An introduction to BioMed Central and Open Access publishing Matthew Cockerill Managing Director, BioMed Central

Technology changes business models

What is different about the Open Access publishing business model?

Traditional research publishing  The research community transfers the rights to the research to the publisher  The publisher covers costs by selling access to the content

Open Access research publishing  No barriers to access  No exclusive rights retained by publisher  Articles are openly licensed  Publisher is paid for the service of publication

Benefits of Open Access for authors  Lack of subscription barriers maximizes readership and impact  Articles are widely accessible via indexing services, search engines and archives  Breaks down barriers between fields  Promotes public engagement with scientific and medical research  Allows text mining of literature and data

About BioMed Central  Largest publisher of peer-reviewed open access research journals  Launched first open access journal in 2000  Acquired by Springer in October 2008  Now publishes 204 OA titles  >60,000 peer-reviewed OA articles published  All research articles may be shared openly under Creative Commons license  Costs covered by 'article processing charge’ (APC)

BioMed Central’s 3 types of journal 1.BMC-series (~60 titles) –BMC Cancer, BMC Genetics, BMC Infectious Diseases etc. –In-house editorial process –Systematic coverage of biology and medicine, by subject area –BMC Biology and BMC Medicine highlight high quality research of general interest –BMC Research Notes publishes short reports, datasets etc.

BioMed Central’s 3 types of journal 2.Independent journals (~135 titles) –Malaria Journal, Molecular Cancer, Retrovirology etc. –External Editors-in-Chief –External editorial process (with option of in-house support) –Often society-affiliated

BioMed Central’s 3 types of journal 3.Journals that include subscription content (7 titles) –Genome Biology, Breast Cancer Research, etc. –Prestige journals –High Impact Factors –In-house editorial support –All research is Open Access –Commissioned content available only to subscribers

BioMed Central journals with additional subscription content

OA Publication Fees

What do OA publication fees cover?  Open access publishing has many of the same costs as the traditional system: –Editorial –Technical –Production –Customer services –Marketing (e.g. conference attendance)

OA publication fees ($US)  BioMed Central $900-$2350  Public Library of Science $1350-$2900  Company of Biologists $2560  Oxford University Press $3000  Royal Society$2550-$4420  Springer$3000  Taylor & Francis$3250  Wiley$3000

How do OA publication fees get paid?  Authors often pay out of grant funds  Some funders provide dedicated funds to cover open access publishing costs  Institutions may cover costs centrally (via open access funds and/or membership arrangements with OA publishers)  Some society journals cover costs themselves

BioMed Central membership  Prepay membership –Institution pays funds into a deposit account –Article Processing Charge is covered by funds from account –Discount depending on deposit amount –Authors do not have to pay –Simplified administration/reporting  Supporter membership –Institutions pay a flat fee –Authors pay a discounted Article Processing Charge

Example member

Source of APC payments

Rejection rates and the open access model  High prestige journals tend to have a high rejection rate  Lots of submissions lead to relatively few publications  How can this be handled by the Open Access publication fee model?

Journal peer review cascade High rejection rate Moderate rejection rate Low rejection rate

Rejected authors may be offered consideration in another title  Avoids delays for authors  Avoids wasting the time of peer reviewers  Separates scientific soundness of research from level of interest

Growth of Open Access publishing at BioMed Central

Number of manuscript submitted each calendar quarter

1. Visibility Drivers of growth

Google pagerank Similarly:  Cell Biology  Molecular Biology  Systems Biology  Bioinformatics  Developmental Biology All on first page of Google results

2. Impact Factors Drivers of growth

Which were BioMed Central’s most rapidly growing journals?

Impact Factors

BioMed Central journals with official Thomson Reuters/ISI Impact Factors

3. Growth of number of journals published

New journal launches…

Journals transferring to BioMed Central

Increasing visibility and increasing impact for a society journal Moved to BioMed Central and became Open Access

Open Access publishing is an increasingly widespread model

And more…

OASPA - a new industry association

Goals of OASPA  Represents Open Access publishers  Agree common definition of Open Access  Enforce high standards of editorial and business practice amongst members  Set guidelines and best practices for publishers and institutions in payment of OA publication fees

BioMed Central in Japan

Submissions from Japanese researchers to BioMed Central

 Submissions from Japan are ~3% of BioMed Central total  Japanese articles are ~5% of total articles in PubMed  Adoption of open access has been slower in Japan than elsewhere, but is growing  Around 1000 manuscript submissions from Japan to BioMed Central in 2009

Example of a highly cited, highly accessed article  Authors from: - Mie University -Kyoto University -Okazaki Institute for Integrative Bioscience  full text downloads  101 citations (Web of Science)

FANTOM4 article series Published in partnership with RIKEN Omics Science Center, Yokohama, Japan

Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy and Technology Co-Editor-in-Chief Masahiro Kurosaka, Kobe University School of Medicine Society affiliation Japanese Orthopaedic Society of Knee, Arthroscopy & Sports Medicine

Partnership with local Springer office + Collaboration with Springer Tokyo office on Japanese marketing activity and library relations

Japanese language material to promote open access publishing

Institutional Open Access policies and repositories

Institutional and funder open access policies  Mandatory OA-deposit policies from research funders E.g. NIH, HHMI, UK PubMed Central funder group  Mandatory OA-deposit policies from academic institutions E.g. Harvard, MIT, UCL

 Many Japanese institutions now have OA repositories  Filling OA repositories can be difficult  Open Access journals provide a source of content that can be immediately shared  BioMed Central is automating feeds to repositories using the SWORD protocol OA journals are complementary to Institutional OA repositories

Institutional Repository (DSpace/Eprints etc.) Publisher Manual deposit to IR Manuscript Author final version 1 2

Institutional Repository (DSpace/Eprints etc.) Automated deposit to IR via SWORD Manuscript SWORD Import SWORD Export Published articles from institution’s authors Published article