Blackwell Offers Open Access Plan

Blackwell Publishing, the leading publisher of society journals, has announced an open access publishing experiment, Online Open, to operate through 2006. Like Springer's Open Choice program, announced last year (see News, LJ 8/04, p. 16ff.), Blackwell's plan will create a hybrid system, in which open access articles are included in print subscription journals, with subscription prices adjusted, and Online Open articles will be freely available via the publisher's online journals platform, Blackwell Synergy.

During the trial period, the Online Open fee will be fixed at $2500 or £1250. Blackwell officials say that Online Open submissions will be treated in the same way as any other article. Unlike Springer's Open Choice program, however, authors participating in Blackwell's Online Open program will not be required to sign over copyright to their articles, a key issue to supporters of open access.

"We expect the medical and biology journals to be involved in the trial, subjects where there is likely funding for 'author pays,'" said Dawn Peters, Blackwell public relations manager. The $2500 fee—less than Springer's $3000 and more than pioneering open access publishers Public Library of Science ($1500) and BioMed Central ($525)—is also experimental. "The fee is only a figure for the trial," Peters said. "It is not based on cost, but at $2500 it is within what some funding bodies have indicated they are prepared to pay."

In other open acess news, the Public Library of Science (PloS) will more than double in size this year, with June, July, and September publication scheduled for new journals, including PLoS Pathogens, PLoS Computational Biology, and PLoS Genetics. PloS launched its first journal, PLoS Biology, in 2003, adding PLoS Medicine last year. PLoS officials say those journals have generated heavy web traffic. Meanwhile, in an industry where annual price increases are the norm, PLoS's author fee remains $1500. Marketing director Cynthia Blair said, "PLoS does anticipate reasonable rate increases," adding that $1500 remains the "best fee for PLoS at this time."