About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Nordic Perspectives on Open Science (NOPOS) is a journal on all aspects of Open Science, such as open access, open research data, citizen science, open educational resources, open source software, open methods, open peer review. The journal focuses on the Nordic and Baltic countries, highlighting news, experiences, experiments, policies, research and viewpoints on Open Science from or pertaining to the region. 

Review process

For all manuscripts submitted in NOPOS, an editor checks that the manuscript complies with the Submission guidelines and screens the manuscript for plagiarism. If a manuscript has been published elsewhere (including preprint servers, blogs, etc), the author must notify the journal about it at submission. 

Manuscripts in sections Viewpoints, Notes and Case studies undergo editorial review by at least two members of the editorial team. If the editorial team lacks expertise on the topic in question, an external reviewer may be invited. Section Articles is closed for submissions from 2023 and until further notice. 

In 2023, NOPOS introduced a formal peer review process: only manuscripts submitted in section Research articles go through a formal peer-review process involving at least two external reviewers. An author can suggest reviewers at submission. An editor selects suitable reviewers and sends out invitations that contain the title and abstract of the submission and a suggested deadline. Reviewers are given one week to decide whether they would like to take on the task, and, on average, 4 weeks to complete the review. The editor will contact the author with the review results within 7 weeks from submission. 

Note that section Research articles does not accept previously published articles that have been through a formal peer review process. If a manuscript has been through peer review elsewhere, but not published, the author is asked to provide information about the review recommendations.

NOPOS has non-blinded peer reviews as a default: the author’s identity is known to the reviewers, and the reviewers’ identities are known to the author. Both the author and the reviewers have the possibility to opt out of the non-blinded process. The author can ask, at submission, that their identity is not disclosed to reviewers. If a reviewer wishes not to disclose their identity, they must inform the editor about it when answering the invitation to review. The names of the reviewers and the reviews themselves will not be published. A review text remains the property of the reviewer.

Read more about the review process in Reviewer guidelines.

Publication Frequency

We will publish continuously, opening the annual issue in January and closing it in December. Special issues may be contemplated in conjunction with special conferences, projects etc.

Journal History

The Nordic network on Open Access, a semi-formal co-operation between important OA actors in the Nordic Countries has been instrumental in setting up this journal. Nordic Perspectives on Open Science is in some part a successor to ScieCom Info with its Nordic-Baltic outlook, but aims to cover a wider field of "open".

The editorial team of NOPOS consists of employees of higher education institutions in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The journal is published by Septentrio Academic Publishing at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.