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Impressive new Impact Factors for BioMed Central's open access journals
Eleven journals published by BioMed Central received their first Impact Factor this month. Genome Biology's first Impact Factor of 9.71 places it in the top five of research journals in the Genetics and Heredity field. With nine journals in the top 10 of their 2005 Journal Citation Report category, and ten journals with a 2005 Impact Factor exceeding 3.00, BioMed Central's open access journals are confirmed as publishing high-quality, highly cited research.
A number of BioMed Central's journals have seen their Impact Factors increase in the 2005 Journal Citation Report, and in all twenty-five journals published by BioMed Central now have Impact Factors, for a list visit the website.
For more information about the new Impact Factors, read our press release. In related news, we are please to announce that a number of journals have recently been accepted for citation tracking by Thomson Scientific (ISI). BMC Biology, Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, Nutrition and Metabolism, and Molecular Cancer are on track to receive Impact Factors in the next few years.
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Open access developments
The last three months have been exciting times for open access. UK research councils issued policies to mandate open access. Legislation in support of open access is under review in the United States and Germany, and four other countries have either adopted or are considering national OA policies. The European Commission issued a report in favour of open access, we have seen strong public support for open access, and new open access offerings from major publishers and societies.
UK research councils will require open access
In an important advance for the open access movement, the MRC, BBSRC and ESRC have announced that they will require all grant recipients to deposit resulting articles in an open access archive. More information...
A new report from the European Commission recommends that science funders follow the NIH and the Wellcome Trust's lead by requiring their grant recipients to deposit resulting articles in an open access repository. The report also recommends that funds be made available to ensure that authors can publish in open access journals. For more information, read our press release.
In the United States, the Federal Research Public Access Act, recently introduced to the US Congress, calls for every federal agency with a budget of more than $100 million to implement a public access policy.
The Upper House of Germany's Parliament (Bundesrat) is considering a bill to permit author self-archiving of journal articles six months after publication, regardless of the terms in a copyright transfer agreement the author might have signed.
The Australian Research Council (ARC) is considering a national OA policy for ARC-funded research that would mandate deposit of a postprint immediately upon acceptance for publication and immediate OA for the metadata.
The Finnish Council of University Rectors has signed the Berlin Declaration. The Council has also launched a national open access initiative that includes giving aid to institutions to set up institutional repositories and raising awareness of the importance of open access. Sweden has also launched a national open access initiative, to promote both open access repositories and journals. The Academy of Science of South Africa has issued a report recommending using public funds to pay processing fees for open access journals and to launch a network of open access repositories.
Finally, Elsevier and the Royal Society have both announced offerings that will give authors the choice of partial open access for their articles. Elsevier and the Royal Society have been two of the most cautious organisations regarding open access in the past, so these developments are further testament to both the demand for open access and the increasing acceptance of open access as a mainstream publishing model.
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Membership developments
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Interest in BioMed Central's Membership Programs continues to grow and we are pleased to announce the following consortia deals:
Oberlin
Members of The Oberlin Group have recently renewed their BioMed Central Membership under the supporters model and we are delighted that four new institutions have joined this initiative bringing the total number to 33.
OhioLINK
OhioLINK has renewed its BioMed Central membership under the pre-pay model, enabling researchers throughout Ohio's 84 colleges and universities to publish their work in BioMed Central's growing number of open access journals without incurring a direct article processing charge.
Additional new pre-pay members include University of Manchester, University of Ulster and University of Denver. For a full list of all of BioMed Central's members, please visit our website.
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Dr Simon Hughes of King's College, London is just one of the researchers featured in BioMed Central's videos.
Author Videos
We are pleased to announce the launch of BioMed Central author videos and welcome you to visit the website where you can view and listen to pioneering researchers share their views of open access publishing and their experience of publishing in BioMed Central's open access journals.
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Open Repository news
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Open Repository is pleased to announce the launch of several new repositories in the past few months, including:
Solveig Thorsteinsdottir, Director of Divison of Library and Information Services, explains why Landspitali chose BioMed Central's Open Repository service:
Landspitali University Hospital's
repository homepage
"Landspitali chose BioMed Central's Open Repository service to be able to concentrate on administrating the site, collecting the data and gaining support from the hospital staff without having to worry about technical issues. Furthermore the value-added features provided by BioMed Central, in addition to the standard DSpace functionality, such as a submission form using PubMed ID and external linking to Entrez databases, makes BioMed Central's Open Repository a very viable choice for an academic health sciences institution."
If you would like to stay up to date with Open Repository developments, you can
sign-up to receive news updates using the registration box on the Open Repository homepage. The latest newsletter can be viewed here.
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BioMed Central on location
BioMed Central will be attending the following conferences over the coming months. Please contact us at institutions@biomedcentral.com for an appointment or just drop by our booth if you are planning to attend any of these events. We look forward to meeting you!
HLG Conference 2006
Visit us this month at the Health Libraries Group annual meeting in Eastbourne from 10th - 12th July. BioMed Central will be exhibiting at booth #21.
EAHIL
BioMed Central will be exhibiting at the European Association of Health Information and Libraries 10th Conference, taking place in Cluj, Romania from 11th - 16th September. We hope you will visit the BioMed Central booth (#7) and also come and listen to our presentation, which shall be taking place in the conference hall from 17.50 - 18.30 on Wednesday 13th September.
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New Sales Contact
We are delighted to welcome Natalia Timiraos to the BioMed Central sales team. Natalia will be responsible for the following regions: Central and Southern America, Caribbean, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Denmark and the following US states: Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.
Please visit our website for a full list of sales contacts and regions.
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Spotlight on
Genome Biology
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With its new Impact Factor of 9.71 and a world-renowned editorial board, Genome Biology is one of the leading journals in it field. Publishing in all fields of biology informed by genomics, Genome Biology is an essential resource for those working in the biological research community.
The journal publishes topical and original research articles free of charge through the website, but only subscribers to the journal can benefit from regular systematic reviews, critical assessments, reports, research news and commentaries, including timely, topical and authoritative reports of work published elsewhere.
Subscribe to Genome Biology as part of the biology collection before August 31st 2006 and receive 20% off the total price. Ask your sales representative for more details and to arrange a 30-day free trial for your institution.
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New journals
Help your researchers to make the most of open access by cataloguing all of our journals. In the last 3 months, we have launched 5 new journals as part of our innovative 'Independent Journals Program':
 
 
 
 
 
Please sign up here for e-mail alerts to notify you of newly launched journal title, ISSN, URL and journal scope information.
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