eMJA, the online edition of the TA Medical Journal of Australia, is retreating from OA. From the announcement:
Commencing from the first issue in January 2009, access to general content excluding research papers will become limited to subscribed users only. Research papers will be open to access for 14 days following publication then closed for subscriber only access until 12 months after publication....
The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA)...is available on subscription and is included as part of the membership package of the [Australian Medical Association (AMA)]. Since 2001, [the Australasian Medical Publishing Company (AMPCo)] has published an Internet version of the MJA (eMJA) to which readers have enjoyed free open access since its inception.
The eMJA now contains 6350 pages of valuable information, which, while formidable, unfortunately comes with increasing production and maintenance costs. Because of these essential costs, the Board of AMPCo has decided that, commencing with the first MJA issue in 2009, access to certain content in the eMJA will require a subscription. In this move, the MJA will follow the steps taken by other prestigious medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the Annals of Internal Medicine (the journal of the American College of Physicians), the BMJ and The Lancet.
Much information, including all previously published articles, current editions of In This Issue, plus guidelines, position statements and supplements, will remain on open access. Research articles will be freely accessible online for 2 weeks following publication, after which a subscription will be required. Twelve months after publication, all articles will revert to open access. This policy will be continually reviewed. Naturally, open access will be provided for any articles we consider to be of urgent public health importance....
Thanks to David More for the alert and this comment:
First if the MJA thinks it is of similar prestige to the Annals, JAMA, the BMJ or Lancet it is smoking a very strong brew of something which I suspect is not legal.
Second we now find Australia lacks an open professional platform for discussion of Health Policy – with the possible exception of the site run by John Menadue’s Centre for Policy Development (CPD)....
Third closing a professional health publications is a retrograde step in an era when we are working to improve information flows in health.
Last we will now find the Journal will become a journal for members, by members and its quality and relevance will inevitably decline I believe.
Given how rich and well funded the AMA is – a bit sad really....
PS: SHERPA has no info on whether MJA or eMJA has a green policy on OA archiving. The MJA instructions for authors page suggests not: "All authors are asked to transfer copyright to AMPCo before publication. Accepted manuscripts may not be published elsewhere, in whole or in part, without written permission from the Australasian Medical Publishing Company (AMPCo) Ltd."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/05/2009 11:18:00 AM.
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.
