Chiropractic & Osteopathy provides a scientific forum for the publication of such research.Both chiropractic and osteopathy are over a century old. They are now regarded as complementary health professions. There is an imperative for both professions to research the principles and claims that underpin them, and the new journal  In 1959 Frederick George Roberts founded the Chiropractic and Osteopathic College of Australasia (COCA). The Melbourne based College graduated about two hundred chiropractic and osteopathic practitioners from the period 1959 to 1979. The College closed its undergraduate program in 1979 and the students transferred to the Preston Institute of Technology chiropractic program. This is now the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) chiropractic course. An osteopathic course commenced alongside the chiropractic course at Phillip Institute of technology  in 1986.Even though it has now closed its undergraduate operations, the College has maintained its company structure and acted as a repository for the records of its alma mater .In 1990 another organisation the Chiropractors and Osteopaths Musculo-Skeletal Interest Group (COMSIG) commenced. Several years later and after steady growth, COMSIG underwent a name change and incorporated under the company structure and banner of the Chiropractic & Osteopathic College of Australasia. From this beginning COCA has grown into the leading provider of post-graduate vocational training for both professions in Australia [COMSIG Review. In 1995 after incorporation under the COCA banner the journal changed its name to Australasian Chiropractic & Osteopathy. It is this journal that has changed from a print journal to the Open Access, online journal Chiropractic & Osteopathy.In 1992 COMSIG started its own journal and this was known as Chiropractic & Osteopathy provides a scientific forum for the publication of such research.Both chiropractic and osteopathy are over a century old. They are now regarded as complementary health professions having started their evolution as alternative health groups; this evolution is still underway. There is an imperative for both professions to research the principles and claims that underpin them, and Chiropractic & Osteopathy reflects this change.For many years both professions were driven by ideology rather than science. This has gradually changed and the pursuit of science is accelerating. The make up of the Editorial Board of ) is a mix of academics and researchers from a broad cross-section of professions. These include chiropractic, osteopathy, epidemiology, public health, orthopaedics, surgery, rheumatology, biomechanics, education, ergonomics, biostatistics, demography, sociology and radiology.The Editorial Board  take care of the day to day running of the journal.Chiropractic & Osteopathy will encompass all aspects of evidence-based information that is clinically relevant to chiropractors, osteopaths and related health care professionals.Chiropractic & Osteopathy will initially be reviewed by the Editorial team and subsequently by two external reviewers. Reviewers will be asked to indicate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound, relevant and also to indicate the level of interest to chiropractic and osteopathy professionals.Manuscripts submitted to Chiropractic & Osteopathy will consider the following types of manuscripts: primary research, case reports, reviews (both systematic and narrative), commentaries, database articles, debate articles, hypotheses, methodology articles, short reports and study protocols.Chiropractic and Osteopathy will reach a wider audience, enabling the sharing of knowledge with practitioners, researchers and clinicians worldwide. The aim of the journal is to advance the body of chiropractic and osteopathic knowledge.The journal has Australian ancestry but now has an international span. As an Open Access journal, Chiropractic & Osteopathy is published by BioMed Central , an independent publishing house committed to ensuring that peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access – immediately and permanently available online without charge or any other barriers to access.Chiropractic & Osteopathy look forward to receiving your submissions.We at ).Researchers interested in submitting a manuscript should see the Instructions to Authors (Chiropractic and Osteopathy's Open Access policy changes the way articles are published. First, all articles become freely and universally accessible online, and so an author's work can be read by anyone at no cost. Second, the authors hold copyright for their work and grant anyone the right to reproduce and disseminate the article, provided that it is correctly cited and no errors are introduced [Chiropractic and Osteopathy's articles are archived in PubMed Central [troduced . Third,  Central , the US  Central  in Germa Central  in Franc Central , the NatOpen Access has four broad benefits for science and the general public. First, authors are assured that their work is disseminated to the widest possible audience, given that there are no barriers to access their work. This is accentuated by the authors being free to reproduce and distribute their work, for example by placing it on their institution's website. It has been suggested that free online articles are more highly cited because of their easier availability . Second,Chiropractic & Osteopathy.The Editorial Team look forward to an exciting time ahead for


