Open Access Publishing: BioMed Centrals experience Matthew Cockerill Publisher, BioMed Central EC conference on scientific publishing, Brussels, th Feb 2007

Open access publishing works!

About BioMed Central Commercial open access publisher Launched first open access journals in 2000 Now publish >160 OA titles >22,000 peer-reviewed OA articles published All research articles published under Creative Commons licence, allowing freedom to reuse/redistribute

BioMed Centrals business model Costs covered by Article Processing Charge (APC) APC varies by journal - typically around 1000 Institutions receive APC discount in return for bulk payment (Institutional Membership)

Measures of success 1.Quantity 2.Quality 3.Finance

1. Quantity

Quarterly article submissions to BioMed Central OA journals

Specific subject areas

Malaria Journal home page

Am J Trop Med Hyg (112/year) Trop Med Int Health (59) Mol Biol Parasit (57) Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg (54) Infect Immunity (49) Parasitol Today/Trends (45) J Inf Dis (38) Lancet (37) Acta Trop (30) 27% of all papers are published in a small numbers of journals, each publishing regularly over 30 papers per annum Where are papers on malaria published ?

Am J Trop Med Hyg (112/year) Trop Med Int Health (59) Mol Biol Parasit (57) Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg (54) Infect Immunity (49) Parasitol Today/Trends (45) J Inf Dis (38) Lancet (37) Acta Trop (30) 27% of all papers are published in a small numbers of journals, each publishing regularly over 30 papers per annum Malaria Journal Where are papers on malaria published ?

Open access journal growth in: Bioinformatics/Genomics/Systems Biology

2. Quality

High impact journals Just some examples of BioMed Central journals that have already achieved excellent Impact Factors for their fields

2006 BioMed Central Research Award for Medicine A population-based study of human immunodeficiency virus in south India reveals major differences from sentinel surveillance-based estimates Dandona L, Lakshmi V, Sudha T, Kumar GA, Dandona R BMC Medicine 2006, 4:31 (13 December 2006)

3. Finance

BioMed Central Finances Average face-value of Article Processing Charge: circa 1000 Realized income per article, after discounts and waivers: circa 800 Based on current trends, we expect to be able to announce break-even before the end of 2007

Finances (contd.) Academic community currently spends vast sums on subscription journals Funding made available for OA publication is still very small This makes OA publication more difficult than it needs to be Institutions and funders can help speed uptake of OA by ensuring funds are available for OA publication

Funder open access policies: the role of OA archives and OA journals

OA archives and OA publishing - complementary approaches Immediately enforceable Much better than nothing Not a full solution in themselves OA archives Provides a more complete long term solution Works well with archives Wont happen overnight OA publishing

Why are OA archives and OA publishing such a good fit? The success of Open Access publishing makes the argument that repositories threaten subscriptions moot Open Access journals demonstrate that the peer-review system: –does not depend on subscription barriers –is not threatened by open access repositories

Why should funders and govts take active steps to encourage OA? Open access will transform science Publications are the building blocks for future research Investment required to deliver full open access is just 1-2% of research spend Open access publication can ultimately deliver savings, via increased market efficiency

What can funders and govts do to facilitate move to Open Access? Wellcome Trust and CERN open access policies offer good model –Mandatory deposit in an open access archive –Clear preference for open access publication –Funds made available to ensure that open access publication choice is available to authors