Open Access;

BioMed Central’s CommitmentThis presentation will also discuss the benefits for authors and what institutions can do to help support them when publish choosing in

open access journals.

What’s wrong with the traditional model?

• Severe disadvantages of restrictive access

• Political Argument – the public pay taxes, the public should have access

• Increasing cost of subscriptions – Libraries cuts are at their highest, subscriptions are raised against these each year form between 5-10%

• Transfer of copyright – resides with publisher who has limited role in overall process.

What does Open Access mean to scientific research?

• Freely available via the Internet

• Author retains copyright

• Permanently archived in an internationally recognized repository (e.g. PubMed Central)

• Tracked by Scopus/Thomson Scientific, indexed in Medline, searchable in Google/Google Scholar etc…..

Comparison of the two models

• Under the traditional model:– the research community gives up control of the

research– the publisher sells it back

• Under the OA publishing model: – the publisher charges directly for the service of

publication/ dissemination– Free access to all content for everyone– By just changing how the service is paid for, the

community as a whole retains control of research

Benefits of Open Access• All researchers have access to your work

• Free Access = Maximum Visibility = Increased citations = Increased gravitas for authors research

• Articles are available to all aggregators, indexing services, search engines etc.

• Removes barriers between fields. Easy search tools to cross reference information without having to access within numerous subscriptions.

• Substantial savings for institutions and their libraries

Full open accessApproximate no. submissions received 2003-2009

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009est

Year

No

. of

su

bm

iss

ion

s

BMC

Hindawi

PLoS (all titles)

PLoS One

Source: Claire Bird, Oxford Press

BioMed Central• Largest open access publisher

• Launched first open access journal in 2000

• Now publishes >200 OA titles and >29,000 peer reviewed OA articles published

• Creative Commons license - made available to anyone and can be re-used as long as the work is correctly cited by it’s creditors.

• Costs covered by 'article processing charge' (APC)

Journals with Impact Factors

Annual manuscript submissions

Reversing the traditional business modelArticle processing charge (APC)

All original research articles are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication

• Articles take 6-8 weeks from submission to publication with a 50% acceptance rate.

• Payable upon publication• Covering peer review, production, hosting and marketing costs• GBP 995 on average

How does BMC model work?

What is BMC Membership

• Enables organizations to actively support Open Access publishing

• Offers authors a level playing field when choosing where and when to publish with no restrictions.

• Helps ensure the most widespread dissemination of the research

• Covers full APCs for all investigators or provides them with a reduced fee

Types of Membership

BioMed Central offers different types ofMembership to institutions:

Supporter Membership Authors pay a reduced APC of 15%

Prepay Membership Institution covers the full cost of APCs

Supporter Membership

• Flat fee based on FTE of medical and life science, chemistry and physics (or R&D staff). Starting from USD 2,464

• 15% APC discount when publishing in any BioMed Central Open Access journals

Prepay Membership

• Advanced payment towards authors’ publications

• APC minus discount is deducted from account

• The larger the advanced payment, the greater discount given

• Deposit remains valid with no time limit. Is flexibly administrated.

Benefits of Membership

• Researchers’ fees paid for in full or discounted

• Discounted APCs Cost-effective

• Showcase of institution’s research

• Red tape of individual payments eliminated

• Marketing to create awareness

BioMed Central Members

• 302 Members in 38 countries worldwide

• 29 Members in U.K– Newcastle University– University of Birmingham– University of Cambridge– King’s College London – Wellcome– NHS (NIHR)

SWORD

• Filling OA repositories can be difficult Many institutions may have their own repositories, but ensuring that

research is deposited in the repository is a lot of work for both authors and administrators.

• BioMed Central is automating feeds to repositories using the SWORD protocol

A direct article-feed from BMC journals into the institutions repository.

Open Access journals provide a source of content that can be immediately shared

Institutional Institutional RepositoryRepository(DSpace/Eprints (DSpace/Eprints

etc.etc.))

Automated deposit to IR via SWORD

Manuscript

SWORD Import

SWORD Export

Published articles

from institution’s

authors

Published article

Accepted and

Published article

Why publish in BioMed Central?

Summary

• Open access part of the mainstream – Providing a solution to the fundamental problems encountered with traditional publishing model.

• Existing journals moving to open access – Springer launched a new range of OA journals this year, Springer Open.

• Maximizes research visibility – Increases saturation of research and citations for authors.

• Quality journals – All research is peer reviewed and 50/50 acceptance rate of submissions.

• Successful business model

Thanks for your attention!

Any questions?