P. Kassirer, N. Eng. J. Med. 327, 1238 (1992).In May 1999, the Director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Harold Vermus, proposed a project, then dubbed "E-biomed" ). In thiThe proposal was embraced in numerous articles and editorials ,4; but sDoes this sound familiar? Indeed, the argument that peer-review is the only means of protecting the public from erroneous and thus potentially harmful research had been brought forward 30 years previous by former NEJM editor Franz Ingelfinger, who at that time announced the policy that a manuscript could not be accepted if it had previously been published elsewhere. Many journals have adopted this so-called Ingelfinger rule ; some ofScholarly journals were originally established to serve scientists as a tool for communication. The Internet has the potential to further improve the communication process and perhaps - by fostering a broad and immediate debate - the quality of manuscripts. Systems such as the British Medical Journal (BMJ) e-print server and the original E-biomed proposal have the potential to make an article visible to experts before it is published in traditional print journals. It seems that any non-peer-reviewed paper published on the Web should be seen as a "virtual conference", thus papers presented in such a context on the Internet should be treated as papers presented at scientific meetings, for which the Ingelfinger rule is waived as well.every medical journal which can be replaced by an e-print server deserves to be .Communication technology has changed profoundly since the times of Ingelfinger. These days, information is often first published on the Web and sometimes read by millions of users before printed journals can cover the story, which has perhaps most impressively been demonstrated by events such as the publication of the Starr Report on the Web . In thesbad journals redundant - those journals which do little more than physically "publish" papers. The Internet will in the future become a huge library containing all the ingredients and information a researcher needs, but busy clinicians will still need journals such as the BMJ, Lancet, and even the NEJM to make the information digestible and to highlight the information which is relevant to clinical practice.A similar development in science seems to be inevitable and desirable. Medical journals - at least general medical journals - should give up their aim of being the primary and sole source of scientific information, but shift their aim toward acting as catalysts to get evidence-based medicine into practice. Their principal mission should not be newsworthiness, but putting "primary" information  into context and perspective, by evaluating, commenting, and weighting raw information. While the NEJM argues that the existence of non-peer-reviewed material on the Internet may confuse the public and pose a threat to traditional medical journals, we think that exactly the opposite will be true - that the more information is available, the more urgently traditional journals are needed to guide readers through this information jungle. The Internet will only make Perhaps even a new generation of journals will be established - journals which do not publish primary papers themselves, but which only evaluate, weight, comment, and put into context information that has been published elsewhere on the Web. Traditionally, the primary aim of journal publishers is to establish quality control mechanisms and to establish a reputation for the reliability of their information. In the near future, publishers - without putting any ink to paper or producing another medium - may get back to this fundamental truth of publishing - to be a credible source and to establish trust, to evaluate and describe information which perhaps is already published on the Internet. In fact, today we have two different meanings of "publishing" - one is the physical process of making a document public, the other is the process that implies establishing trust. While in traditional publishing, both of these processes were amalgamated into one single process, they are now separated; manuscripts may first be "published" on the Internet, but "establishing trust" may be a separate process and may have many different faces .It is true, however, that there must be exceptions - certain manuscripts may for ethical reasons not be suitable for release on the Internet without previously having been peer-reviewed, if for example their results would raise false hopes among patients. However, these decisions should be made on an individual basis  and should not be a basis for dismissing a whole new way of publishing.Journals which do not change their editorial policies along these lines, allowing print-publication of material previously published on the Web for the sole purpose of review, and which continue to oppose and lobby against NIH plans to allow non-peer-reviewed material to be published in "PubMed Central", demonstrate that their primary concern is not to discourage public announcement of research findings which bypassed peer-review, but attempting to preserve their circulation by publishing exclusive reports before a broader audience has had the ability to access them. In doing so, they would cease to serve the research community but serve only the commercial interests of publishing companies. They would also demonstrate that they do not understand the Internet and that they do not understand that they are not longer in the business of revealing new information, but in making existing information understandable and useful for a broader audience.Gunther Eysenbach, MDEditor,Journal of Medical Internet Research


