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14 Law Democracy & Dev. 1 (2010)

handle is hein.journals/laacydev14 and id is 1 raw text is: Editorial January 2010 LDD relaunched 2010 marks the relaunch of Law, Democracy & Development as an online, open access journal. This means that from now on LDD will be freely available to readers and researchers around the world. In doing so it will be joining approximately 400 open access peer-reviewed journals being published in Africa, and almost 4 000 world-wide as at June 2009. After 13 years of publication in traditional printed format, the Faculty thought long and hard before taking this step. Some of the factors that persuaded us were negatives - in particular, the increasing cost of a printed journal in terms of publication as well as to readers in developing countries. But, the more we thought about it, the more we realised the positive advantages of publishing online. First, it offers far greater flexibility in terms of the number of articles that can be published as well as the time required for publication. Articles could appear within weeks of being submitted. To authors as well as readers this represents a huge advantage over those irritating delays, sometimes running to many months, associated with the printed medium. Secondly, distribution is worldwide and instantaneous, and the accessibility (circulation) of published articles increases exponentially. Given LDD's focus on the African continent, the prospect of reaching and involving a far greater number of researchers across the continent is especially persuasive. Importantly, too, online publication offers a range of user-friendly features which can enormously reduce the time and effort needed for research - for example, electronic I I Pz I-