People & Culture - PKP WP [LOCAL]

The Public Knowledge Project is a child of the Internet that grew into an international virtual organization in the first decade of the twenty-first century, long before this was a thing. Over the last quarter century, PKP has grown from zero to 30 talented employees who take great pride in being collectively responsible for the world’s most widely used scholarly publishing platform.

While PKP’s administrative home is Simon Fraser University, its team is distributed across five continents, actively designing, coding, administering, managing, researching, presenting, publishing, and supporting the future of scholarly communication. The richness and diversity of the team’s experience and skills, whether operating across time zones and languages or gathering at PKP Sprints and other events, reflects the communities to which we contribute.

PKP's Founding Director and Co-Scientific Director speaking at UNAM event.

Our story

PKP was formed out of the internet’s original promise of a greater democratization of knowledge in an Age of Information. Its members continue to develop tools that are bringing about more equitable global participation in, and partaking of, this form of knowledge. Our research also contributes to these very questions of how research and scholarship work in the world. Over the last two decades, we have seen this mission of increasing public access to carefully reviewed and vetted research grow in importance as a counterforce to the online rise of misinformation.

Learn more about the history of PKP

OUR ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES

The PKP team works to honor and expand people’s right to know through research and scholarship, even as we recognize that these are not the only forms that knowledge takes. We continue to explore and develop innovations in scholarly publishing that will ensure, if not increase, the rigor and integrity of research. We participate with industry organizations in the setting of scholarly standards.

PKP is building an organization in which everyone is able to bring their full selves to this work, knowing that they’ll be heard, championed, and supported to succeed. We seek to bring together diversity in race, age, physical and mental ability, sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity, perspectives, and ideas.

Working groups of staff and community members come together to address important topics and goals. The Accessibility Interest Group, for example, has recently reviewed and improved the accessibility of PKP software for all users. The Documentation Interest Group creates and improves the many guides that have been developed to assist those using PKP software. Other areas are under consideration. Feel free to reach out to us through our Contact Form to be a part of this work.

PKP team members looking satisfied at the result of their work.

OUR People

To provide a sense of who is doing what within PKP, as well as who and where we are in doing this work, the members of the PKP team have each provided a biographical statement, geographical location, and the inevitable portrait.

Meet our team

BECOME INVOLVED

If advancing open access and the quality of scholarly publishing in a remote and flexible environment excites you, then keep an eye out for our open employment positions or consider becoming involved in our activities.