The International Society of Sport Nutrition (ISSN)  was estaJournal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (JISSN) is the official journal of the ISSN. The goal of the JISSN is to keep ISSN members, the scientific and medical community, and the general public up to date on the latest advances in exercise and sports nutrition in a well referenced but easy to understand format. In addition, to provide a quality publication outlet for exercise and sport nutrition related research. The JISSN has published reviews, original research manuscripts, case-reports, and editorials related to the role of exercise and nutrition on health, disease, rehabilitation, training, and performance.The JISSN was published as a peer-reviewed open access electronic journal accessible through the ISSN's website. While this format has been successful, the ISSN's Board of Directors [JISSN. As a result, the ISSN decided to convert the JISSN from a society-based electronic journal to a BioMed Central journal. BioMed Central [JISSN through BioMed Central provides an automated online submission and peer-review process; publication preparation services; the ability to publish articles online within a few days of acceptance; and, automatic indexing through PubMed [JISSN. While there is an article-processing charge [JISSN to a BioMed Central journal will make it more convenient for authors to submit their articles as well as greatly enhance the exposure and impact of articles published in the JISSN.For the first three years of publication, the irectors  sought t Central  is an inh PubMed , PubMed h PubMed , Scirus h PubMed , Google h PubMed , Citebash PubMed , and OAIh PubMed . Additioh PubMed  which wig charge  associatJISSN operates a closed peer-review policy, meaning the referees' confidentiality is maintained and the reports are not made publicly available. All manuscripts submitted to the journal will be subject to immediate screening by the Editorial Board [The al Board . ApproprJISSN becoming a BioMed Central journal. We hope that exercise and nutrition researchers and practitioners will look to the JISSN as a quality outlet for their work. In addition, we look forward to greater exposure of the ISSN and JISSN within the biomedical communities and general public as we embark on a new era of publishing the JISSN with BioMed Central.The ISSN Board of Directors, ISSN Advisory Board, and JISSN Editorial Board are very excited about the


Retrovirology announces new editorial board members and reprises progress over the first two years of publishing. Retrovirology has completed a little more than 24 months of continuous publishing. The journal has published 156 articles or roughly 6 articles per month, all in Open Access format. Since retrovirus research is a subsector of all virus research and Retrovirology considers only basic science papers, this rate of monthly publication seems reasonable at this juncture in journal development. I am also pleased with the quality of the papers that Retrovirology has published. To a large extent credit for this achievement must go to our Editorial Board members. Hence, I take this opportunity to thank departing members  who have served the journal ably over the last two years. In turn, I welcome new members who have joined Retrovirology . The full list of current Retrovirology Editors and Editorial Board members can be viewed at .As of this writing, Undeniably, retrovirus researchers are well-served by several established subscription-based journals. However, on the current scientific landscape, there is a choice between two different ways of publishing research: the traditional journal (where subscribers and sometimes authors pay) and the Open Access model (where authors pay). The Open Access model embraces a novel concept that authors (or the funders of their research) pay for the submission and publication of papers. Once published, Open Access articles are free in full text to all interested readers. This means that your scientific colleague in Albania, the aspiring graduate student in Kenya, the young doctor in Chile, and the next James Watson or Alexander Fleming from Vietnam can all have unfettered, fee-free, full access to your Open Access article. Why would you want it any other way?Nature, Cell or Virology. As science and societies move increasingly toward globalization, I am convinced that we all have a responsibility to work towards a knowledge access model that transcends professional classifications, national boundaries, and accidents of birth. As an American, I am confronted by the stark realization that in the just passed year, 2005, 47% of the US national debt was held by foreigners (a large portion by developing nations), and that the American economy stays afloat from an annual inflow of $216 billion from emerging markets . Hence, should it not be viewed as simple fair reciprocity that American scientists support Open Access as a small gesture of give-back to the rest of the world?I have a personal reason for supporting Open Access. I am the 1 in 10 Americans born not in the United States but overseas in a developing country. Thirty-five years ago, my father was repeatedly rebuffed in his attempts to secure a visa to enter the United States to study at a graduate school. Had he not persevered, I might today be a frustrated scientist in a developing country unable to pay the subscription fees needed to read papers published in Nucleic Acids Research and Journal of Clinical Investigation have adopted the completely Open Access model as their new way of publishing.Having stated the above, I