Publishing in Open Access Journals
June 12, 2008 – 9:49 amCreated with support from the National Library of Sweden and its development program OpenAccess.se
Aina Svensson, 2007
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/se/
Description of the section
The following section describes what is meant by Open Access journals and how these differ from traditional journals and hybrid journals. The text also describes where to find Open Access journals, how to publish in these and what it costs to publish in Open Access journals.
What distinguishes an Open Access journal from a traditional journal?
To understand how new publishing models for scholarly journals have developed and become established within the Open Access movement it is important, also, to understand how publishing of traditional journals works. That which the different journal models mentioned in this section have in common is the use of peer-review to assess the scientific quality of the articles.
Scholarly journals may be divided up according to how the journals make their contents accessible, how the copyright is handled and how the expenses for publishing are financed:
- Traditional journals require subscriptions in order for a reader to have access to the contents which then result in limited dissemination and accessibility. The copyright is normally transferred from the author to the publishing company.
- Open Access journals provide free dissemination and accessibility of articles on the Internet and the copyright remains with the author. The expenses for publishing are normally covered by author fees or, in some cases, by membership fees and support by research institutions.
- Hybrid journals are traditional journals which offer the author to either choose a traditional publishing model or open access publishing, i.e., to either publish the article without any charge, but then with a limited dissemination since subscriptions in this case are needed for access, or to pay for having the article published with free access.
Traditional journals
Publishing in traditional journals is still the dominating form and today, furthermore, in many subject fields it constitutes the only alternative for a researcher who desires to get published in a highly ranked scientific journal. Generally the author may publish free of charge in a traditional journal but author fees do occur for some journals. The expenses for publishing and distribution are primarily covered by subscription fees. However, most publishing companies that put out journals using a traditional publishing model allow researchers to parallel publish articles on certain conditions. Read more about how researchers can make their publications freely accessible in open archives in the section “Publishing in Open Archives”.
Open Access journals
Open Access journals have been started as an alternative to and critique of the traditional journal market. The basic idea is to publish research results on the Internet, free of charge and accessible to everyone who wants to quote, read or download articles. Open Access journals are in part characterized by the making of the journal contents freely accessible on the Internet and in part by allowing the author to keep the copyright of the article. It is also important to note that Open Access journals, just like the traditional journals, carry out some form of quality review of the journal’s scientific contents. Of the peer-reviewed scientific journals about nine percent are freely accessible today. DOAJ, the Directory of Open Access Journals, listed 2,726 freely accessible journals in June 2007. A survey of today’s journal production conducted through a search in Ulrich’s International Periodicals, a reference database, shows that there are nearly 24, 000 actively publishing peer-reviewed journals.
There are different funding models for Open Access journals and there are both commercial and non-profit initiatives. In certain cases a publishing fee has to be paid by the author, the author’s institution or research funder and in certain cases no fee is charged. Research financiers may have special funds designed for the researcher’s publications.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is an international search portal for freely accessible peer-reviewed scholarly journals. The purpose with the DOAJ is to maintain a shared entrance for Open Access journals and in this way make visible and contribute to an increased use of these journals. The DOAJ was launched in 2003 and today it lists more than 2,700 freely accessible journals. Anybody may suggest the inclusion of a particular scholarly journal but certain criteria exist for the selection of the journals. The journal must have some sort of editorial quality control or peer-review and a significant part of the journal contents need to be scientific articles with researchers as the target group. Another demand is that the material of the journal must be freely accessible in full text directly at the moment of publishing. The ambition of the DOAJ is to offer journals in all subject fields and all speaking areas. It is possible to search for a journal in the alphabetical index or to make a search using words in the title. It is also possible to search for Open Access journals in different subject categories. In the spring of 2004 the service was increased by the possibility to make searches on article level in the listed journals. At present it is possible to search for articles from about a third of the listed Open Access journals.
From the Autumn of 2006 DOAJ has been increased by the resolution service “For Authors Service”, for authors who wish to publish their research using Open Access. This service makes it possible for a researcher to search for both journals that are solely Open Access and for so-called hybrid journals which offer Open Access publishing charging an author’s fee. Besides facts about the journal, as for example subject, publishing company and ISSN, the resolution service “for authors service” also provides information about any possible publishing fee that the journal applies.
The DOAJ is run by Lund University Library and supported by, among others, the National Library of Sweden, SPARC and the Open Society Institute and also by several research libraries and research centres around the world which use the service. In February 2007 the DOAJ program for membership was started to ensure continued support and development of the service and at present nearly 40 university libraries and research centres are sustaining members of the DOAJ at a cost of €400 per year.
