Full Peer Review • Immediate Publication • Open Access

The ethos of sharing……

Upon hearing that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Sydney Brenner and Robert Horvitz, Sir John Sulston is quoted as saying that:

"The worm [C. elegans] worked so well because the community held an ethos of sharing - just as the public genome projects have - from the beginning. We gave all our results to others as soon as we had them. From sharing, discovery is accelerated in the community. Research is hastened when people share results freely.“

The Guardian, UK, October 8th, 2002

At BioMed Central we call this ethos of sharing “Open Access” – all research articles published in BioMed Central’s open access journals are freely accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime, facilitating the acceleration of scientific discovery

Overview of presentation

• Open Access• BioMed Central’s publishing model• Institutional Membership • Support Open Access – Spread the

Word

Today’s (soon yesterday’s) print-derived model:

Manuscript PublisherPublisher

Author transfers copyrightor exclusive publishing rights

©

Free Use

Only those who can afford expensive subscriptions or licences have access

Result:

What is Open Access?

• Articles are universally and freely available via the Internet • Easily readable format (HTML, PDF)• Permanently archived in an internationally

recognised open access repository (e.g. PubMed Central)

• The authors retain Copyright to their article• They grant the right to disseminate their article to

anyone• Integrity of text protected, authorship attributed,

correct citation details required

How is Open Access achievedat BioMed Central?

• Reversing the business model: removing subscription charges and introducing article processing charges, whilst allowing authors to keep the copyright to their article

• Article processing charge of £450-835 per published article• Waivers are available• No colour charges or other ‘hidden’ charges

• Model further financed by some advertising, BioMed Central’s Institutional Membership Program and value-added subscription products

PublisherPublisherManuscript

Tomorrow’s (today’s at BioMed Central) online-based model:

Result:

$Author pays small amount of money

or rather, institution pays on author’s behalf

Everyone has accessAll use is fair use

OPENACCESS

BioMed Central’s Journals

Over 130 open access journals in total in all areas of biology and medicine• Access to all peer-reviewed research content is free

Highly Selective, general interest: Journal of Biology

• Edited by Martin Raff• Free access to outstanding peer-reviewed research in biology

Selective, high community interest:BMC Medicine and BMC BiologyPublishing peer-reviewed research articles of high quality and broad interest Highlighting the best research from the BMC Series

Sound science, range of interest: 60 BMC series journals72 externally run specialist journals, varying interest and selectivity

Biology

• BMC Biology• Biochemistry• Bioinformatics• Biotechnology• Cell biology• Chemical Biology• Developmental Biology• Ecology• Evolutionary Biology• Genetics• Genomics• Immunology• Microbiology• Molecular Biology• Neuroscience• Pharmacology• Plant biology• Structural Biology

The BMC Series

Medicine

• BMC Medicine• Anesthesiology• Blood Disorders• Cancer • Cardiovascular Disorders• Clinical Pathology• Clinical Pharmacology• Complementary and

Alternative Medicine• Dermatology• Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders• Emergency Medicine• Endocrine Disorders• Family practice• Gastroenterology• Geriatrics• Health Service Research• Infectious diseases• International Health and Human

Rights• Medical Education• Medical Ethics• Medical Genetics

•Medical Imaging•Medical Informatics and Decision Making•Medical Research Methodology •Musculoskeletal Disorders•Nephrology•Neurology•Nuclear Medicine•Nursing•Oncology•Ophthalmology•Oral Health•Palliative Care•Pediatrics•Pregnancy and Childbirth•Psychiatry•Public Health•Pulmonary Medicine •Surgery•Urology

Examples ofindependent journals

published by BioMed Central

Open Access publishing:the basics are there

• Peer Review: all papers are peer reviewed in the ‘traditional’ way

• Secure Archiving: all articles are permanently archived in PubMed Central, INIST (others to be announced)

• Searchable and retrievable: included in PubMed, Scirus, Google, CrossRef, HINARI, (some journals are indexed in MEDLINE, Biosis, CAS, an increasing number tracked by ISI for citations)

Open Access publishing:the benefits (1)

• Free Access• Anyone with Internet access can freely read the papers, no need to

worry about subscriptions

• Maximum Visibility = Maximum impact!• BioMed Central’s papers average >200 downloads per article per

month• High chance of being cited

• Speed• Online system for submission, peer review and publication• Published on the day of acceptance• No page constraints • Listed without delay in PubMed and deposited without embargo in

PubMed Central and other secure archives

Open Access Publishing:the benefits(2)