don't believe that it is just altruism which should guide authors to support Open Access. A recently published study in PLOS Biology  showed tRetrovirology's experience is consistent with the recent report [Retrovirology's Open Access format unquestionably attracts an impressively large readership. For instance, the Journal of Molecular Biology, a leading subscription journal, advertises as having been downloaded "nearly 750,000" times in a single year (2002). Retrovirology is a much smaller journal with perhaps 20 times fewer published articles each year; and yet, Retrovirology is accessed an average of 1,700 times a day or over 600,000 times a year. I attribute this popularity to our Open Access(ibility). Second, we see a good correlation between the number of times that an article is read and the frequency that it is cited in the literature. This has been verified by access statistics from several of Retrovirology's already frequently cited papers  just after our very first year of publishing. Retrovirology's current impact factor compares very favorably with those of Virology and Journal of General Virology (Fig. t report . First, gle year 002. RetrRetrovirology. Nonetheless, I remain eager to receive your input as to how Retrovirology can further improve and do better.An impact factor of 3 at age 2 is a good start for


Carbon Balance and Management, a new online open access journal published by BioMed Central.We are pleased to announce the launch of  Carbon Balance and Management is a new open access, peer-reviewed online journal that encompasses all aspects of research aimed at developing a comprehensive, policy-relevant understanding of the global carbon cycle [on cycle .Advancement in the union of the two issues indicted by the journal's title will be a very important element of future global economic and societal development. We must develop predictive and observational capabilities to determine how carbon systems are changing now and how they will be changing in the future, and we must develop management tools and wisdom on the related human systems in order to better determine the uses and environmental storage of carbon; this must all be done consistent with maintaining the integrity and values of our global environment.Carbon Balance and Management to be at the forefront of research on how these multiple objectives can be better met. The journal's open access policy [We expect many of the papers submitted to s policy ,3 combinCarbon Balance and Management considers several types of article: research, methodology, review, and commentary. Manuscripts submitted through the online submission system are assigned to a Handling Editor, a member of the editorial board [al board , who wilThe traditional business model for scientific publishers relies on restricting access to published research, in order to recoup the costs of the publication process. This restriction of access to published research prevents full use being made of digital technologies.The financial vein of the open access model is the Article Processing Charge (APC). Article-processing charges cover the cost of the publication process to allow free and immediate access to the research articles. Due to the low expense of electronic publication, these costs are no more than the page charges for many subscription journals.Carbon Balance and Management retain the copyright to their work, licensing it under the Creative Commons Attribution License [Authors publishing in  License . This ag License .Carbon Balance and Management look forward to receiving your submissions.The Editors of


Developing World Bioethics [Human Fertility [Please note that a commentary recently published in this journal  includesioethics  and Humaertility .Developing World Bioethics [th March 2007. The letter in Human Fertility [The letter in ioethics  was firsioethics  has sincioethics  was publertility  was publPhilosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine, for failing to indicate the similarity of the article in this journal [The author, Dr Heng, would like to apologise to the Editors and readers of  journal  to the oIt is the journal and publisher's policy for notices of redundant publication to be authored by the author of the original article . On this


Geochemical Transactions, the first online-only journal in geochemistry and environmental chemistry, is now the first major open access journal in this subject area. All issues of Geochemical Transactions, including the back content, will be fully and permanently available online to all, without a subscription charge. Copyright of all future articles will be retained by the authors. Geochemical Transactions remains the official journal of the Division of Geochemistry of the American Chemical Society. The generous support of the Division has made it possible to make the back content available without a subscription charge.Geochemical Transactions as an open access journal we can now offer the benefits of open access publishing to the geochemical community.Internet-based open access publishing empowers both authors and readers. As authors you are able to see your work published more quickly and disseminated more widely; you are also in a stronger position to protect your intellectual property rights than in a print world where authors are typically forced to assign copyright to the publisher. As readers you stand to gain access to more research information than ever before. The open access model continues to gain in momentum and is already well established in the life sciences, physics and mathematics. By