Category Archives: Open Access

Moves to extend NIH open access mandate

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Frank

We all love to be different – it seems to be a feature of much human activity that we cherish little foibles that set us apart. This is certainly true in the scholarly communications arena, though more recently journals have … Continue reading →

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Megajournals

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Frank

The trend towards Open Access has catalysed the creation of many new journals and new publishers. BioMedCentral, established in 2000, was a pioneer of open access publishing, launching a large number of journals. Public Library of Science (PLoS) initially established … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | Tagged | 11 Comments

Open Access gallops on

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Frank

Note: I see that Stephen has beaten me to it with his post last night (does he never sleep?!?).  This post overlaps with his but not totally, so I decided to put it up anyway. Progress towards the ideal of open … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | 2 Comments

Scientific information in the digital age

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Frank

Just a quick one. The European Commission is consulting on scientific information in the digital age. In late 2011 they intend to adopt a Communication and Recommendation on access to and preservation of digital scientific information. The press release says: … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access, Peer review | 1 Comment

Not another new open access journal

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Frank

Or, rather, not just any other new open access journal. The Wellcome Trust, the Max Planck Society and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have announced that they are to launch a new top-tier open access journal for biomedical and life … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | 4 Comments

Open season in biology

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Frank

On Thursday my colleague alerted me to a new open access journal from the Company of Biologists called Biology Open. Today, after a four-day long weekend (thanks to the Royal Wedding and Mayday celebrations) one of the first emails I … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | 13 Comments

Peering at review

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Frank

The House of Commons Select Committee on Science & Technology have announced that they will conduct an inquiry into peer review. They list eight points starting with: the strengths and weaknesses of peer review as a quality control mechanism for … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | 8 Comments

Nature’s new position statement on open access

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Frank

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) have just issued a new position statement on open access. It aims to give a useful of the company’s current activities in open access, and it sets out their policies and viewpoints with respect to open … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | 6 Comments

Fees, subscriptions and the messy business of payments

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Frank

Martin Fenner has posted on Gobbledygook about submission fees and open access, drawing attention to the release of a report on submission fees that was commissioned by Knowledge Exchange, a partnership of JISC (United Kingdom), SURF (Netherlands), DEFF (Denmark) and … Continue reading →

Posted in Journal publishing, Open Access | 9 Comments

Prizes and anniversaries

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Frank

Yesterday I attended BioMedCentral’s 10th anniversary celebrations and research awards. Yes, it is a whole ten years ago that Vitek Tracz created his novel publishing business model of “author pays” open access, or “gold” open access as it is sometimes … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | 6 Comments