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Open scholarly publishers are an important new sector in the publishing community, but many lack experience in operating academic journals or performing editorial tasks and responsibilities. Extensive efforts have been made by PKP (http://pkp.sfu.ca), INASP (http://inasp.info), KNUST (http://publishing.knust.edu.gh/), and others to build the capacity of open publishers, through in-person training, web-based documentation, and online technical support. The Scholarly Publishing Education Project (SPEP) takes this support further, providing unique learning opportunities for open publishers from around the world.

The SPEP is developing a new learning platform for open publishers, including journal managers, editors, reviewers, and authors. The platform will not only include new courses, but also provide personal profiles, blogs, related information resources, and discussion forums. Based on "connected learning" model, which allows for a more collaborative, social learning process, students will not only learn from the course facilitators and course content, but also from one another.

This presentation outlines the development of the SPEP, its goals and objectives, target audience, current status, and upcoming plans. If you are involved with open scholarly publishing, you'll want to attend this session to find out about this important new learning opportunity for you and your colleagues and staff.

open publishing; education; capacity-building