Nebula: A Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Scholarship was an academic, peer reviewed journal that led the revolution in online, open access, scholarly publishing. Recognizing some of the content management constraints that were no longer relevant in a rapidly advancing technological age, Nebula was one of the earliest international, peer-reviewed journals to devise a content strategy that could aptly reflect the diversity in systems of thought and intellectual fields of higher learning. Understanding modern indexing systems, we knew we were no longer constrained by a classical cataloguing modality. We published articles on information technology alongside articles on Shakespeare, our readers found their way to us through academic databases, Google or through our growing list of email subscribers.
Publishing from an international pool of contributors, both prestigious and up-and-coming, Nebula was also one of the first academic journals in the world to invent and apply an agile house style method, responding to field-specific conventions, rather than imposing restrictive demands.
Our early online and open access presence also meant that the journal was a key player in addressing the imbalance of accessibility of quality scholarship, and access to international publishing resources, by scholars from under-privileged countries. To this end, we teamed up with Osun State University, furnishing online publication of their print journal.
In these simple, yet visionary ways, Nebula opened up the avenue for multidisciplinary and truly global conversations. We provided oppportunities for visibility and higher learning to all who sought it and this culminated in the publication of over 300 peer reviewed articles and 30 issues of Nebula and its subsidiaries.
NEBULA NEWS AND (POLITICAL OR NOT) COMMENTARY Nebula also encouraged academics to submit writings that were neither fiction nor necessarily academic. We appreciated that scholars may as well be brooding thinkers at heart, and that they very often felt constrained by what is considered "publishable" material. As part of our content strategy, we encouraged conversational submissions and reflections that communicated complex ideas to a general readership.
ART
Submissions that were clearly neither commentary nor articles, that fell under subdivisions
of Poetry, Prose, Short Story, Graphics, Cartoon, Caricature (etc.) were also published in the life of the journal. Nebula encouraged and facilitated displays of creativity in any way that could be shown on the world wide web.
