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The 6th Annual Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon)  took place on 30th June and 1st July 2011 in Berlin. Two days of presentations, workshops and exchange of ideas brought together individuals and organizations interested in all aspects of open knowledge. One of the speakers at the conference was Jacek Ciesielski, General Manager of Versita, who delivered a speech on the importance and impact of professional marketing services and innovative technology solutions on Open Access journals.

In the presentation “Open Access, but Professionally”, Jacek Ciesielski pointed out that OA journals need not to be poor cousins of commercially published journals – they should enjoy the same sophisticated online publishing technology and powerful marketing tools used by the subscription-based journals of large international publishers. Readers do expect OA journals to offer the same range of functionalities, and journals should respond to these expectations so as not to be regarded as inferior, also in terms of scientific merits. Uploading articles to the Internet is not enough and without investment in wider distribution channels and promotion, journals will fail to make an impact. Versita Open, by offering a range of publishing services, is a one of the vendors helping Open Access journals to achieve visibility they deserve.

OKCon 2011 is organized annually by The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF), a not-for-profit organization founded in 2004 and dedicated to promoting open knowledge in all its forms. The presentation of Jacek was a part of the workshop dedicated to open science and open data in scientific research.

Full presentation “Open Access, but Professionally” can be viewed here.