. Therefore, we are committed to promoting diverse voices in our publications, including those who have been traditionally underrepresented in scholarly publishing. We encourage editorial members associated with our publishing service to actively seek out board members, reviewers, and authors in underrepresented populations and heterogeneity among: race, gender, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, ability, age, and class.
Aperio Press Leadership
Aperio Management Team
Aperio is run by members of the University of Virginia Library and led by the Management Team. The Managing Editor is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the press. The Management Team focuses on Aperio’s strategy, operations, and finances, and Fulcrum provides most of our technology and production services.
- Dave Ghamandi, Managing Editor, Aperio and Open Publishing Librarian
- Jennifer Roper, Director of Digital Strategies and Scholarly Communication
Aperio Advisory Board
Our Advisory Board is comprised of University of Virginia faculty who are active scholars and researchers in their respective disciplines. This board helps ensure the scholarly integrity of Aperio’s catalog by evaluating journal, book, and other proposals made to Aperio. Proposals are peer reviewed using experts from outside our university before being considered by the Advisory Board.
- Fiona Greenland (chair), Associate Professor of Sociology
- Natasha Heller, Associate Professor, Religious Studies
- Jonathan Kropko, Assistant Professor, Data Science
- John O’Brien, Professor of English
- Bryan Cook, Professor of Special Education
Practices and Policies
Scope
A venture of the University of Virginia Library, Aperio draws upon the strengths of the University to increase open access to knowledge for a global audience in a variety of formats. By making all of our publications open access—and removing price and permission barriers for readers everywhere—we increase the dissemination, visibility, accessibility, and impact of research and scholarship across the disciplines. We currently support the open access publishing of journals, monographs, edited volumes, open textbooks and other educational resources, and will consider other publication types well. Aperio’s publishing scope reflects the various fields of knowledge, including new and interdisciplinary lines of inquiry.
Currently, Aperio is accepting proposals from University of Virginia faculty, staff, and students.
Open Access and Copyright
Aperio’s publications are all immediately available open access. Our content is published using Creative Commons Licenses, which guarantee that the copyright remains with the author while allowing the work to be freely and immediately available to readers.
Peer Review
Aperio provides its journal editors with access to and guidance on the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) guidelines, and our editors have agreed to adhere to them.
In accordance with these guidelines, each journal maintains high academic standards and sets its own peer review process in accordance with disciplinary norms. We offer the option of open peer review as well. Any content that is not peer-reviewed will be clearly marked on the journal website. The peer review process for other publications will be noted individually.
Indexing
Our content is assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOI). This allows for easier referencing and tracking of citations by the publishing and research communities. We work with editors to ensure that journals are registered with as many appropriate indexes as possible. Article-level metadata are openly available for indexing and harvesting via OAI-PMH as well. Individual journals may list additional indexes where their articles are found.
Archiving
To ensure the future availability of our publications, we utilize CLOCKSS. The University of Virginia is a CLOCKSS node and a member of its Board of Directors.
Data Sharing
We encourage Aperio’s authors to make their related research objects open access in addition to the written publications. Open data, specifically, enables better review and replication of one’s research. It also increases one’s research impact, allows for greater and faster scientific progress, and more opportunities for collaboration.
We urge authors to use the CC0 license when depositing research data, to make it part of the public domain and enable greater reuse.
Researchers at the University of Virginia have access to the institution’s data repository Libra Data.
Researchers outside of the University of Virginia are encouraged to deposit their data in an appropriate institutional or disciplinary repository.
Journal editors may contact us about creating their own journal-specific data repository within UVa’s Libra Data. This will ensure better linking between research publications and related datasets.
Costs
Aperio’s publications are always free for readers everywhere. In alignment with our mission, we have worked with our partners to eliminate any need for article processing charges in all our journals.