RE: The latest Open Access news from Oxford Journals

["MUKHERJEE, Mithu" <mithu.mukherjee@oxfordjournals.org>]

*** Apologies for cross posting ***

Oxford Open first quarter results released, and phase two titles announced

We are pleased to share with you the first results of our optional open
access experiment, Oxford Open. Please also find details of a further
nineteen journals to join Oxford Open from January 2005. Further
information regarding the Oxford Open project is now available online at
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/

Should you require any further information, please don't hesitate to
contact me

Kind regards

Mithu Mukherjee 
Communications Executive 
Oxford Journals 

+44 (0)1865 354471 
mithu.mukherjee@oxfordjournals.org

____________________________________________________________________________

Oxford Open � first quarter results show marked differences in uptake across
disciplines.
 
Oxford Journals today released the first results from its optional open
access model, Oxford Open, maintaining its commitment to sharing first
hand open access evidence with the scholarly community. It has also
confirmed a further 19 journals to join the initiative from January 2006.
 
The initiative, launched on July 1, 2005, gives authors the option of
paying for their research to be made freely available online immediately
on publication. Results from the first quarter of operation show an
average of 9% open access take-up by authors across the 21 participating
journals, with take-up limited to the Life Sciences and Medicine. There
has been no take-up by authors publishing in participating Humanities and
Social Sciences titles.
 
Martin Richardson, Managing Director, Oxford Journals, commented, "Nine of
the 21 journals involved in the first phase of Oxford Open have published
open access papers since July. There has been a noticeable variation in
the take-up of open access amongst these journals; some life science
journals have published up to 5% of papers under the open access model,
while others have seen take-up of approximately 17%."
 
Most authors submitting papers for open access are from subscribing
institutions[1], who as part of the Oxford Open model pay a discounted
rate (�800 or $1500, compared to �1500 or $2800 at full charge for authors
from non-subscribing institutions).
 
"The optional open access model supports our authors by allowing them the
choice of paying for immediate free access to their articles, with
unrestricted reuse for education and research." commented Richardson. He
added,
 
"Ultimately, Oxford Open will allow us to examine whether optional open
access is a long term sustainable financial model for publishing
peer-reviewed journals, and in which subject areas the market demands
might be strong enough to move more proactively in this direction.
 
"These early results suggest that open access is likely to be only one of
a range of models that will be necessary to support the requirements of
different research communities."
 
Oxford Open is the latest of four open access models being tested by
Oxford Journals. Further trials include partially funded open access
(Journal of Experimental Botany); sponsored open access, Evidence-based
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (eCAM); and full open access,
Nucleic Acids Research (NAR). NAR, one of the first major science journals
of such stature and prestige to move to a full open access model in
January 2005, will remain full open access in 2006 based on positive
feedback from readers and authors, and a continued increase in
submissions.
 
Oxford Journals will continue to investigate the effects of these open
access models, with research projects commissioned from CIBER, University
College London, and with the Library and Information Statistics Unit
(LISU), based at Loughborough University, designed to measure the impact
of open access in terms of usage and citation. The results of these
studies will provide further evidence for the scholarly community to
assess the benefits of open access.

List of titles joining Oxford Open in January 2006

*    Annals of Botany
*    Annals of Occupational Hygiene
*    Brain
*    European Journal of Orthodontics
*    European Journal of Public Health
*    Family Practice
*    Forestry
*    Human Reproduction Update
*    Human Reproduction
*    International Journal of Epidemiology
*    Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
*    Journal of Petrology
*    Journal of Plankton Research
*    Molecular Human Reproduction
*    Mutagenesis
*    Occupational Medicine
*    QJM: An International Journal of Medicine
*    Quarterly Journal of Mathematics
*    Rheumatology

Read more about Oxford Open <http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/>

Register to receive the latest information about Oxford Open and Oxford
Journals' other open access initiatives
<http://www.oxfordjournals.org/for_authors/oxford_open.html>

For more information please contact

Mithu Mukherjee 
<mailto:mithu.mukherjee@oxfordjournals.org>
Communications Executive, Oxford Journals
Tel: +44 (0)1865 354471
Fax: +44 (0)1865 353568

Notes to Editors

Oxford University Press (OUP) <http://www.oup.co.uk>, a department of the
University of Oxford, is the world's largest and most international
university press. Founded in 1478, it currently publishes more than 4,500
new books a year, has a presence in over fifty countries, and employs some
3,700 people worldwide. It has become familiar to millions through a
diverse publishing programme that includes scholarly works in all academic
disciplines, bibles, music, school and college textbooks, children's
books, materials for teaching English as a foreign language, business
books, dictionaries and reference books, and journals. Read more about OUP
<http://www.oup.com/about/>

Oxford Journals <http://www.oxfordjournals.org>, a Division of OUP,
publishes over 180 journals covering a broad range of subject areas,
two-thirds of which are published in collaboration with learned societies
and other international organizations. The collection contains some of the
world's most prestigious titles, including Nucleic Acids Research, JNCI
(Journal of the National Cancer Institute), Brain, Human Reproduction,
English Historical Review, and the Review of Financial Studies. Read more
about Oxford Journals <http://www.oxfordjournals.org/about_us.html>

[1] i.e. authors from institutions with current online subscriptions.
Authors choosing the Oxford Open model pay the appropriate charge by
completing an online form which is under access control (IP address). See
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/ for more details.

###