Editorial: Welcome to CDJ Plus

Abstract

This issue announces an exciting new development, the launch of CDJ Plus (http://www.oxfordjournals.org/cdjc), a website extension of the Community Development Journal (CDJ) initiated by the CDJ Editorial Board with the help of Oxford University Press. CDJ Plus will connect readers of the CDJ to the wider community development world and promote discussion and exchange of information and ideas, between researchers, educators, practitioners, activists and citizens. CDJ Plus will involve two-way communication, bringing the academically focused content of the journal to the notice of a wider audience while simultaneously providing readers of the journal with a portal into the wider community development world of policy, practice and campaigning. The articles in the Reflections section of CDJ will often provide the bridge across which this communication will flow connecting people within a wider community development ‘community of practice’. At CDJ, we have recognized the need for such an additional platform for some time in order to disseminate a growing body of free, non-subscriber content. The Board has sponsored the production of publications which are provisional ‘work in progress’ like the 2010 ‘Glasgow Papers’ involving critical reflections on community development from a Scottish perspective. We have also supported the production of significant pieces of work which are of considerable interest but not in a format suitable for publication in the main journal. An example of the latter is the North Edinburgh Community History Never Give Up, which was featured in Lynn McCabe’s Reflections article in CDJ 47–1, January 2012. We have also used the journal to help publicize and provide space to reflect on publications from community development organizations. Thus, the Appreciating Assets report by the International Association for Community Development (IACD) is critically discussed by one of its authors, Ingrid Burkitt, in a Reflections piece in CDJ 46–4, October 2011. We have always provided Internet links in CDJ articles to these publications, but now we have a permanent home on a nested OUP website where they will all be made freely and easily available. & Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2012 All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com doi:10.1093/cdj/bss006