RE: BioMedCentral Revised Institutional Membership Model

[Jan Velterop <jan@biomedcentral.com>]

Phil,

I'm not entirely sure why you ask this question. It goes without saying, I
would have thought, that one article counts as one, irrespective of the
number of authors. I hope we've made it clear that our entire philosophy
revolves around providing the service of organising peer review, make the
accepted material 'web-ready', publish it on line and embed it in the
scientific literature via active reference links and incorporation in
secondary services of all kinds. For that we levy a 'per-article' charge.
NOT a 'per-author' charge.

So for the calculation of memberships, it is also the number of *articles*
and not *authors* that counts. If there are multiple authors and if they
come from more than one institute, it is the submitting author whose
institute the article is counted towards.

With regard to your earlier question, we obviously cannot sustain the
operation if article submissions were limitless for a small initial
membership fee. Those who argue that a small membership fee should entitle
to limitless publication of articles are making the unsustainability of
Open Access a self-fulfilling prophesy. Proving a sustainable commercial
model is essential for Open Access to succeed. We have set out to reform
the science publishing industry by showing that there is a business model
that delivers very much more of what science needs at a lower aggregate
price than what the limited access and functionality of research
literature costs now. For the first year of every new member the fee
entitles to limitless articles being published without incurring extra
charges. We take the risk. For subsequent years, the fees are adjusted. So
far, institutional members have understood and accepted this, and renewed
their membership. One important point: no institution is in any way
'locked in' to a membership, and at any time they can go back to payment
by the article.

Jan Velterop
BioMed Central

Open Access: All Use is Fair Use 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Davis [mailto:pmd8@cornell.edu]
> Sent: 06 February 2004 17:24
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: BioMedCentral Revised Institutional Membership Model
> 
> A follow-up to questions about BMC's revised membership model:
> 
> Jan, in addition to the questions posed by Ann Okerson and me, will
> articles be double-counted when authored by people at many 
> institutions?  In the example below, this article included 10 authors 
> from 5 separate institutions.  Would this paper be counted as 1 article 
> (charged to the first author) or 5 separate submissions (one charged to 
> each of the five institutions) in the new "membership fee" calculation?
> 
> Thanks for your clarification.
> --Phil Davis
> 
> ****