Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

The International Journal of the Commons is devoted to understanding and improving institutions for the management of resources that are (or could be) held or used collectively. Many will refer to such resources and their systems of usage as 'commons'. The environment may be the natural world used by humans or it may be the social realities created by humans, such as the Internet as a commons. The journal aims at forming a forum for researchers working on resources that can be or are used and managed collectively. The journal was set up on the initiative of the International Association for the Study of the Commons. The editors of the IJC welcome contributions from all scientific disciplines, from practitioners and policy makers. Submissions will be judged upon their quality, methodology, approach and suitability for the journal.

 

Section Policies

General submissions for the journal

Editors
  • Erling Berge, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • Tine Moor, University of Utrecht
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Book reviews

The section will present reviews of books exploring issues relevant for the study of the commons

Editors
  • Erling Berge, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • Tine Moor, University of Utrecht
Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Introduction to the Issue

In this section the guest editors of the issue define the scope of the special issue and give an overview of the included articles

Editors
  • Erling Berge, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • Tine Moor, University of Utrecht
Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Articles issue no 01

Editors
  • Erling Berge, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • Tine Moor, University of Utrecht
  • Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University
  • Frank Van Laerhoven, Indiana University
Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Articles issue no 02

Editors
  • Erling Berge, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • Fikret Berkes, Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba
  • Tine Moor, University of Utrecht
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Articles issue no 03

Editors
  • Giangiacomo Bravo, Dipartimento di Studi Sociali, Università di Brescia
  • Tine Moor, University of Utrecht
Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Articles issue no 04

The topic for the section is payments for environmental services.

Editors
  • Erling Berge, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • Andreas Neef, University of Hohenheim
Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

The practice of peer review is to ensure that good science is published. It is an objective process at the heart of good scholarly publishing and is carried out on all reputable scientific journals. Our referees therefore play a vital role in achieving high standards of the IJC and all manuscripts are peer reviewed following the procedure outlined below:

1. The Editor-in-Chief assesses all manuscripts on receipt. Exceptional manuscripts may be accepted at this stage. Some may be rejected immediately if they are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, or are outside the aims and scope of the IJC. No journal manuscripts are accepted based only upon submission of an abstract.
2. Those that meet the minimum criteria are passed on to at least three members of the journal's international Editorial Review Board of experts in fields specifically matching the topis covered by the journal. Papers are reviewed, double-blind, in full publishable form; the referees remain anonymous throughout the process. Referees are matched to the paper according to their expertise.

Reviewers are required to provide the author with comments intended to improve the content, style, and other issues which should improve the quality of the article.

To help authors produce manuscripts of an acceptable standard, and to minimise the need for later revisions, we have published Guidelines for Scientific Writing in the IJC which must be used. Please see our section on ?Author Guidelines?below. The IJC only accepts articles written in good academic English. Authors can be requested to send their article to a language editor before the article enters the reviewing process.

 

Publication Frequency

The International Journal of the Commons will publish at least one issue per year. Issues will be identified by volume and number.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Mission statement

The International Journal of the Commons (IJC) is a new journal set-up by the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC). As an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed open-access journal, the IJC is dedicated to furthering our understanding of institutions for use and management of resources that are (or could be) enjoyed collectively.

Using resources collectively is often believed to be problematic. In pratice however, there are many cases to be found of situations where common pool resources are used in a sustainable way. In this journal we want to offer room to both sides of the debate, and we hope our interdisciplinary approach will contribute to creating a more balanced view of how common pool institutions actually work.

The IJC publishes peer-reviewed articles and book reviews. The editors will take both separate articles and proposals for special thematic issues into consideration. Please register via this website to submit your proposal and to receive updates about the publication of new articles.

 

Support our journal

Dear reader,

How can you support the International Journal of the Commons?


  • Register as a reader via the home page of the journal, fill in all your personal details. At some point we might contact you to contribute as a reviewer.

  • Announce the journal and distribute the URL to your colleagues and students. Encourage them to register as a reader, so that we can send them updates on new issues.

  • Get in touch with your institute's library and ensure that the journal is known to the library's search engine.

  • If you have an interesting publication on commons coming up, submit it to the journal. Consider the journal for special issues on a commons-theme of a conference you're involved in.

  • Contribute to the journal financially. The journal is for a very large part dependent on the voluntary work of a large number of people. But some jobs simply require funding. If you are willing to contribute financially, please get in touch with Erling Berge (erling.berge@svt.ntnu.no) for more details.

  • Become a member of the IASC, the organisation that is responsible for a large part of the financial support of the journal. Go to http://www.iascp.org/membership.html for more information.


Many thanks for supporting our journal!

The editors

 

About the IASC

IASC is an association devoted to understanding and improving institutions for the management of environmental resources that are (or could be) held or used collectively. Many will refer to such resources and their systems of usage as "commons". Research on the commons is relevant to both teaching and policy discussions of resource governance and ought to be easily available to students, practitioners, and professionals around the world, particularly in developing countries.

IASC provides a platform for researchers and practitioners in developing and industrialized countries to come together, across disciplinary lines, and share knowledge of how common used and enjoyed resource are managed. Most of the research reported at our conferences concerns natural resources. Currently, this research is scattered among 10-15 journals, all of which are costly to get. However, a majority of our members come from academic institutions in developing countries. Such institutions often have fewer resources devoted to journal subscriptions and fewer resources available to pay for printing of journal papers. Papers published on commons issues need to be in the public domain, freely available to all, and in addition, scholars should not be charged any author fee to cover costs of publishing.

Therefore IASC wants to publish a journal presenting the best of the research on commons in an open access environment.

Support our journal!