continuing Geochemical Transactions. As borne out by its impact factor – 1.92 in 2004 and third among geochemistry journals [Geochemical Transactions has rapidly gained respect within the community it serves. However, the subscription model it has been published under has hampered access to the journal and its growth. The open access publishing model [Geochemical Transactions is an established journal and is already indexed and tracked by ISI. Under its new publishing model, all future journal content will not only be indexed by ISI but also PubMed [There is good reason to be optimistic about the future of ng model ,4. Althong model , they reng model . Unlike o PubMed , Scopus o PubMed , and wilo PubMed . The comGeochemical Transactions, as in the past, supports the use of color to create high-quality figures [Geochemical Transactions. As demonstrated in our first five years, the online-only publishing format can add significant functionality to your publication. Moreover, as an online-only journal, Geochemical Transactions is in an excellent position to meet your needs and requirements for data sharing and archiving.Online publishing offers many practical advantages beyond electronic handling of manuscripts right up to the point of publication. Online versions of most other journals are bound by the need for consistency with a printed equivalent.  figures  and pres figures , hyperli figures , video f figures , and oth figures . This alGeochemical Transactions will continue to accept submissions of research articles, methodology, and review articles that cover this broad field of research.The scope of the journal remains unchanged. Geochemical research can be broadly defined as the study of chemical processes in earth and planetary environments. Geochemical research is pursued from the nanoscale to the planetary scale and covers both ancient and modern systems. The breath of the subject area has made this subdiscipline into a highly multidisciplinary endeavor. Within the last two decades, geochemists and scientists in affiliated disciplines have not only contributed to our understanding of geological processes through space and time but also to a wide range of other research topics. For example, geochemists have contributed to our knowledge of the fate and transport of contaminants in the environment, the effect of human activity on global systems, the role of microorganisms in the environment, the origin and evolution of life, and the processes that have shaped the surface of Mars. As part of their research effort, geochemists have developed or improved analytical tools to study the complex materials they work with to unravel the processes of interest. Complementary to analytical and experimental approaches, geochemists have developed and used theoretical models to pursue their research. We will continue our rigorous peer review system that has been established from the outset. Our expanded Editorial Advisory Board will assist us in maintaining the high quality of the journal's output our community has come to expect.Geochemical Transactions as an open access journal.We are excited about the future of Martin Schoonen, Ken Anderson, and Scott WoodEditors-in-Chief


Only current grantees of the agency would be eligible to post reports about the results of research projects or programs that have been supported by the agency. Some advantages and implications of this particular model are outlined. It is suggested that incentive models of this kind are needed to increase the likelihood that open access to the primary medical research literature will soon reach a "tipping point" and move quickly toward wide acceptance.Open access to the peer-reviewed primary research literature would greatly facilitate knowledge transfer between the creators and the users of the results of research and scholarship. Criteria are needed to assess the impact of recent initiatives, such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative. For example, how many open-access research journals exist within a given field, and what is the reputation of each one? And, how many openly-accessible institutional e-print archives have been created and how many are actually are being used by researchers and scholars? A simple approach to an assessment of the open-access portion of the medical literature is described, and some preliminary results are summarized. These preliminary results point to the need for incentives to foster the implementation of initiatives such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative. An example of an  One crucial way to provide online access to novel, valuable, and quality-assessed research reports is to foster open access to the peer-reviewed primary research literature. Examples of recent initiatives in this area are the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI)  and the To achieve open access to scholarly journal literature, the BOAI has recommended 2 complementary strategies . The firSeveral criteria that could be used to evaluate the success of the BOAI have been summarized . For exaAnother indicator, oriented toward the second BOAI strategy , is the number of journals in each research field that are committed to open access, coupled with measures of the reputation or impact of each journal. A list of open-access medical journals is available from the Free Medical Journals website (JMIR is included in this list) .Related Articles. I sorted the 126 articles that PubMed identified as related to Suber's article by publication date (Suber's article appeared as number 47 on the sorted