In the first year of launch, almost 400 papers have been published under
the optional open access model across 36 of the 49 participating titles.
The majority of uptake of optional open access has, as predicted, been
in the life sciences, with approximately 10% of authors selecting the
open access option across 16 participating journals in this area,
compared with approximately 5% in medicine and public health, and 3% in
the humanities and social sciences. Three life sciences titles in the
areas of molecular and computational biology have seen over 20% uptake.
The highest of these was for Bioinformatics, which has published over 50
open access papers in 2006. 2007 online subscription prices have been
adjusted for these journals to reflect this uptake....
Twenty-one titles adopted
[the Oxford Open hybrid] model in July 2005 [when the program launched], and further titles have joined in 2006, giving 49 journals participating at present.
Claire Bird, Senior Editor, Oxford Journals, commented, "we continue to
see wide variation in uptake, and different levels of interest in
'author-pays' open access models between disciplines. The highest uptake
has been in areas where more funding for open access is available, such
as the life sciences, and we would expect this trend to continue in
2007."
Managing Director, Martin Richardson also commented: "...These results show that while open access is beginning to be embraced in
some subject areas, the level of uptake is generally quite low. These
results continue to suggest that [the fee-based OA journal] is likely to be only one of
a range of models that will be necessary to support the requirements of
different research communities."...
80% of authors
who chose open access in the first year of Oxford Open have paid a
discounted open access charge, as members of a subscribing institution....
The online subscription prices of 3 journals (Bioinformatics,
Carcinogenesis and Human Molecular Genetics) have been adjusted for 2007
to reflect how much original research material was made freely available
in the first phase of the initiative in 2005-2006.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/30/2006 03:43:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
