Medicine® Open Access FAQ
What is Open Access? Open access (OA) is the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly research. Open access journals provide 'gold' open access, meaning immediate open access to all of their articles on the publisher's website. ‘Gold’ open access for individual articles is funded by authors (or their author's institution or funders) who pay an open access publishing fee (APC).
What costs does the APC cover? As costs are involved in every stage of the publication process, from peer review to copy editing and hosting the final article on dedicated servers, authors will be asked to pay an article-processing charge (APC) in order for their article to be published open access. By paying the APC, authors can post the final, published PDF of their article on a web site, institutional repository or other free public server, immediately on publication.
What type of articles will Medicine® publish? Clinical Trial/Experimental Studies (CONSORT Compliant) Observational Studies (STROBE Compliant) Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA Compliant) Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE Compliant) Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (STARD Compliant) Quality Improvement Studies (SQUIRE Compliant) Economic Evaluation Studies (CHEERS Compliant) Clinical Case Reports (CARE Compliant)
How will readers know articles are open access? All open access articles will be marked with an icon bearing 'Open Access' on the full-text and PDF formats of the published work, and information on the type of creative commons license will be available on all article formats and listed in the article metadata.
When do authors pay the article-processing charge (APC)? Authors must complete a payment form on acceptance, a link to which is provided in the acceptance letter, as well as a relevant Creative Commons license form. Authors must return both forms before their manuscript can be processed for publication. The APC for Medicine® is $1550 for the Creative Commons International 4.0 licenses listed below, with the exception of the CCBY license which is $1950.
Who retains copyright of the open access articles? Authors retain copyright for their article, with content licensed under one of 6 Creative Commons licenses. Authors can choose to opt for: Attribution: CC-BY. This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Attribution-ShareAlike: CC BY-SA. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. Attribution-NoDerivs: CC BY-ND. This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non- commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you. Attribution-NonCommercial: CC BY-NC. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms. Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs: CC BY-NC-ND. This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
If I publish in Medicine®, does this make me compliant with my funding body requirements? Medicine’s services and policies ensure that authors can fully comply with the public access requirements of major funding bodies worldwide.
Is Medicine® online only? Yes, Medicine® will only be available online, with no print edition.
How do I subscribe to Medicine®? Medicine® is an open access journal, so there is no subscription.
Does Medicine® have an impact factor? Yes. Medicine’s current impact factor is 5.723 (2015 Journal Citation Reports).