Information Today A reprint from

Hindawi Publishing: Catering to

by SHELLI SHAW |

n the mid-1990s, graduate stu- dents Ahmed Hindawi and Nagwa I Abdel-Mottaleb began noticing how popular electronic scholarly com- munication was becoming, particularly in their physics BEHIND community. They were in- THE trigued by the Internet’s im- SCENES pact on society—this coupled with the impact of electronic systems on opened the door to a new business opportunity. Although the duo had no professional experience other than publishing their own re- search, they decided to launch a pub- lishing venture in their home base of Egypt. In 1997, when Hindawi and Abdel- Mottaleb started Hindawi Publishing Corp., the Cairo-based commercial pub- lisher focused on scientific, technical, Hindawi Publishing Corp., based in Cairo, expects to have between 50 and 60 open access journals by the end of 2006. and medical (STM) journals and techni- cal books. By then, Hindawi had earned his Ph.D. in physics, and Abdel-Mot- taleb had nearly completed her Ph.D. in publishing firm in 1978, it is now avail- frequently written and submitted with- differential geometry. Although they able in print and online versions.) The out any expectation of payment on the both started out as faculty members at firm, which continued to add titles authors’ part. This is not nearly as al- Ain Shams University, they now man- through acquisitions and startups, now truistic as it might appear since schol- age the company on a full-time basis. publishes 48 journals as well as two ars/scientists are used to sharing their Hindawi, as company president, over- book series. work. After all, universities and organ- sees the day-to-day operations and is izations provide the funding for their re- involved in all strategic and develop- search, and a published article is sim- mental decisions; as vice president, The OA Model ply the result of their work. What’s Abdel-Mottaleb focuses on internal de- more, it’s a boon for research in general velopments and restructuring, while What sets this publishing company and a boost for researchers’ careers to continuing to build the enterprise. apart from others is its support of an have one of their published articles Hindawi Publishing’s first journal open access (OA) model. OA, a relatively cited, used, or added to in any way. was The International Journal of Math- new model for academic publishing, pro- The concept of OA began in the late ematics and Mathematical Sciences, vides free online digital content that is 1990s, when university libraries found which the company began publishing in usually written by scientists and schol- that the costs of STM journal subscrip- 1999. (Although the print journal itself ars for peer-reviewed journals and arti- tion rates were rising faster than their was originally launched by another cles in the STM niche. These articles are budgets. As a result, many libraries began canceling subscriptions. “Smaller tained, science is advanced, research the end of 2007 through acquisitions publishers need to find sustainable meets the highest standards and pa- and new launches. business models that do not rely on rev- tient care is enhanced with accurate and The company has been growing at a enue from libraries, since library budg- timely information.” rate from 45 percent to 50 percent ets are increasingly dominated by ‘Big annually, according to company figures. Deal’ packages from the largest publish- “[W]e plan to hold that 50 [percent] ers,” according to Paul Peters, Hin- Why OA Succeeds annual growth rate in the next few dawi’s senior publishing developer. Pub- years,” according to Hindawi, who lishing models that would be free to Peters, who is responsible for plan- refers to its growth target as “10 by 10” readers seemed to be the answer, and ning and developing the company’s OA (meaning 10,000 articles annually by the OA movement began. collection, doesn’t see this as a problem. the year 2010). By its very definition, OA includes an “When a new open access journal is author’s agreement to distribute pub- launched, its contents are immediately lished work for free, as well as to create available to the entire world,” he said. At Home in Egypt the technical structure responsible for “In contrast, subscription journals take distribution on the Internet. OA can years to build up a base of subscribers. With 220 employees, the company sometimes be confused with open con- This is one of the main reasons why conducts all of its publishing activi- tent, which allows any given published open access journals have been so suc- ties—including typesetting, copy edit- work to be modified. In OA, the public cessful in such a short period of time.” ing, reference checking, and XML can access the work, but no modifica- The company’s success can be at least markup—at its Cairo headquarters, the tions can be made. On the other hand, partially attributed to its acquisitions. company’s only location. Each of Hin- of published articles (a tra- It acquired many journals that were al- dawi’s journals are led by an external dition in the STM world) is encouraged. ready well-known in their fields, so ac- editor in chief, assisted by a board ademic submissions to these titles were of editors. easier to attract than for brand-new With a team of about 15 IT develop- Using the Author-Pays Model journals. The company began its foray ers, the company has developed its own into OA in late 2003, with one OA arti- electronic manuscript tracking system, Hindawi uses what is known as the cle. By 2004, 55 OA articles were pub- a Web application that allows authors author-pays model. While it may sound lished; by last year, the number had to submit manuscripts and editors to ac- as if the authors supply the funds, the grown to more than 241. In 2006, Hin- cept or reject them as well as request costs are actually covered by the au- dawi expects to publish between 1,000 modifications or send them to referees. thor’s institution or research funds and 1,500 OA articles. The application, which also lets authors (while the authors retain their articles’ upload their source materials or down- copyrights). Hindawi credits its success load galley proofs, organizes the entire with this business model (the most pop- Toll Access for Journals peer-review process, from the point of ular method of achieving OA), but de- submission until the final editorial de- bate abounds in the field whether this Prior to 2004, Hindawi offered sub- cision has been made. is the best choice. Not-for-profit STM scription (also called “toll”) access to its Although Hindawi receives little lo- publishers are concerned that journals journals, but that year, the company be- cal revenue and little publishing compe- using this model are actually limiting gan converting the journals to full OA. tition in Egypt, the company’s market themselves to a set number of revenue Adding OA articles to existing journals extends worldwide. The company is def- sources and that authors may also be increased the odds of success for its OA initely making an impact and will con- able to pay select journals to publish ar- model, leading Hindawi to pursue an tinue to do so. ticles not normally accepted under other aggressive development strategy for its Here’s how Hindawi sums up his circumstances. OA collection in 2005. The strategy in- company’s success so far: “It has been An organization called Washington cluded new launches as well as acquisi- challenging, but [it’s] a whole lot of fun DC Principles for Free Access to Science tions from other publishers. By the end to build everything from scratch.” (http://www.dcprinciples.org) offers a of 2005, the company’s OA journal col- “middle ground” between traditional lection featured 15 titles. publishing and OA. To maintain the In 2006, Hindawi’s OA titles continue high standards of traditional STM pub- to grow. In August, the company added Shelli Shaw is a freelance writer who lishing while providing unrestricted ac- five new titles to its journal collection, focuses on topics in the information tech- cess, the group advocates that not-for- bringing the total to 48 (42 are OA and nology industry. Her e-mail address is profit publishers work with scholarly six are toll access). Hindawi expects to [email protected]. Send your com- communities (such as libraries) to “en- have between 50 and 60 OA journals by ments about this article to itletters@info sure that these communities are sus- the end of 2006 and as many as 150 by today.com.

This article is reprinted in its entirety from the September 2006 issue of Information Today with the permission of Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055, 609/654-6266, Web Site: http://www.infotoday.com. Information Today, Inc. does not authorize the downloading and/or printing of this article. If you require a copy of the article, contact the Copyright Clearance Center, 978-750-8400.