Open Access Publishing:BioMed Central’s

experience

Matthew CockerillPublisher, BioMed Central

EC conference on scientific publishing, Brussels, 15-16th 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 Central’s 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. Quantity2. Quality3. Finance

1. Quantity

Quarterly article submissions to BioMed Central OA journals

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Jul-00 Jul-01 Jul-02 Jul-03 Jul-04 Jul-05 Jul-06

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

47 5063

127

Where are papers on malaria published ?

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

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Bioinformatics (OUP)

Nucleic Acids Research

Articles in PubMed

Articles in journals

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

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Articles in PubMed

Articles in journals

BMC Bioinformatics

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

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BioMed CentralOA jounals

Articles in PubMed

Articles in journals

BMC Bioinformatics

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 estimatesDandona L, Lakshmi V, Sudha T, Kumar GA, Dandona RBMC 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

Won’t 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