1 Improving our support for Editors-in-Chief: What we have done, what we are doing, and what we are planning Deborah Kahn, Publishing Director, BioMed Central

2 What I will cover A brief history The growth of open access: opportunities and challenges How BioMed Central is responding to the challenges Support for Editors-in-Chief: –progress so far –current activities –plans for the future

3 A brief history of BioMed Central Launched first open access journal in 2000 Now publishes 215 OA titles >90,000 peer-reviewed OA articles published All research articles published under Creative Commons licence Costs covered by 'article processing charge' (APC)

4 Open Access publishing is growing fast

5 Open access in 2011 Nearly 6500 open access journals in the DOAJ Submissions to open access journals grew by over 44% between 2008 and 2009 Over 1000 open access journals are indexed by Thomson Reuters Open access to research is now mandated in over 110 institutions and by nearly 50 funders

6 BMC Copernicus PLoS Hindawi Springer Open Choice Growth in OA Presented by Mark Patterson, PLoS, at the SOAP Symposium, Berlin, January 2011

7 BioMed Central submissions

8 The challenges and opportunities of the growth of OA Increasing numbers of –authors are choosing to publish their articles in open access journals –journal editors are choosing to start journals in or move their existing journals to an open access model –publishers and societies are launching OA journals –funders are requiring the results of the research they fund to be published open access In order to remain the leading open access publisher, BioMed Central needs to continue to deliver excellent service to authors, reviewers and editors and we need to remain competitive with respect to all the other Open Access players

9 Organising for growth Matt Cockerill Managing Director Bev Acreman Commercial Director Customer Services, Marketing, PR, Sales Deborah Kahn Publishing Director Editorial, Journal Development, Journal Acquisitions, Data and Database Publishing Bryan Vickery Chief Operating Officer JEO, Editorial Production, Production, Supplements, Web Management, OR Mike Nuttall, Chief Technical Officer IT Operations, IT Development

10 Organising for growth

11 Organising for growth Creation of the Journal Development Editor role To provide a single regular internal contact to support Editors- in-Chief with journal development and general issues with their journals Outsourcing of the Journal Editorial Office To support the growing need for editorial administration support Reorganisation of Editorial Production and Production processes To reduce the number of stages in the post acceptance process, and to reduce time to publication

12 Investing in the journal platform and editorial tools The new journals platform provides us with an updated design and a much more flexible infrastructure –paving the way for journal-specific requirements, such as customisable Instructions for Authors Once this is complete we will be updating our editorial tools –to allow for many features which were previously not possible Reviewer database –Currently being tested before rollout

13 Improving communications with Editors-in-Chief In addition to the establishment of the Journal Development Group, we have –Instituted the Annual Editors Conference –Implemented a LinkedIn group for Editors- in-Chief –Continued to improve our quarterly Editors newsletter

14 Monitoring author satisfaction Authors are surveyed twice –after submission and after publication They are asked their opinions on –Speed of peer review, post acceptance and overall speed of publication –Responsiveness and helpfulness of staff –Whether they would recommend the journal to a colleague, or publish again We closely monitor their responses, and act on their suggestions on how we can improve.

15 Author Satisfaction – Independent journals 1 = very poor, 2 = poor, 3 = neutral, 4 = good, 5 = very good

16 Keeping our APCs competitive PublisherAPC ($ USD) BioMed Central Public Library of Science Springer Open Wiley Open BMJ Open1900 Oxford Open3000 Elsevier Nature Communications5000

17 Editors’ feedback Further improvements to communication Editorial tools/reviewer database Customisable Instructions for Authors New features/processes Faster turnaround times Acceptance dates Impact factors Plagiarism checking Google Adverts

18 Plans: Further improvements to communication Establish an Editors Advisory Board Implement a Senior Contact Network Enhance the usefulness of the Editors newsletter Undertake an annual editor satisfaction survey

19 Plans: System and process improvements Complete the rollout to the new journals platform Implement reviewer database Start work on new editorial tools Complete production process improvements Implement customisable I4A

20 Plans: other Implement acceptance and publication dates Plagiarism checking Google ads

21 In summary Open access is growing rapidly and at BioMed Central we have been working hard to ensure that we have the people, technology and processes in place to ensure that we remain the leading open access publisher. Over the past year, we have been able to provide more support to Editors-in-Chief than in the past. We now have the building blocks in place to significantly enhance this support, so that we can work together with you to ensure that the journals meet their potential.