Publishing: Benefits, Challenges and Experiences

Deborah Kahn Publishing Director, BioMed Central Open Access Publishing– a definition  All content is peer reviewed  All content is made freely available on publication  Authors retain copyright under a Creative Commons licence  The cost of publishing is often (but not always) covered by an Article Processing Charge (APC) which is usually paid by research funders or institutional funds. Where is OA in 2010?  There are over 5013 fully open access journals in the DOAJ.  In 2009, Outsell estimated that 9.6% of all peer reviewed journals are now open access, around 6% of all articles published.  Significant percentage of open access journals are indexed by Thomson Reuters (32% in medicine for instance).  Open access to research is now mandatory in over 80 institutions and 40 funders. Many more have signed open access initiatives Why Gold and Green

 Institutional Repositories allow early open access to work under or in press  Can also provides access to research that is not published  Open Access publishing provides access to the final published version (VOR) What do publishers do?

 Help maximise research impact and pace  Manage the processes around peer review, dissemination and preservation  Development of innovative content and tools  These all carry costs and use resources which need to be paid for Benefits of Open Access Publishing

 Version of record  Includes DOI reference linking, supplementary material, links to data and other innovations  Deposited in PubMed/PubMed Central immediately and automatically  Freely disseminated around the globe  Increased visibility of research Factors influencing authors choice of journal 1. Prestige/perceived quality of journal 2. Relevance of the journal to the community 3. Likelihood of article acceptance 4. Previous positive experience 5. Speed of publication More authors are choosing to publish in OA journals

Change in submissions 2005 -2009 Open access journals have high rankings in the JCR  Malaria Journal - 2/15 Tropical Medicine  BMC Bioinformatics 3/29 Mathematical & Computational  BMC Evolutionary Biology - : 4.05, 8/39 in Evolutionary Biology  Breast Cancer Research - the 2nd highest ranking breast cancer specific journal  Health and Quality of Life Outcomes - 4/62 in Health Care Sciences and Services  Neural Development - 9/38 in Developmental Biology  Retrovirology - 6/27 in Virology Visibility Open Access Funds

 Universitat Bielefeld  University of Nottingham  University of Calgary  University of Oregon  University of California, Berkeley  University of Ottawa (COPE) (COPE)  Queensland University of  Columbia University (COPE) Technology  Cornell (COPE)  Simon Fraser University  ETH Zurich  Queensland University of  University of Florida Technology  Harvard University (COPE)  Simon Fraser University  University of Helsinki  University of Tennessee, Knoxville  Institute of Social Studies  Texas A&M University (Netherlands)  Tilburg University  Lund  Wageningen University & Research  Max Planck Society Centre  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer  Wake Forest University Center (COPE)  University of Wisconsin  UNC, Chapel Hill Authors who cannot pay – do not pay  BioMed Central provides an automatic waiver to authors based in over 90 of the poorest countries  Individual waiver requests are considered on a case-by-case basis and may be granted in cases of lack of funds. Summary of APC payments

Prepay membership 18%

Individual payment Individual (Standard) payment 54% (Supporter member) 16%

Promotional waivers 7%

Low income country waivers Discretionary 2% waivers 3% Membership types  Institutional membership scheme aims to: – Reduce barriers for authors – Increase visibility of open access journals  Prepay membership – Institution pays funds into a deposit account – Article Processing Charge is covered by funds from account – Discount depending on deposit amount – Author does not have to pay – Simplified administration/reporting  Supporter membership – Institutions pay a flat fee – Authors pay a discounted Article Processing Charge  Individual membership (PLOS) SWORD  Complying with OA deposit policies takes extra effort and resources  Using SWORD Protocol (www.swordapp.org) official final version of researchers open access article together with supporting metadata automatically deposited into IR  Pioneered by MIT  Helps ensure increased coverage of IR Conclusions

 Authors need their institution’s support in helping them to publish in their journals of choice (which is more often Open Access)  Membership options allow researchers the easiest route to publication in OA journals  Open Access publishing can facilitate the compliance with your repository Thank you [email protected]