The Open Access Publisher

Upon hearing that he was awarded the Nobel Prize with

Brenner and 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 8, 2002)

• About BioMed Central• What is Open Access• The Business Model• Benefits to authors• Choice of journals• Where is BioMed Central now• Subscription products

Presentation Overview

What is BioMed Central?

• Independent online publishing house committed to providing peer-reviewed research across all areas of biology and medicine, with immediate, barrier-free open access for all.

• Using other business models to maintain our open access policy including:

• BioMed Central Institutional Membership• Subscription-based content to “value-added”

secondary resources

What is Open Access?

• The article is universally and freely accessible via the Internet

• The authors retain copyright to their article

• Deposited immediately upon publication, a internationally recognized open access repository (such as PubMed Central).

Why is Open Access needed?

• Severe disadvantages of restrictive access

• to be useful scientific results need to be read, used, cited and extended upon

• Political argument – Pay taxes, have access• Increasing cost of subscriptions• Increasing number of journals ( you can not

have it all!)• Transfer of copyright

How is Open Access achieved at 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 $525-$1500 per published article

• Institutional Membership• Further financed by finding alternative

revenues through advertising, subscription products

Benefits of publishing in open access journals?

• Free Access =Maximum Visibility

• Higher chances to be cited

• Immediate publication and included in PubMed

• Authors retain copyright

• BMC promotes selected articles

High Visibility

1. Accesses 6389    Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer dietMichael S DonaldsonNutrition Journal 2004, 3:19 (20 October 2004)

2. Accesses 5581    Acetylcysteine for prevention of contrast-induced nephropathy after intravascular angiography: A systematic review and meta-analysisSean M Bagshaw, William A GhaliBMC Medicine 2004, 2:38 (22 October 2004)

3. Accesses 5104   Neoadjuvant or adjuvant therapy for resectable esophageal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysisRichard A Malthaner, Rebecca KS Wong, R Bryan Rumble, Lisa Zuraw, Members of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Disease Site Group of Cancer Care Ontario's Program in Evidence-based Care.BMC Medicine 2004, 2:35 (24 September 2004)

The Service BioMed Central offers…

• Efficient 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: all included in PubMed, Scirus, Google, CrossRef, HINARI

(some journals are indexed in MEDLINE, Biosis, CAS, an increasing number tracked by ISI for citations)

Journals currently covered by ISI

Respiratory Research 5.5Arthritis Research & Therapy 5.0

Current Controlled Trials    in Cardiovascular Medicine 3.1Breast Cancer Research 2.9BMC Cell Biology 2.6Critical Care 1.9BMC Cancer 1.7BMC Infectious Diseases 1.2BMC Public Health 0.9BMC Health Services Research 0.6

BMC Microbiology

BMC Molecular Biology BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders BMC Neuroscience Genome Biology Malaria Journal

BMC BioinformaticsBMC BiotechnologyBMC GenomicsBMC Evolutionary Biology BMC Gastroenterology

BioMed Central’s Journals

• Over 120 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 Biology– Publishing 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 journals– 62 externally run specialist journals, varying interest and selectivity

Starting a journal with BMC

• How?• Provide a scope statement • Assemble an editorial board – must

demonstrate scientific credibility• Select a journal title• Provide lists of potential authors

• BioMed Central provides a publishing platform, a website and technical expertise for the journals

Examples of new journals published by BioMed Central

Success Story so Far

• Over 9000 submitted articles; 4500 published articles

• 120 journals; 21 journals tracked by ISI

• 459 Member institutions• Funding Bodies supporting Open

Access

natashar:

"I think it is now clear that BioMed Central is destined to become one of the dominant online scientific publishers. I feel very strongly that this form of publication represents an important advance in scientific communication. It makes all publications free to anyone that has access to the internet - opening up access to the third world. In addition, it is superior to print journals because there are no space limits, or limits on number or color figures, along with the ability to include detailed lists of data, etc.

I have published six articles in BioMed Central journals in the last two years. I have been very impressed with the high standards and quality of the reviews that I have received. I have had nothing but positive experiences of BioMed Central."

David Levitt, MD, PhD

Professor of Physiology

University of Minnesota

natashar:

"I think it is now clear that BioMed Central is destined to become one of the dominant online scientific publishers. I feel very strongly that this form of publication represents an important advance in scientific communication. It makes all publications free to anyone that has access to the internet - opening up access to the third world. In addition, it is superior to print journals because there are no space limits, or limits on number or color figures, along with the ability to include detailed lists of data, etc.

I have published six articles in BioMed Central journals in the last two years. I have been very impressed with the high standards and quality of the reviews that I have received. I have had nothing but positive experiences of BioMed Central."

David Levitt, MD, PhD

Professor of Physiology

University of Minnesota

What’s next?

• Advocacy – Word of Mouthhttp://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/advocacy1

• Build on and improve service to authors and readers

• Lobbying government and funding organisations

• Increase number of Open Access journals

• Increase in content

BioMed Central Subscription Products

• Faculty of 1000 – www.facultyof1000.com• images.MD – www.images.md • Genome Biology – http://genomebiology.com• Arthritis Research – http://arthritis-research.com • B C R – http:// breast-cancer-research.com•  Critical Care Forum- http://ccforum.com • C R – www.current-reports.com • C T O – www.treatment-options.com

Faculty of 1000 Biology

A new online research service that systematically highlights and reviews the most interesting papers published in the

biological sciences based on the recommendations of a faculty of well

over 1600 selected leading international scientists.

www.facultyof1000.com

images. MD

• Over 50,000 high-quality images• Accompanying explanatory text • 90 subject collections e.g. allergy,

cardiology, neurology, urology• 2000 of the world’s leading medical

experts contributing• Create and personalise own image

library• Create PowerPoint presentations• Add or delete text

natasha@biomedcentral.com