since its inception , cell communication and signaling ( ccs ) has been published by biomed central as an open access journal .
biomed central is an independent publisher committed to ensuring high quality publications in the fields of biomedical research .
articles published in ccs are freely available to everyone online , and are archived in internationally recognized free repositories .
although it is still young , ccs has been moderately successful , as indicated by the several thousand accesses to the manuscripts published throughout 2004 . of course , becoming established will require more years , but the quality of the publications that have been accepted by our editorial board is a sign of good health .
thanks to an open access policy , articles that are published become freely and instantly available to any person connecting to the world wide web .
because articles are intended to remain available at no cost forever , they can be read , downloaded and printed in perpetuity .
copies of the published manuscripts are also archived and searchable in pubmed central , the us national library of medicine 's full - text repository of life science literature , and also in repositories at the university of potsdam   in germany , at inist   in france and in e - depot , the national library of the netherlands ' digital archive of all electronic publications .
since the authors hold coyright for their published work , they can make their articles freely available on their institution 's website .
the copyright policy also stipulates that the authors grant anyone the permission to reproduce and disseminate the article , provided that no errors are introduced and that it is adequately cited . as a comparison
, several journals now offer free access to their articles on line , but it is generally , either for a limited period of time or only after 6 to 12 month following publication .
thus , open access offers several benefits to authors and readers in the scientific community and the general public .
first the authors are assured that their work is widely disseminated and that it is likely to be cited more often than when it is published in a journal whose access is limited to subscribers . at a time when politicians in many different countries are urging the scientific community to better communicate with the general public , this aspect is of prime importance .
another major consequence is that there is no financial barrier to the dissemination of knowledge .
the impact of a country 's economy on access to knowledge is considerable and is often under evaluated or ignored by those who live in wealthy environments .
as long as a researcher has internet access , he or she can read open access articles ( although enabling them to get internet access is , admittedly , a big issue ) .
contributing to the cost of publishing by paying apcs is comparable to paying a toll for driving safely and more rapidly on good quality highways .
multiple clean , fast and safe lanes kept in good condition , with same services provided to all customers .
any publishing of quality , traditional or electronic , involves processing that is generally paid by the scientific community ( either as authors , readers or subscribers ) .
it may seem to some authors that the requested fee of 525 us$ is exceedingly high but , in truth , it is very low compared to the revenues made per article in the traditional publishing model , which some have suggested were as high as us$3000 , if not higher .
the apc pays for the article to be freely accessible , and for the processes required before inclusion in pubmed and archiving in pubmed central , e - depot , potsdam and inist .
authors can circumvent the charge by getting their institution to become a ' member ' of biomed central , whereby an annual membership fee covers the apcs for all authors at that institution submitting to any journal published by biomed central in that year .
current members include nhs england , the world health organization , the us national institutes of health , harvard , princeton and yale universities , and all uk universities .
many funding agencies have also realized the importance of open access publishing and have specified that their grants may be used directly to pay apcs .
on behalf of the editorial board of ccs , i wish to reassure readers and authors that we are committed to evaluating manuscripts on the basis of their scientific quality , not on whether author 's can pay article - processing charge . if an author is unable to afford the apc , the editor - in - chief will be able to waive payment , if deemed necessary .
, we firmly believe that publishing open access can only help scientific communication and improve results , hence becoming an excellent service to society .
we do hope that you will support our effort towards this end by submitting manuscripts to cell communication and signaling .
 in this article we briefly review the reasons and advantages that underly our publisher 's decision to introduce article - processing charges ( apc ) for manuscripts submitted to cell communication and signaling . 
 the charge is an attempt to develop a new business model for distributing biomedical information and has been accepted in a number of other journals . 
 apcs will enable biomed central to continue to provide their excellent service and will help to establish our journal . 