Status Report on Open Access

Scientific Publishing

A study of open-access publishing released last week shows mixed results for the enterprise. Meanwhile, Wellcome Trust-the U.K.'s largest nongovernmental funder of biomedical research-has now committed to open access.

Sixty percent of surveyed open-access journals are either making a profit or breaking even, says the study, which is billed as the first substantial effort of its kind. The study's sponsors are the Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and HighWire Press. The remaining 40% of open-access journals are not yet covering their costs and face an uncertain future, the study says. The report can be found at www.alpsp.org.

The study revealed that most open-access journals do peer review and some copyediting. They average five or six years old-an age when subscription journals are well on the way to being financially stable, says ALPSP Chief Executive Sally Morris.

One surprising finding is that author fees are less common than in subscription journals. Open-access journals rely more on grants, subsidies, and volunteer labor. Thus, it doesn't follow that as the journals become more mature they would necessarily become more profitable, Morris says.

Publisher Matthew Cockerill, of the open-access publishing firm BioMed Central, says the report contains some useful information but draws many unwarranted conclusions. The fact that many open-access journals operate at a loss is simply a sign that these are early days. He adds that increased submissions and higher author fees are bringing BMC closer to profitability.

Meanwhile, the Wellcome Trust has begun requiring grant recipients to deposit their research papers in the open-access PubMed Central article repository for release within six months of publication. Publishers are scrambling to develop a response.