HEALTH SCIENCES:Open Access Databases

BIOMED CENTRALDr.S.C.Jindal

University of Delhi

Delhi-India

scjindal@du.ac.in

What is Open Access?

The new world of access to knowledge

OA in brief

• No subscriptions = no barriers to access• Published articles immediately available online for free

for everyone!• Copyright remains with the author• Major OA publishers - Article Processing Charges (APCs)• Support from funding bodies and governmental

agencies

Advantages of open access

• Very high visibility- Accessible from multiple sites- Indexed widely, eg PubMed- No barriers to dissemination

• Quality- Acceptance rates based purely on the quality of the submissions

Open Access Publishing,Then and Now…

20122000

And many more…

Open access in 2012

• Over 7200 open access journals in the DOAJ• Over 1000 OA journals are indexed by ISI• Open access to research is now mandated in over 135

institutions and by over 50 funders• Submissions to OA journals grew by over 35% between

2009 and 2010• OA firmly part of the mainstream

Growth in OA mandates

Source: http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/c_6226/open-access-policies-for-universities-and-research-institutions?hlText=policies

Impact Factor journals: open access market growth

0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

6.0%

7.0%

8.0%

9.0%

-

200,000

400,000

600,000

800,000

1,000,000

1,200,000

1,400,000

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Shar

e of

Arti

cles

in ‚F

ull O

A Jo

urna

ls

Num

ber o

f Art

icle

s

"Full" OA Journals Subscription Journals Share OA Articles

Difference between subscription and open access models

• Both have– Editors, peer review, are indexed in ISI etc, have similar production

processes, obey publication ethics• OA journals also– Allow the contents to be immediately freely available online

everywhere in perpetuity

• Different business models

The open access business model

• Commonly financed by Article Processing Charges (APCs) - usually paid by funders, institutions, societies, etc

• Some open access journals have central support, so no charges for authors or readers

• No charges for access

How authors cover APCs

Results from survey by the Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP)

BioMed Central Membership

• For BioMed Central, SpringerOpen and Chemistry Central journals

• Institutions pay APCs in full or in part for their researchers

• Over 380 Member institutions worldwide, including- Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca- Universidade Estadual Paulista

• Ask your librarian to visit: http://www.biomedcentral.com/libraries/membership

BioMed Central Open Access Charter

• All published peer-reviewed research articles in BioMed Central journals are– Universally, freely accessible through Internet – In readable format – Immediately deposited in an international Open Access repository

• eg PubMed Central

• Authors/copyright owners must irrevocably grant to anyone the right to use, reproduce or disseminate the research article in its entirety or in part in perpetuity provided that– No substantive errors are introduced– Authorship attribution is correct– Citation details are provided– Bibliographic details are unchanged

Open Access Publishing: Basics

• No subscription barriers

• Journal costs covered by

– Article Processing Charges• Typically paid by author's funder /institution

and/or

– Direct Institutional support of Journal

Why Open Access?

Traditional Scientific Publishing• Researchers

– Conduct research– Write up results– Submit papers to Journals

• Other researchers– Act as peer reviewers and editorial advisers

• Publishers sell access to that research back to scientific community

Limitations of this Model• Contrary to the interests of:

– Scientists doing research• Access, especially across disciplines, and in low income

countries, is limited

– Funders who pay for it• Often have no rights to access their own research articles

– Society as a whole• Public has almost no access

BioMed Central• Independant publisher of peer-reviewed open access research

– Launched first open access journals in 2000– Now publishing over 150 open access journals– Over 12,000 peer-reviewed open access articles published

• Costs covered by ‘Article Processing Charge’

– Typically £750/$1300 or – Membership

• All research articles covered by Creative Commons licence

– Allowing free re-use

BioMed Central Publishing• All papers

• Peer-reviewed in the ‘traditional’ way

• All papers are permanently archived in PubMed Central, INIST and other international archives

• Searchable and retrievable

• All included in PubMed, Scirus, Google, CrossRef, HINARI

• Some journals• Indexed in MEDLINE, Biosis, CAS

• Tracked by ISI for citations

• 33 tracked

• 15 with impact factors

BioMed Central Journals• 60 BMC series journals

– run by an in-house editorial team– cover all areas of Biology and Medicine– e.g. BMC Genetics, BMC Immunology, BMC Cancer

• 70+ independant journals– run by external groups of scientists or societies– e.g. Malaria Journal, Respiratory Research, Retrovirology

• Other titles which publish subscription-only commissioned content in addition to OA research– Arthritis Research & Therapy, Genome Biology, Breast

