Agenda
• BioMed Central, an introduction
Open access publishing at
p p g
• Bi M d C t l’ b i
BioMed Central’s business model
d l
BioMed Central
• Growth of BioMed Central
Charlotte Hubbard • Acquisition by Springer
q y p g
Journal Development Manager • Looking forwards
BioMed Central Open access at BioMed Central
• Largest publisher of peer-reviewed open • Research articles are universally available
access journals via the Internet, without any barriers to
y
access
• 200+ journals
• C
Copyright li
i ht license allows redistribution and
ll di t ib ti d
• >55,000 open access articles reuse as long as attribution is given
• ~5 million articles accessed/month
• Permanently archived in internationally
• I
Immediate, b i f
di t barrier-free open access t
to recognised repositories (e g PubMed
(e.g.
research Central)

Our journals
• BMC-series (~60 titles)
– Largely in-house editorial processes
– Broad scope
• Independent journals (~130 titles) BioMed Central’s business model
– Run by external groups of scientists or societies
– Niche or broad scoped as defined by the Editors
• Hybrid journals (6 titles)
– Publish open access research, and subscription-
based reviews and commentary
New technologies change practices New technologies change business
and business models models
Traditional model Open access model
• Research community y • Research community y
transfers rights to the retains ownership of
research to the the work
publisher
• The publisher sells the • The publisher charges
research back to the directly for the service
community of dissemination/
publication

BioMed Central revenue streams
• Publication fees (80-90%)
• S b i ti content (‘h b id j
Subscription t t (‘hybrid journals’)
l ’)
• Advertising/sponsorship Open access p
p publication fees
• Services (e.g. Open Repository)
( g p p y)
What do they cover? How much are we charging?
• The costs of running open access journals • Standard charge is £925 / US$1535, ~¥132,000
are similar to those in traditional journal
j
publishing: • Charges range from $915 - $2265
– Editorial
• Article-processing charge is a flat-fee; there
– Production
are no additional costs
– Technical
T h i l
– Marketing
– Customer services

How does this compare to other
Who pays?
publishers?
• Hindawi $600 - $1500 • Author’s funding body
• BioMed Central $915 - $2265 • Author s
Author’s institution
• PLoS $1300 - $2850 • Direct payment by the authors
• Oxford University Press $3000
$ • Charges are waived where there is a genuine
inability to pay
• Springer
p g $
$3000
– O
Open access waiver f d supported b Pfi
i fund, t d by Pfizer
• Wiley $3000
• Taylor F
T l & Frances $3250 • S
Supplements may be f d d b conferences or
l t b funded by f
• Cell Press $5000 sponsors
BioMed Central membership BioMed Central membership
• Prepay membership • ~300 members worldwide
Institution covers the cost of publication
centrally at a discounted rate
• Supporter membership
pp p
Institution pays a low-rate, flat fee and
authors receive a discount (15%)

Not all our journals charge APCs Rejection rate and open access
• Chinese Medicine
Chi M di i
• High prestige journals tend to have high
• Chiropractic & Osteopathy
rejection rates
j
• Italian Journal of Pediatrics
• Journal of Biomedical Science • Lots of submissions, relatively few
• Journal of Brachial Plexus and Peripheral Nerve Injury publications
• Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research
• Journal of the International AIDS Society • How to make this economically viable?
• Scandinavian Journal of Trauma Resuscitation and
Emergency Medicine
• Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy &
Technology
Journal peer review cascade
High rejection
rate
Moderate
M d
Other sources of revenue
rejection rate
Low rejection
rate

Journals with subscription content Advertising/sponsorship
• All research articles are open access
• Subscription for reviews and commentaries
Additional services
A hosted solution that builds and maintains
repositories on behalf of organisations
Growth of BioMed Central

Annual submissions Annual submissions from Japan
30000
900
25000 800
700
20000
600
500
15000
400
10000 300
200
5000
100
0
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Number of journals Number of journals
• Steady growth of the portfolio from 59 journals • Two new publishing platforms:
to 200
– 3 have Japanese Editors-in-Chief
• Increasingly established titles are choosing
to move to BioMed Central

Journals choosing to transfer Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica
150 1
0.8
Subm issions
Impa factor
0.6
act
m
0.4
0.2
0 0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
2006 2007 2008 2009
Year
Year
Year of transfer
High visibility
• No barriers to access
• Easily available to all aggregators/indexers
Key drivers of g
y growth

Building off success in key areas Building on success in key areas
• Bioinformatics
• Genomics
• Cancer
• Public Health
Providing a good service to authors Providing a good service to authors
Surveyed authors: • Updating technologies to meet our authors
• 95% rate our online submission system as q
requirements
‘Good’ or ‘Very good’
• 90% would recommend publishing in a
BioMed Central journal to a colleague
j g
• 90% rate the experience of publishing with
BioMed Central as ‘G d’ or ‘
dC l ‘Good’ ‘Very G d’
Good’ Embedded movies and
mini-websites

Marketing Marketing
Marketing Impact factors

Number of journals with impact factors Growing momentum of open access
60
2000 2009
50
40
30
20
10
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
…and more
and
Growing momentum of open access Growing momentum of open access
• Mandatory open access deposit policies from:
– Funding bodies, e.g. NIH, HMMI, UK Wellcome Trust
– Institutes, e.g. Harvard, MIT, UCL
• Central funding from institutions
– Berkeley, Calgary, Harvard, Nottingham, Newcastle

Growing momentum of open access
• Many institutes have repositories in place,
which can encourage open access
g p
publication Acquisition b S i
A i iti by Springer
• BUT there are difficulties in populating these
+
• Automation of feeds using SWORD protocol
What does the acquisition mean for What does the acquisition mean for
BioMed Central? BioMed Central?
• Acquisition by Springer is a strong • BioMed Central remains an autonomous
p
endorsement of the success of our open operating unit within Springer
p g p g
access publishing model
• BioMed Central is committed to permanently
• Springer’s global infrastructure and market
Springer s maintaining our open access p
g p policy,
y,
presence is helping us to expand activities safeguarded by a Board of Trustees

Plans for 2010 and beyond
beyond…
• Continued growth and development of
existing titles
g
Looking forwards
g • New launches planned and continued work
with society journals
Plans for 2010 and beyond
beyond… Plans for 2010 and beyond
beyond…
• Continue to make the most of new • Continue to work with funding bodies,
g
technologies: institutions and organisations to advocate
g
– Planned website redesign open access
– Improved PDF rendering
– Updates to peer review tools • Expansion of conference activities in support
– Hosting translations of our journals and Editors

Summary
• BioMed Central operates a successful open
access business model Thank you!
• We have developed a portfolio of 200
journals, many ranking highly in their Charlotte Hubbard
respective fields
p Journal Development Manager
p g
Charlotte.Hubbard@biomedcentral.com
• Plans for continued growth and
development, assisted b S
d l d by Springer’s global
’ l b l
infrastructure and market presence