As part of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) community, we affirm the C4DISC principles and its mission to:

●      eliminate barriers to participation, extend equitable opportunities across all stakeholders, and ensure that our practices and policies promote equitable treatment and do not allow, condone, or result in discrimination;

●      create and maintain an environment that respects diverse traditions, heritages, and experiences;

●      promote diversity in all staff, volunteers, and audiences, including full participation in programs, policy formulation, and decision-making;

●      raise awareness about career opportunities in our industry to groups who are currently underrepresented in the workforce;

●      support our community in achieving diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility within their organizations.

The C4DISC principles have now been adopted by 160 organizations, and the coalition is supported by over 40 members and partners.

In principle and in practice, collectively, C4DISC member and partner organizations value and seek accessibility, diversity, and equitable and inclusive practices within the scholarly communications ecosystem. Our goal is to promote involvement, innovation, and expanded access to leadership opportunities that maximize engagement across identity groups and professional levels. Identity groups include and are not limited to:

●      ability/disability

●      age

●      appearance

●      citizenship status

●      ethnicity

●      family and other caring responsibilities

●      gender and gender identity

●      genetic information

●      geographic location

●      military/veteran status

●      nationality/national origin or tribal membership

●      political beliefs

●      pregnancy/parental status

●      professional career/education level

●      race/color

●      religion/belief/value system

●      sex

●      sexual orientation

●      socio-economic background/social class

Collectively we will continue to provide leadership and commit time and resources to accomplish these objectives, while serving as a model to our members and to individuals and organizations engaged in ensuring accessibility, diversity, and equitable and inclusive practices.

Definitions

Accessibility enables everyone—whether or not they have a disability— to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services in an equally integrated and equally effective manner. Organizations shall take appropriate measures to ensure access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, to transportation, to information and communications, including information and communications technologies and systems, and to other facilities and services open or provided to all. 

Diversityrefers to the composition of a group of people from any number of demographic backgrounds: identities (innate and selected); the collective strength of their experiences, beliefs, values, skills, and perspectives; and the historical and ongoing ways in which these groups have been affected by structures of power. The variability in a diverse group is apparent in the characteristics we see and hear, as well as through behaviors and expressions that we encounter and experience in our workplaces and organizations. Diverse organizations are not by default inclusive.

Equity ensures that all individuals are provided the resources and support they need to access opportunities available to their peers.

Inclusionis the act of establishing philosophies, policies, practices, and procedures to ensure equitable access to opportunities and resources that support individuals in contributing to an organization’s success. Through encouraging awareness of power structures, creating opportunities for those who have historically been excluded, and attempting to decenter majority culture, inclusion creates the environment and infrastructure in which diversity within organizations can exist and thrive. Inclusive organizations are by definition committed to achieving a sense of belonging for everyone at all levels.

Registration is now open for our Conference to be held at Congress at George Brown College, Toronto, June 1–2. We look forward to seeing you there!

https://www.federationhss.ca/en/congress/register

CALJ will be holding our 2025 conference at Congress in Toronto on June 1–2, 2025.

More info to come!

We're delighted to share our FULL PROGRAM for the upcoming CALJ Conference, June 20–21.

There's still time to register for this virtual conference!

REGISTER HERE

The CALJ annual conference organizers have made the difficult decision to make our 2024 annual conference, which was originally planned to be a hybrid in-person and virtual event, to be virtual only, via the Congress platform.

This has been a tremendously difficult decision, but it has been reached in conversation with numerous stakeholders. We are attentive to the importance that the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) encampment in support of Palestine holds for many of our members, presenters, and attendees, and we have also taken into account concerns about the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL/AMPD) strike.*

We support AMPL’s right to strike. We support SPHR’s right to peaceful protest.

This decision was also made within the context of 24 associations having already pivoted to virtual conferences and numerous associations having cancelled altogether. Alongside this, the Congress expo was cancelled, and the Canadian Symposium of Scholarly Journals, for which CALJ was a collaborator, was postponed.

We are disappointed that we will not be able to engage with attendees in person, and we recognise the difficult position this leaves our attendees in who had planned to join us in person, but we still look forward to the important connections, learning, and capacity building that we hope this virtual conference will generate.

For those of you who are participating in our conference (presenters, chairs, panelists, roundtable participants), we will be sharing further information with you asap, including registration information and details on how to participate virtually.

For those of you attending the conference, we will be sharing further information about virtual participation through the Congress platform with you asap.

Despite the change in plans, we very much look forward to seeing you all (virtually) in the coming weeks!

For any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us at administrator@calj-acrs.ca.

Sincerely,

CALJ

*AMPL is planning to picket all Congress events, and consider that participation in Congress is crossing a picket line (https://t.co/5G5BRZjNys). Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) McGill have also urged a boycott of Congress at McGill this year (https://www.instagram.com/sphrmcgill/p/C7UoL7YPCpU/?img_index=1).

 

 

Dear Journal Editors,

We are pleased to announce that the application process for the 2024 CALJ Innovation Award is now open.

This award recognizes innovation implemented or first measured in 2023 by a Canadian scholarly journal and which is focused on enhancing readership and/or other forms of engagement with journal content.

This is our opportunity to showcase the innovation that’s happening in Canada with our scholarly journals!

Prize:
The winner will receive a certificate honouring their achievements as well as a free annual membership to CALJ, and an announcement will be posted on CALJ websites. The winner will be announced at the CALJ Annual Meeting in June. 

Applying:
To learn more about eligibility criteria and the application process, please visit our application form and guidelines.

Deadline for applications:
Midnight PST, June 3, 2024

Prior winners of the Award:

Canadian Public Policy
Canadian Literature for its CanLit Guide
The Toronto Journal of Theology for its video introductions
FACETS – for its innovative multidisciplinary publishing format
Encounters in Theory and History of Education for its Digital Media and Methods Section

We are delighted to announce our 2024 conference to be held at Congress at McGill University, June 19–21.

Register here

More info to come!

Webinar recording now available for the successful event:

"Une étude sur l'édition savante en français / A Study on Scholarly Publishing in French."

Visit our YouTube page or go HERE.