Cancer Research, Critical Care

Journals with Impact FactorsBMC Bioinformatics impact factor: 5.42Respiratory Research impact factor: 4.03Arthritis Research & Therapy impact factor: 4.55BMC Genomics impact factor: 3.25Critical Care impact factor: 3.21BMC Molecular Biology impact factor: 3.12Breast Cancer Research impact factor: 2.98BMC Cell Biology impact factor: 2.62

BMC Cancer impact factor: 2.29BMC Infectious Diseases impact factor: 2.07BMC Public Health impact factor: 1.55BMC Health Services Research impact factor: 1.23BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders impact factor: 1.00BMC Genetics impact factor: 0.92Trials impact factor: 1.70

Journals awaiting Impact FactorsBMC Biotechnology impact factor due June 2007 BMC Evolutionary Biology impact factor due June 2006 BMC Gastroenterology impact factor due June 2006 BMC Medical Genetics impact factor due June 2008 BMC Microbiology impact factor due June 2007BMC Neuroscience impact factor due June 2006Journal of Translational Medicine impact factor due June 2008 BMC Plant Biology impact factor due June 2008Retrovirology impact factor due June 2009

Malaria Journal impact factor due June 2006Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology impact factor due June 2008 Genome Biology impact factor due June 2006BMC Developmental Biology impact factor due June 2008BMC Immunology impact factor due June 2008BMC Neurology impact factor due June 2008BMC Structural Biology impact factor due June 2008Microbial Cell Factories impact factor due June 2008

Citation and Downloads

•“Open access articles receive 50% more full-text accesses and PDF downloads than subscription-access articles.”

• Kenneth R. Fulton, PNAS Publisher

•Independant study by CIBER found

• “Senior authors believe downloads to be more credible measure of the usefulness of research then traditional citations.”

• http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ciber/ciber_2005_survey_final.pdf

3.5 million page views a month

Submission growth

6901

3324

10748

year 2003

year 2004

year 2005

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

July 2000 July 2001 July 2002 July 2003 July 2004 July 2005

Date

Su

bm

iss

ion

s

Total

BMC-series

IndependentjournalsI-niche

Trend

Metrics: Trend in Submissions

Most Viewed Articles

Visibility on BioMed Central• 500,000 registrants

• 450,000 unique users per month

• 280,000+ BioMed Central email update recipients

• 5 million page views per month

• 2 million article downloads per month

• Average article downloaded >1100 times in first 3 months

Growth in Article Accesses

Article accesses per month

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1400000

1600000

1800000

Jan2000

Jul2000

Jan2001

Jul2001

Jan2002

Jul2002

Jan2003

Jul2003

Jan2004

Jul2004

Jan2005

Authors

Authors Embracing OA

• Research community is now much aware of open access

• Up 10 percentage points from 2004

• Fall in authors knowing nothing at all about open access (down 25 percentage points)

• Authors publishing in OA up from 11% (2004) to 29% (2005)

Independant study by CIBER: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ciber/ciber_2005_survey_final.pdf

What do Authors like about BioMed Central?

• Speed with which article is included in PubMed/other abstracting/indexing services

• Final appearance of article • Helpfulness of editorial staff

• Speed of online manuscript submission system

• Over 90% of authors would recommend to a colleague

Quotes from Author Survey“You have the best online submission system I have used until now.”BMC Bioinformatics author, Germany

“The submission process is the simplest to navigate through. Congratulations!”BMC Pharmacology author, Canada

 “The submission process is extremely user friendly and excellent.”Mohamed Mitwally, USA

 “Submission on line was excellent and easy to do. Congratulations on getting this right. Good work!”Arthritis Research & Therapy author, New Zealand

“I hugely appreciate the ability to use powerpoint files for submission! Generally an extremely easy system to use.”BMC Cancer author, UK

“I could not be more pleased with the process. I look forward to publishing in open access journals in the future.”BMC Evolutionary Biology author, USA

“I am very pleased with the ease of submission. I love that the copyright remains in my hands so that I can use my figures etc as I wish.” Journal of Translational Medicine author, Germany

Making it Pay:the Economics of Open

Access Publishing

Macro-economics

• Open access publishing involves no new costs

• From the perspective of the research community as a whole, switching to an Open Access publishing model is affordable and desirable, as it

– Costs no more than the current model– Delivers more (universal access and reuse)

Micro-economics• Library budgets already stretched, paying the costs of the

current publishing model through subscriptions

• Costs of traditional system are mostly invisible to authors, whereas article processing charges are an obstacle for authors

• During a transitional period, moves towards open access may involve additional costs

Paying for Open Access: examples

Who Pays the Cost of Publication?

