The Open Access Publisher

Upon hearing that he was awarded the Nobel Prize with Brenner and Horvitz, Sir John Sulston is quoted as saying that: "The worm [C. Elegans] worked so well because the community held an ethos of sharing - just as the public genome projects have - from the beginning. We gave all our results to others as soon as we had them. From sharing, discovery is accelerated in the community. Research is hastened when people share results freely." (The Guardian, UK, October 8, 2002)

About BioMed Central What is Open Access The Business Model Benefits to authors Choice of journals Where is BioMed Central now Subscription products Presentation Overview

What is BioMed Central? Independent online publishing house committed to providing peer-reviewed research across all areas of biology and medicine, with immediate, barrier-free open access for all. Using other business models to maintain our open access policy including: BioMed Central Institutional Membership Subscription-based content to “value-added” secondary resources

What is Open Access? The article is universally and freely accessible via the Internet The authors retain copyright to their article Deposited immediately upon publication, a internationally recognized open access repository (such as PubMed Central).

Why is Open Access needed? Severe disadvantages of restrictive access to be useful scientific results need to be read, used, cited and extended upon Political argument – Pay taxes, have access Increasing cost of subscriptions Increasing number of journals ( you can not have it all!) Transfer of copyright

How is Open Access achieved at BioMed Central? Reversing the business model: removing subscription charges and introducing article processing charges, whilst allowing authors to keep the copyright to their article Article processing charge of $525-$1500 per published article Institutional Membership Further financed by finding alternative revenues through advertising, subscription products

Benefits of publishing in open access journals? Free Access =Maximum Visibility Higher chances to be cited Immediate publication and included in PubMed Authors retain copyright BMC promotes selected articles

High Visibility 1. Accesses 6389 Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet Michael S Donaldson Nutrition Journal 2004, 3:19 (20 October 2004) Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet 2. Accesses 5581 Acetylcysteine for prevention of contrast-induced nephropathy after intravascular angiography: A systematic review and meta-analysis Sean M Bagshaw, William A Ghali BMC Medicine 2004, 2:38 (22 October 2004) Acetylcysteine for prevention of contrast-induced nephropathy after intravascular angiography: A systematic review and meta-analysis 3. Accesses 5104 Neoadjuvant or adjuvant therapy for resectable esophageal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis Richard A Malthaner, Rebecca KS Wong, R Bryan Rumble, Lisa Zuraw, Members of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Disease Site Group of Cancer Care Ontario's Program in Evidence-based Care. BMC Medicine 2004, 2:35 (24 September 2004) Neoadjuvant or adjuvant therapy for resectable esophageal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The Service BioMed Central offers… Efficient Peer Review all papers are peer reviewed in the ‘traditional’ way Secure Archiving all articles are permanently archived in PubMed Central, INIST (others to be announced) Searchable and retrievable: all included in PubMed, Scirus, Google, CrossRef, HINARI (some journals are indexed in MEDLINE, Biosis, CAS, an increasing number tracked by ISI for citations )

Journals currently covered by ISI Respiratory Research Respiratory Research 5.5 Arthritis Research & TherapyArthritis Research & Therapy 5.0 Current Controlled Trials Current Controlled Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine 3.1 Breast Cancer Research 2.9in Cardiovascular Medicine Breast Cancer Research BMC Cell BiologyBMC Cell Biology 2.6 Critical Care 1.9 BMC Cancer 1.7 BMC Infectious Diseases 1.2 Critical Care BMC Cancer BMC Infectious Diseases BMC Public HealthBMC Public Health 0.9 BMC Health Services ResearchBMC Health Services Research 0.6 BMC Microbiology BMC Molecular Biology BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders BMC Neuroscience Genome Biology Malaria Journal BMC Bioinformatics BMC Biotechnology BMC Genomics BMC Evolutionary Biology BMC Gastroenterology

BioMed Central’s Journals Over 120 open access journals in total in all areas of biology and medicine Access to all peer-reviewed research content is free Highly Selective, general interest: –Journal of Biology Edited by Martin Raff Free access to outstanding peer-reviewed research in biology Selective, high community interest: –BMC Medicine and BMC Biology –Publishing peer-reviewed research articles of high quality and broad interest –Highlighting the best research from the BMC Series Sound science, range of interest: –60 BMC series journals –62 externally run specialist journals, varying interest and selectivity

Starting a journal with BMC How? Provide a scope statement Assemble an editorial board – must demonstrate scientific credibility Select a journal title Provide lists of potential authors BioMed Central provides a publishing platform, a website and technical expertise for the journals

Examples of new journals published by BioMed Central

Success Story so Far Over 9000 submitted articles; 4500 published articles 120 journals; 21 journals tracked by ISI 459 Member institutions Funding Bodies supporting Open Access natashar: "I think it is now clear that BioMed Central is destined to become one of the dominant online scientific publishers. I feel very strongly that this form of publication represents an important advance in scientific communication. It makes all publications free to anyone that has access to the internet - opening up access to the third world. In addition, it is superior to print journals because there are no space limits, or limits on number or color figures, along with the ability to include detailed lists of data, etc. I have published six articles in BioMed Central journals in the last two years. I have been very impressed with the high standards and quality of the reviews that I have received. I have had nothing but positive experiences of BioMed Central." David Levitt, MD, PhD Professor of Physiology University of Minnesota natashar: "I think it is now clear that BioMed Central is destined to become one of the dominant online scientific publishers. I feel very strongly that this form of publication represents an important advance in scientific communication. It makes all publications free to anyone that has access to the internet - opening up access to the third world. In addition, it is superior to print journals because there are no space limits, or limits on number or color figures, along with the ability to include detailed lists of data, etc. I have published six articles in BioMed Central journals in the last two years. I have been very impressed with the high standards and quality of the reviews that I have received. I have had nothing but positive experiences of BioMed Central." David Levitt, MD, PhD Professor of Physiology University of Minnesota

What’s next? Advocacy – Word of Mouth Build on and improve service to authors and readers Lobbying government and funding organisations Increase number of Open Access journals Increase in content

BioMed Central Subscription Products Faculty of 1000 – images.MD – Genome Biology – Arthritis Research – B C R – breast-cancer-research.comhttp:// breast-cancer-research.com Critical Care Forum- C R – C T O –

Faculty of 1000 Biology A new online research service that systematically highlights and reviews the most interesting papers published in the biological sciences based on the recommendations of a faculty of well over 1600 selected leading international scientists.

images. MD Over 50,000 high-quality images Accompanying explanatory text 90 subject collections e.g. allergy, cardiology, neurology, urology 2000 of the world ’ s leading medical experts contributing Create and personalise own image library Create PowerPoint presentations Add or delete text