Inter-Research Science Center—Open Access initiative

 

In response to the scholarly community's drive for freedom of access to the results of scientific research (see Davis et al. 2004, and references cited therein), authors of manuscripts accepted for publication in Inter-Research (IR) journals are offered the option of having their work published as open access (OA) papers (against payment). OA is a new publishing model which removes the subscription barrier and allows all internet users unrestricted access to articles.

 

OA substantially increases a scholarly article’s impact (Harnad & Brody 2004). By adopting OA publishing, IR provides its authors with increased exposure for their work. IR will offer this author-funded publication model for a trial period. The traditional subscription model will operate in parallel as part of a hybrid publishing experiment. When authors receive the proofs of their article, they will be offered the choice of OA and be informed of the fee (for current pricing, contact ir(at)int-res.com). Articles by authors opting for the traditional publication alternative will, as before, become OA after 4 years.

 

IR supports the dissemination of information in books and journals, subsidizes research, and provides travel bursaries and scholarships for promising young scientists. In these respects, IR resembles scholarly societies. Like societies, IR relies on subscription revenue to cover its publishing costs and fulfill the charitable remits of its Foundation, Research Center, Institute and Awards. During this trial period with the hybrid revenue model, income generated from the sale of OA will be used to finance as many of the following value-added services as possible: discounted color reproductions; IR Symposia (funds to support the participation of keynote speakers and graduate students); making available (online) the heritage archive of all IR journals; and hot-linking of the references cited in IR journals with their online sources.

 

Regardless of the revenue model adopted by the scholarly publishing industry, IR will remain committed to the highest standards of quality control for scientific content, copy editing, typesetting and online/print presentation.

 

LITERATURE CITED

 

Davis P, Ehling T, Habicht O, How S, Saylor JM, Walker K (2004) Report of the CUL Task Force on Open Access Publishing. Cornell University Library. Tech Rep Pap. Library Papers and Preprints, 2004-3 (available at dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/193)

 

Harnad S, Brody T (2004) Comparing the impact of open access (OA) vs. non-OA articles in the same journals. D-Lib Magazine 10(6) (available at www.dlib.org/dlib/june04/harnad/06harnad.html)

 

Otto Kinne

President