BioMed Central
BioMed Central is a commercial publishing company for Open Access publishing which started in 1999 and published its first article in July 2000. Today the publishing company puts out peer-reviewed scholarly articles in 176 journals in medicine and biology. BioMed Central divides its journals into the BMC series, a group of independent journals and other journals. At present, the BMC series includes 60 journals, all of them administered by BioMed Central and with an editorial staff for each journal. The group of independent journals consists of 110 titles. These journals are run by research groups that have taken the initiative to start Open Access journals and who have taken on the editorial work themselves but with BioMed Central as contributor of the technical platform.
All journals in the BMC series and the independent journals are Open Access and are only published electronically. The remaining 6 journals differ from the rest through their possibility of appearing in a printed edition or through the fact that parts of the contents require a subscription.
BioMed Central has a close collaboration with PubMed Central which means that all articles are immediately published in full text on PubMed Central and searchable via PubMed. The costs for a researcher who publishes via BioMed Central is usually $1,485 per article, but there is a number of journals that apply differing fees. Read more under BioMed Central’s “frequently asked questions” about price information. Universities and research institutes that are sustaining members of BioMed Central grant the researcher a 15 % discount per article. Several of the BioMed Central journals are ranked by Thomson ISI, see more under Impact factor information.
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Public Library of Science is a non-profit organization of scholars that in 2003 started its first Open Access journal, PLoS Biology. Today the organization runs 8 journals in biology and medicine. Already from the beginning the goal was to establish top-ranked Open Access journals that could compete with, for example, Nature och Science, and a goal that also has been reached. PLoS Biology has an impact factor of 14.7.
Public Library of Science recently started PLoS One which differs from other journals in the sense that researchers have the possibility to comment on the published work afterwards. Articles which are published in PLoS One first undergo an assessment for their technical quality while the subject relevance and quality assessment of the article are carried out continuously by the journal readers.
The costs for publishing an article in PLoS One is $1,250 and for other PLoS journals between $2,000 and $2,500.
Hybrid journals
Several publishing companies have started to use a publishing model in which the author has the possibility to choose Open Access publishing in so-called hybrid journals with the application of an author’s fee. Articles which are published with free access according to this model undergo the same quality control as traditionally published articles. In addition, the author keeps the copyright to his or her article. Some examples of publishing companies which use a hybrid model:
American Institute of Physics (AIP) - Author Select program
AIP is a non-commercial association with the goal of spreading science in physics and subject fields that lie near at hand. The possibility to choose Open Access publishing was introduced in 2004 for some journals and the option is today available for all AIP journals.
The cost per article may vary between $1,500 and $2,000.
http://www.aip.org/press_release/author_select_expands.html
APS Journals (American Physical Society) - FREE TO READ
Start in 2006. Cost per article: $975-$1,300
http://publish.aps.org/OpenAccessRelease.html
Blackwell Publishing - Online Open
Started in 2005. More than one hundred titles are included in Online Open, primarily in medicine and biomedicine. Cost per article: $2,600
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/static/onlineopen.asp
BMJ - BMJ Unlocked Hybrid Journal program
Start in 2006. Cost per article: $3,145
http://adc.bmj.com/info/unlocked.dtl
Cambridge Journals - Cambridge Open Option
Start in 2006. 15 journals are included in Open Option. Cost: $2,700
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/forAuthors
Elsevier - Sponsored-Article Hybrid Journal program
Start in 2006. Elsevier offers only a few journals for Open Access publishing. Cost: $3,000.
Oxford University Press - Oxford Open
Started in 2005. About 50 journals are included in Oxford Open. The cost per article is lower for authors from universities which subscribe to Oxford journals and no fees are charged to researchers from the third world. The cost per article where subscriptions exist: $1,500. Cost per article without a subscription: $2,800.
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/
Royal Society - ExiS (Excellence in Science) Open Choice
Start in 2006. The Royal Society is a scholarly society which has existed for more than 300 years and at present the society puts out seven generally known journals in biology, physics and history of science. With ExiS (Excellence in Science) Open Choice the author may choose to pay for free access. Cost per article page: $370-$550
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1334
Springer Open Choice
Springer was the first large publishing company that launched a program for hybrid journals in 2004. Articles that are published in Springer’s Open Choice are handled in the same way as traditionally published articles and they are also offered in print.
Cost per article for the author: $3,000
http://www.springer.com/dal/home/open+choice
Wiley Interscience - Wiley Funded Access
Start in 2006. 44 journals are included in Funded Access. Cost per article: $3,000
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