10 years of Open Access
at BioMed Central
Matthew Cockerill
Managing Director, BioMed Central

Technology changes business models

What is fundamentally 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
 Publisher receives payment for
the service of publication

About BioMed Central
 Largest publisher of peer-reviewed open
access journals
 Launched first open access journal in 2000
 Now publishes 199 OA titles
 >50,000 peer-reviewed OA articles published
 All research articles published under Creative
Commons licence
 Costs covered by 'article processing charge'
(APC)

Three key types of journal
 BMC-series (~60 titles)
– Largely in-house editorial process
– Systematic coverage of all areas of biology and medicine
– Aims to publish all scientifically sound research
– BMC Biology and BMC Medicine highlight top research
– BMC Research Notes publishes incremental results, datasets etc.
 Independent journals (~135 titles)
– External Editors-in-Chief
– External editorial process (with option of in-house support)
– Some are broad, some focus on a specific niche
– Often society-affiliated
 Hybrid journals (~6 titles)
– In-house editorial process
– Commissioned content available to subscribers
– All research open access

BioMed Central revenue streams
 Publication fees
– From authors
– From meeting organizers
– From sponsoring organizations
 Subscription content (e.g. reviews)
 Services (e.g. Open Repository)
 Advertising / sponsorship

OA Publication Fees

Putting Open Access fees into
perspective
Top-down and bottom-up analyses
come to similar conclusion
Average publisher revenue per STM
article, under the traditional
subscription-based model, is around
£3000 ($4700)

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

OA publication fees ($US)
 BioMed Central $915-$2265
 Public Library of Science $1300-$2850
 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 may pay out of grant funds
 Some funders provide dedicated funds
for open access publishing costs
 Institutions may cover costs centrally
(via open access funds and/or
membership arrangements with OA
publishers)
 Some journals are run by organizations
which 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
– Author does not have to pay
– Simplified administration/reporting
 Supporter membership
– Institutions pay a flat fee
– Authors pay a discounted Article Processing Charge

How are BioMed Central articles
paid for?
100%
80%
Discretionary waivers
60% Low income country waiver
Promotional waiver
Full/prepay member
Individual APC (supporter)
40%
Individual APC (standard)
20%
0%
May-05
May-06
May-07
May-08
May-09
Nov-05
Nov-06
Mar-07
Nov-07
Mar-08
Mar-09
Mar-05
Mar-06
Nov-08
Jul-07
Jul-08
Jan-05
Jul-05
Jan-06
Jul-06
Jan-07
Jan-08
Jan-09
Sep-06
Sep-07
Sep-08
Sep-05

Not all publication fees come
from authors
 Author’s pay
publication
fee for
research
articles
 DFG funding
covers cost of
additional
articles

Some BioMed Central journals with
no author fees
Chinese Medicine
Chiropractic & Osteopathy
Italian Journal of Pediatrics
Journal of Biomedical Science
Journal of Brachial Plexus and Peripheral Nerve Injury
Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research
Journal of the International AIDS Society
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and
Emergency Medicine
Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy &
Technology

Making peer review more efficient

Peer review cascade
High
rejection rate
Moderate
rejection rate
Low
rejection rate

Advantages of peer review cascade
 Avoids delays for authors
 Avoids saddling academics with
repeated peer review of less interesting
papers
 Separates question of soundness of
research from level of interest
– Soundness determines whether to publish
– Interest determines where to publish

Increasingly widespread model
 PLoS
 Nature
 Cell
 Neuroscience Peer
Review Consortium

BioMed Central journal’s with
additional subscription content
And soon…

Examples of additional services
 A hosted digital
repository solution
 Integration ensures
articles published in
OA journals can
easily be included

Advertising
 Common question from would-be
journal editors:
“Can we support a journal entirely
with advertising?”
 Unlikely - advertising is small
fraction of revenue for BioMed
Central journals

Institutions, funders and open access
 Mandatory OA-deposit policies
from research funders
E.g. NIH, HHMI, UK PMC funder group
 Institutional OA-deposit mandates
E.g. Harvard, MIT, UCL
 Central institutional open access
funds
E.g. Nottingham, Newcastle, Calgary, Berkeley

Growth of BioMed Central

Growth in quarterly manuscipt
submissions
7000
6000
5000
Science Now
4000 Genome Biology
Independent Journals
3000 BMC Research Notes
BMC series
2000
1000
0
O 0
Ap 0
O 1
Ap 1
O 2
Ap 2
O 3
Ap 3
O 4
Ap 4
O 5
Ap 5
O 6
Ap 6
O 7
Ap 7
8
O 8
r-0
r-0
-0
-0
r-0
r-0
-0
-0
r-0
-0
-0
-0
r-0
-0
r-0
r-0
-0
r-0
ct
ct
ct
ct
ct
ct
ct
ct
ct
Ap

Which have been Biomed Central’s
most rapidly growing journals
BMC Genomics BMC Evolutionary
1000 Biology
900
800
600
700
600 500
500 400
400
300
300
200 Malaria Journal 200
100 100
0
350 0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
300 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
250
Genome Biology 200
150 BMC Developmental
1000 100 Biology
800 50
250
0
600
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 200
400 150
200 100
0 50
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

What do these journals have in
common?

Official Impact Factors

BioMed Central journals with official
Thomson Reuters/ISI impact factors
No. of journals
with
Impact Factor
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

‘New journals’ vs
‘Transfer journals’

BioMed Central proved the OA model
with new journal launches

The success of the model has led to
more and more journal transfers

Open Access publishing,
then and now…
2000 2009
And more…

A new industry association

Goals of OASPA
 Represents Open Access publishers
 Agree common definition of Open Access
 Establish and enforce good standards of
editorial and business practices amongst
members
 Identify guidelines and best practices for
publishers and institutions in managing
payment of publication fees

Springer’s acquisition
of BioMed Central
+

Springer acquisition FAQs
 Will BioMed Central’s policy of open access to all
research continue?
Yes – this was an obligatory condition for the deal to gain
approval by BioMed Central’s Board of Trustees
 Is BioMed Central profitable?
Springer bought BioMed Central because it is a healthy
publishing business, in a growing sector of the market
 Will BioMed Central APCs be increased to Springer
Open Choice levels?
There are no plans to change BioMed Central’s APC
pricing policy as a result of the deal

What does the acquisition mean for
BioMed Central?
 BioMed Central remains an autonomous
operating unit within Springer
 Springer’s global infrastructure and market
presence is helping BioMed Central to
expand its activities
 Springer has a wealth of experience in
society publishing
 As part of Springer, BioMed Central is
ideally placed to publish open access
society journals