• Some BioMed Central journals cover the cost of publication themselves– Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry– Chinese Medicine– Chiropractic & Osteopathy

• For other BioMed Central journals, payment typically comes from the authors funder or institution

Government• EC Report calls for change in science publishing

– Set up EU policy mandating EC-funded research to be made open access

– Aim at a level playing field– Allocate money to libraries for subscription journals and for author

pays journalshttp://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/414

• House of Commons(UK) Inquiry into Scientific Publishing– UK research funding bodies mandate free access to all their research

findings– Research Councils each establish a fund to which their funded

researchers can apply should they wish to publish their articles using the author-pays model

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39902.htm

Institutional Membership• Two basic models for institutions

– Full membership• Institution agrees to pay for every article

published by one of their authors, at a discounted rate

– Supporters' membership• Institution pays a flat rate, and in return, authors

get a discount, but must still organize payment of their own APCs

Funding AgenciesEuropeFonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Belgium)Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy)Fondazione Telethon (Italy)Wellcome Trust (UK)National Health Service (UK)RCUK (UK)Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Netherlands)Suomen Akatemia (Finland)Swiss National Science Foundation (Switzerland)Vetenskapsrådet (Sweden)Fonds zur Forderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Austria)Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (Spain)Danmarks Grundforskningsfond (Denmark)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany)Health Research Board (Ireland)INSERM (France)

Funding Agencies (Cont)

North-AmericaCanadian Institutes of Health Research (Canada)Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)National Institutes of Health (US) National Science Foundation (US)Rockefeller Foundation (US)

ROWInternational Human Frontier Science Program Organization (International)Israel Science Foundation (Israel)South African Medical Research Council (South Africa)

Institutional membership

• CalTech• Cancer Research UK• Columbia University• Cornell University• University of California• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute• Harvard University• INSERM• Imperial College • Institut Pasteur• John Innes Centre• Johns Hopkins University• Kyoto University• Max Planck Institutes• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

More than 400 institutions are members of BioMed Central, including, to name just a few:

• MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology• National Institutes of Health• National Institute for Medical Research• NHS England• Princeton University• Rockefeller University• TIGR• TSRI• Tufts University• Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute• University of Wisconsin• World Health Organization• Yale University

SocietiesLaunching open access journals with BioMed Central:• Geochemical Transactions - Geochemistry Division of the

American Chemical Society• Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica - Veterinary Associations

of the Nordic Countries • Chiropractic & Osteopathy - Chiropractic & Osteopathic

College of Australasia• Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases - subunit of INSERM• Chinese Medicine - International Society of Chinese

Medicine• Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research -

Chinese Speaking Orthopaedic Society• BioPsychoSocial Medicine - Japanese Society of

Psychosomatic Medicine

Funders that Explicitly Allow APCs to be Paid from Grants

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Canada)Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

(France)Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas

(Spain)Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy)Danmarks Grundforskningsfond (Denmark)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany)Fondazione Telethon (Italy)Fonds zur Forderung der wissenschaftlichen

Forschung (Austria)Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek

(Belgium)Health Research Board (Ireland)

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)International Human Frontier Science Program

Organization (International)Israel Science Foundation (Israel)National Health Service (UK)National Institutes of Health (US) National Science Foundation (US) Nederlandse Organisatie voor

Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Netherlands)

Rockefeller Foundation (US)South African Medical Research Council (South

Africa)Suomen Akatemia (Finland)Swiss National Science Foundation

(Switzerland)Vetenskapsrådet (Sweden)Wellcome Trust (UK)

Traditional Publishers

Full Open Access

(redistributable/ reusable)

Springer (2004)

All journals (OpenC hoice) $3000 NO NO

Nature Publishing Group (2004)

Molecular Systems Biology $3000 NO NO

British J ournal of Pharmacology $2500 No No

Blackwell Publishing (2005)

30 J ournals (Online Open)$2500 NO NO

Company of Biologists (2004)

Development $2560 NO NO

J ournal of C ell Science $2560 NO NO

J ournal of Experimental Biology $2560 NO NO

Oxford University Press (2005)

Nucleic Acids Research $1700 YES NO

National Academy of Sciences (2004)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA)

$1000 YES NO

On PubMed Central Publisher/ J ournal APC in $

BioMed Central's Article Processing Charges

Institutional member

69%

Author28%

Author (with supporters'

member discount)

3%