Open Access News

On Mar. 29, 1995, the Canadian Medical Association became the first national medical association in the world with a presence on the Internet, and CMAJ has been with us from the start of that journey. Since then, we have been committed to providing readers with free, full-text access to all of our content. Unfortunately, recent and ongoing economic realities dictate that we will no longer be able to do so.

Beginning January 2010, non-members of the CMA will have to pay for access to some of the content on cmaj.ca. The resulting revenue from subscriptions should help to mitigate our current deficit.

As CMAJ Editor-in-Chief Dr. Paul Hébert explains in his accompanying letter, this decision was far from easy.

The harsh economic reality is that CMAJ, like many others in the publishing industry, has experienced a considerable decline in advertising revenue over the past two years. This loss necessitated an extensive examination of other business models to adequately address today’s economic challenges. Controlled access will allow us to sell electronic subscriptions and further diversify our revenue streams. ...

Since the Canadian Medical Association Journal went online in the mid-1990s, the Canadian Medical Association has provided unrestricted access to all CMAJ content. However, given the changing economic times, we can no longer afford to do so. As of January 2010, some content will be restricted to CMA members, subscribers and pay-per-view readers.

This was a difficult decision, because we believe that scientific information should be accessible to all. The CMA, our editorial team and many past editors of CMAJ have strongly endorsed open access.

Online, CMAJ is publishing more content, with new articles posted weekly and news pieces added almost daily. However, we have experienced a perfect storm involving rising editorial costs to handle the extra content, and dramatic decreases in advertising. ...

Ideally, medical information that saves lives and reduces harm should not be up for sale — at least not to the end-user. Such material should be treated as a public good and paid for by the public, which is why research will remain free of charge. Editorials, news, clinical images, abstracts and previously published articles will also remain accessible to all readers. Access to reviews, analysis, practice, commentaries, humanities and supplements will be restricted to members of CMA, although these items will become free of charge 12 months after publication.

As part of our commitment to the dissemination of knowledge, readers in most developing countries will be offered free access through the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) of the World Health Organization and through Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA). ...