SPARC Partners with Optics Express

[Alison Buckholtz <alison@arl.org>]

For Immediate Release
December 7, 2004

For more information, contact:
Alison Buckholtz, SPARC, 202.251.7845, alison@arl.org	
Colleen Morrison, OSA, 202.416.1437, CMorri@osa.org

SPARC Partners with Society-Published Open Access Journal

Optics Express Expands Reach of Optical Society of America
by Offering Free Access to Readers

Washington, DC 
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) today
announced that the Optical Society of America's Optics Express had been
selected as a SPARC "Leading Edge" partner. The partnership is intended to
call attention to the potential for open access publishing in the
society-publishing environment by publicizing the success of journals such
as Optics Express. Ranked in the top ten optics journals by ISI, Optics
Express was among the first peer-reviewed open-access journals in the
marketplace and has played an increasingly important role for OSA since
the journal's founding in 1997.

> From the beginning, OSA designed Optics Express (www.OpticsExpress.org)  
to be an author-centric journal.  Its online peer-review process and rapid
turnaround from submission to publication -- averaging 47 days -- were
groundbreaking steps. Free publication of color figures and acceptance of
all kinds of multimedia also helped boost the journal’s standing among
authors. Its early commitment to electronic-only publication was a bold
step that kept operating costs down.

The idea for Optics Express was born when OSA convened a planning group to
respond to the rapid changes in scholarly publishing. After an examination
of new technologies and market needs, OSA elected to make access to
articles free and recover costs through a publication fee.  This has
proven not to be a barrier to submission, and the journal never refuses a
worthy article because the author cannot afford the fees. By 2002, Optics
Express broke even, with revenue covering staffing, overhead and
development costs, and this year, OSA will generate a modest net surplus.
Optics Express receives its total revenue from publication charges, which
are $450 for articles six pages and under, and $800 for articles over six
pages.

"Optics Express has succeeded editorially, technologically, and
financially because authors have embraced it," said John Childs, senior
publications director of OSA.  "As publishing technology matured and grew
more sophisticated, we saw our investment in the journal, and our
experiment with open access, as an investment in knowledge.  Ultimately,
the journal has achieved a positive financial outcome because we have
built a solid scientific reputation which did not exploit either our
readership or libraries."

Childs added that the wide reach provided by open access had meant a wider
readership among the optics community worldwide. "The popularity of Optics
Express among scientific readers has grown by leaps and bounds,
accelerated by open access. This widened exposure to the high quality of
OSA's peer-reviewed scientific literature can't help having a positive
effect on OSA's traditional signature journals."

"The Optical Society of America responded proactively to dynamic changes
in scientific publishing," said Rick Johnson, SPARC Director. "Before
today's debate over scientific publishing models, OSA concluded that what
we now call open access offered an opportunity to advance their mission
and organizational interests. They built a leading journal that offers a
useful example for many other societies. It shows the opportunity to
expand a society's reach, solidify its role, and facilitate effective
scientific communication. While there are many flavors of open access
publishing, the OSA example is interesting, successful and apparently
durable.

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About OSA

The Optical Society of America (OSA) brings together an international
network of the industry's preeminent optics and photonics scientists,
engineers, educators, technicians and business leaders. Representing more
than 15,000 members from approximately 100 different countries, OSA
promotes the worldwide generation, application and dissemination of optics
and photonics knowledge through its meetings, events and journals. Since
its founding in 1916, OSA member benefits, programming, publications,
products and services have set the industry's standard of excellence.
Additional information on OSA is available on the Society's Web site at
www.osa.org.

About SPARC

SPARC and SPARC Europe are initiatives of universities, research
libraries, and library organizations that support increased competition in
scholarly publishing. SPARC publishing partnerships and educational
activities encourage expanded dissemination of research and reduced
financial pressure on libraries. Worldwide membership currently includes
over 300 institutions and organizations. SPARC is located on the web at
<www.arl.org/sparc>. SPARC Europe is at <www.sparceurope.org>.

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