• Authors retain copyright• Authors are free to post their paper on the web and distribute it to

colleagues

• Lower cost to Libraries and Institutions• £330-£450 at input, compare this with the current $3000-5000

aggregate publisher turnover per article, which the libraries collectively pay

• Authors can access download statistics• Download stats for the last 30 days are displayed on the site, for

the most-viewed articles

• Publicity• Press releases for articles suitable for wider audience

Peer Review

• web-based user-friendly system for: • Submission• referees to view manuscripts and feed back

comments to authors • authors to track the progress of their manuscripts

• Rapid process: decision in 7 weeks, on average• Peer reviewing is done in the traditional sense:

2 peer reviewers plus a statistician if necessary

• Open peer review for medical journals

“I was indeed pleased with the editorial process at BioMed Central. The review itself was excellent, as stringent as that I have received from any top level journal. […] Our paper is far better, thanks to the detailed and thoughtful input that we received. Maintaining this standard of excellence should rapidly place BioMed Central among the leading biomedical journals.”

- Leonore A. Herzenberg Genetics Department, Beckman Center, Stanford University Medical School, Stanford, USA

Peer Review

“I was very impressed by the quality of the reviews. They have truly added to making this a better paper. In addition, providing the reviewers name adds substantially to the quality. Often, one gets very short and wishy-washy reviews in addition to an editorial rejection - in cases like that, the entire submission process is basically a waste - I am glad that BioMed Central is not following such examples.”

- Gerold Belper

Departments of Medicine and Cancer Genetics Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, USA

Peer Review

Open Peer review

• For BMC medical journals

• Improves quality and accountability

• Reward reviewers for their work

• Reviewers declare any financial competing interests

• Prepublication history • Submitted versions• Reviewers reports• Authors revisions/responses

• Pre-publication history posted on web with published article

"In submitting to BMC Infectious Diseases, I was very pleased with the rapidturn-around and over-all efficiency of the submission and publicationprocess. What I never expected, however, was the high calibre of the reviewsand reviewers: superb constructive comments from some of the giants in myfield."

- Marek SmiejaMcMaster University

Open Peer review

Citation/Indexing

The following journals are being tracked by ISI and have impact factors

Arthritis Research & Therapy impact factor: 5.0 BMC Cancer impact factor: 1.7BMC Cell Biology impact factor 2.6 BMC Health Services Research impact factor 0.67BMC Infectious Diseases impact factor: 1.25 BMC Public Health impact factor: 0.93Breast Cancer Research impact factor: 2.9Critical Care impact factor: 1.9Current Controlled Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine impact factor: 3.12

The following journals are being tracked by ISI and will soon have impact factors

Genome BiologyMalaria JournalRespiratory ResearchBMC MicrobiologyBMC Molecular Biology BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders BMC GastroenterologyBMC Genetics BMC Genomics BMC Bioinformatics

Citing BioMed Central’s articles

Times cited Author Journal Reference Downloads

22 Cannone JJ BMC Bioinfor 3 2 2002 3579

16 Bitko V BMC Microbiol 1 34 2001 7489

15 Lutter M BMC Cell Biol 2 22 2001 6105

12 Macameyer N BMC Genetics 2 13 2001 9345

11 Reddy ASN BMC Genomics 2 2 2001 2623

10 Li Y BMC Mol Biol 2 2 2001 6520

10 Rohrmann GF BMC Evol Biol 1 1 2001 2708

10 Srinivas S BMC Immunol 1 4 2001 7568

10 Chamorro M BMC Immunol 2 3 2001 3532

Leila Fernandez (York University)

BioMed Central’sInstitutional Membership

• Service offered to institutions to ensure widespread dissemination of research

• Processing charges automatically waived for all submissions to BioMed Central journals by researchers at member institutions

• 15% discount on BioMed Central’s subscription products

• Customised page on the BioMed Central site

BioMed Central’s members include:

• NHS England• All Universities in the UK• Cancer Research UK• Harvard University, USA• The NIH of the US• Princeton University, USA• University of California

(all campuses)• Yale University, USA• Lund University, Sweden• Max Plank Society,

Germany

• World Health Organization, Switzerland

• L’Institut Pasteur, France• CNRS, France• INSERM, France• La Sapienza, Italy• McMaster University,

Canada• University of Toronto,

Canada• Kyoto University, Japan• and more………

Support Open AccessSpread the Word

• A set of potentially helpful tools (http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/advocacy)

• Includes presentations, articles, posters, tailored messages to faculty colleagues, etc

• The objective is to use the resources to:• help improve understanding and importance of open

access publishing at your institution• help gain the support of faculty colleagues at your

institution for open access journals• motivate colleagues to take action to publish their

research in open access journals

How can you supportOpen Access?

• Authors• Submit your articles to Open Access journals

• Users• Visit and cite Open Access journals

• Librarians

• Take up institutional/corporate membership

• Add our URL to your intranet or web pages, catalogue our journals

• Funding bodies and tenure committees• Recognise Open Access research papers and the

‘payment-at-input’ model• All of the above

• Support Open Access - Spread the Word