Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Bentham Science aims to be largest OA publisher, and soon

Siân Harris, Bentham announces OA growth strategy, Research Information, April/May 2007.  Excerpt:

Bentham Science plans to launch over 300 open-access journals during 2007 with the first 100 journals being launched by May 2007. The journals, collectively known as ‘Bentham Science OPEN’, will cover all major disciplines of science including engineering, mathematics, chemistry, medicine, bio-chemical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, earth sciences and environmental science. They will be published exclusively online and will be available for free viewing via Bentham Science’s website.

Bentham Science OPEN will launch three types of open-access journals: those that publish research articles; those that publish exclusively review articles; and those that publish letters or short communication articles. All articles will be peer-reviewed prior to publication and Bentham promises that article-processing charges to authors will all be less than US$1000 per published article.

‘We have decided that we can now build-up an impressive and large list of exclusively open-access titles without endangering our current subscription list,’ Bentham’s editorial director Matthew Honan told Research Information. ‘Our aim is three-fold,’ he continued. Firstly the company wants ‘to build-up the largest list of open-access journals of any existing STM publisher.’ It also hopes to successfully publish a list of both open-access and subscription journals. The third aspect of this open-access strategy is that the company has observed an increasing trend in favour of open-access publishing, for example from funding bodies such as The Wellcome Trust. ‘As a publisher we need to listen to our authors and follow the trends in publishing which we believe we are doing,’ said Honan.

This is not the company’s first experience of open access. An open-access option is available on Bentham’s 79 existing subscription titles, with author charges of US$3000 per published article....