Aims and scope
The Open Access Teaching Case Journal publishes factual teaching cases for use in higher education. The journal exists to grow the supply of high-quality, classroom-ready cases and to make them freely available to students, instructors, and institutions worldwide.
OATCJ cases are research-based: every case is grounded in primary and/or secondary research and presents a factual account of real organisations and real people. The journal accepts both decision-based cases and descriptive or analytical cases used for classroom analysis and discussion.
The journal accepts teaching cases across all management and business disciplines, including accounting, entrepreneurship, ethics and governance, general management, human resources management, information systems, marketing, operations and supply chain management, strategy, and sustainability. Interdisciplinary and cross-border cases are welcome.
All accepted cases must be based on factual real-life occurrences involving actual organisations and people. Identities may be disguised with appropriate consent and disclosure. Fictional cases are not accepted. Cases developed solely from publicly available sources are accepted without a release form, provided full sourcing is documented.
Publishing model
OATCJ is a diamond open-access journal: there are no charges for authors to submit or publish, and no charges for readers to access the published cases. Published cases carry Creative Commons licences (CC BY-NC-ND or CC BY-ND), preserving authorial attribution and integrity while supporting non-commercial classroom use.
Cases are distributed globally through The Case Centre, the not-for-profit organisation that serves the worldwide management-education community. Distribution through The Case Centre provides indexed metadata, persistent case reference numbers, and a verified-instructor process for teaching-note access.
Peer review
Each submission is reviewed by independent reviewers with relevant subject-matter expertise. Reviews are double-anonymous: authors and reviewers do not know each other's identities. Teaching notes are reviewed alongside the case. Decisions are made by the editorial committee based on reviewer recommendations. See the full policies and review process.
Licensing at a glance
OATCJ cases are released under one of two Creative Commons licences, at the author's choice. In both cases, authors retain copyright and students are never charged.
CC BY-NC-ND (default). Others may download and share the case for non-commercial purposes, with attribution, and without making changes. This is the recommended default for teaching cases.
CC BY-ND. Others may download and share the case (including for commercial purposes), with attribution, and without making changes. Authors may prefer this licence only if they wish to retain the option of later submitting the case to a traditional publisher.
Once a Creative Commons licence is applied to a case, it cannot be revoked. Authors who are unsure which licence to choose may contact the editorial office for guidance.
Teaching notes are not openly licensed. They are distributed only to verified instructors through The Case Centre.
History
OATCJ was founded in 2023 to give case authors a home that combines scholarly peer review with fee-free open access. The journal has since published six issues. Authors have contributed from institutions in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, France, Guatemala, Australia, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
The journal's editorial policies and review protocols have developed in alignment with the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). OATCJ is also aligned with the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), positioning open teaching cases as a contribution to SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).