list). I then tried to access the full text of each article, either directly, via the click here to read link provided by PubMed, or via the online electronic journals service of the University of Toronto.One simple approach to an assessment of the open-access portion of a substantial component of the peer-reviewed research literature can be obtained using PubMed , the popThe results for the first 20 articles on the sorted list yielded only 1 article that was openly accessible. In contrast, the University of Toronto Libraries permitted online access (but only for members of the university) to the full text of 10 (50%) of the articles. The remaining articles either were not available in electronic form or had been published in journals to which the University of Toronto Libraries did not have a subscription . An advantage of this particular list of 20 articles is that all were in different journals, ranging from very well-known ones (such as JAMA) to ones much less well-known, at least to English-speaking readers (such as Lakartidningen). A more-extensive use of this same approach would permit the open-access portion of the research literature covered by PubMed to be estimated, and tracked across time.No matter which measures of the success of the entire Free Online Scholarship movement are used, it can be anticipated that more and more scholars and researchers will expect to have open access to the articles they wish to read for their own research. And, they will expect to have the option to provide open access to their own research reports.Moreover, taxpayers are increasingly likely to demand open access to the reports of publicly-funded research. In particular, medical patients and their families, policy-makers, and those with a role in knowledge transfer, can be expected to seek open access to those parts of the primary peer-reviewed research literature that are most clearly relevant to their own needs.incentive model.The small feasibility study outlined above also provides a vivid illustration of a major reason why authors of research reports may have less interest in open access than readers of research reports (even though authors and readers are often the same people). Authors associated with universities usually have much more convenient access to the online versions of peer-reviewed research reports than do those who are not associated with universities. So, a strategy to foster open access via author-based self-archiving of peer-reviewed research reports needs to advocate policies that encourage authors to undertake self-archiving. Incentives are likely to be needed. The remainder of this commentary will be focused on one novel model, which will be outlined here as one example of an Various ways to use the Internet to facilitate scholarly communication, including communication via research articles, have been outlined by Kling et al . The modThere are several advantages to this model, in comparison with more conventional preprint archives. These include an additional "quality filtering" system that would be involved, in that the research projects or programs would be ones that had recently been peer reviewed by the agency. Only successful applicants would be permitted to post relevant research reports at the e-print archive. These research reports, probably still in the form of preprints, would usually be publicly accessible. The authors/grantees would retain copyright, and, because open access would be based on the copyright holder's consent, there would be no violation of existing copyright law . But, opmandatory incentive model. The somewhat less restrictive voluntary incentive model proposed here is designed to foster the concept of open access by "picking the low-hanging fruit," that is, by fostering open access to the research reports of those researchers who are willing to contribute to the agency's e-print archive on a voluntary basis.A model in which the funding agency requires that reports about the research it has supported must be openly accessible  could beIn this particular example of a voluntary incentive model, authors/grantees would also be encouraged to submit their posted preprints to an appropriate journal. The most appropriate journals would be ones of satisfactory reputation, which permit authors to retain copyright, and (preferably) provide open access to published articles.Recipients of research grants from an agency or foundation would probably feel some obligation to post research reports at the agency's e-print archive, and to permit open access to them, if only to provide tangible evidence that their research has been productive. Free online access seems likely to become increasingly popular as evidence continues to accumulate that it can significantly increase the impact of research articles .Also attractive is the prospect that well-designed open-access e-print archives will provide new opportunities for developing methods for evaluating citation rates  and for From the agency's perspective, opportunities to assess, over the longer term, the outcomes of research projects the agency has funded should have considerable appeal. But, to avoid becoming (in effect) a journal publisher, the agency might be well-advised to permit grantees to post research reports at its e-print archive only temporarily. For example, perhaps the lifetime of any particular preprint in the archive should end at either 5 years or when it has been published in an appropriate journal (whichever comes first). Ideally, the agency would also maintain a publicly-accessible database of the research projects and programs that it has funded. It would include, in this database, links to the abstract  of any published reports that emanated from these individual projects or programs. And, whether or not the agency decides to become the equivalent of a journal publisher, it should establish e-print archives that are not only openly accessible, but also interoperable  (interopIncentive models of various kinds may become examples of a "little thing that can make a big difference," of the kind described in Malcolm Gladwell's book, "The Tipping Point" . A "tipp


Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations and reviews that advantages of publishing in an Open Access journal. In addition, it introduces a new type of article the journal hopes to publish, detailed reports of study design or data analysis methods that have been used in health science research. The new type of article is intended to supplement the woefully constrained methods sections in standard research report articles, providing information that better fulfills the goals of scientific publishing.This editorial introduces the use of article-processing charges at  Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations (EP&I) is published by BioMed Central (BMC), an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed research is Open Access – that it is universally and freely available online to everyone and its authors retain copyright. In order to fund the publication of the journal while fulfilling our commitment to make all content of EP&I free to readers, the publisher and editors of the journal have introduced an article-processing charge. Starting April 2005, authors of articles accepted for publication will be asked to pay a charge of £330 (currently approximately US$625 or €480). There is no charge if a submission is rejected. Authors at the many BMC member institutions receive an exemption from the fee, and we encourage authors to help persuade their institutions to become members if they are not already (see endnote 1). Waiver requests, particularly from authors with financial hardship, will be considered on a case-by-case basis.For paper journals, the standard subscription model is that readers pay, either through personal or institutional subscriptions, and this is typically extended to online versions. The result is that many potential readers are discouraged from viewing articles. Libraries, faced with escalating journal costs, have had to cut back on their commitment to providing access. Moreover, except for the shortest articles, authors at many paper journals have to pay a per-page fee. Unlike these page charges, the BMC article processing charge is a flat fee, regardless of the length of the article, accompanying graphics, or attached files, and thus is relatively modest.EP&I's policy of Open Access changes the way in which articles are published. All articles are available for free to anyone with internet access. Readers are not limited by what their library can afford, and can easily access articles via web-based searches , increasingly the most popular method for finding publications. This easier availability has been shown to make articles more highly cited [ly cited . It alsoUnder the Open Access model, authors retain copyrights to their work , allowing the authors to freely distribute, anthologize, and repost their work. This helps avoid such absurdities of the standard publishing model as authors having to pay substantial reprint fees (or violate copyright) to hand copies of articles to their students, often after already paying the journal to publish the article (see endnote 2).EP&I are available at the journal's website in addition to being archived in PubMed Central [EP&I website (though not the other archives), providing an estimate of the article's readership, another feature not possible with paper journal articles.Articles published at  Central , the US  Central  in Germa Central  in Franc Central , the NatEP&I and other fully Open Access journals, authors can be assured of having all the advantages of Open Access: free access to all readers from the day of publication, retained copyright, and seamless online links to their articles and accompanying files, while retaining all the advantages of peer-review and appearance in scientific indexes.Increasingly, traditional paper journals are adopting certain Open Access policies piecemeal, including free online access (though often only part of their archives), online supplemental material, and article-processing charges. But by publishing at EP&I, allows us to provide a forum for articles that are unlikely to be published in paper journals [The online publishing model, combined with the mission of journals . We are raison d'etre of scientific publishing is to allow other researchers to assess the validity of a study and to replicate it by following the recipe themselves, goals that are not compatible with squeezing the methods into a thousand words, as is typically required. Sufficiently describing a field study's data collection methods seems to require at least three or four thousand words, as does all but the simplest data analysis (see endnote 3). A recent editorial in the American Journal of Epidemiology [A emiology  went so emiology  for gettEP&I will publish methods articles that are primarily descriptive, presenting the detailed workings of the design and implementation of a study, how the data was analyzed, or both. We welcome submissions that report in detail the methods that produced previously published results, or details of methods in advance of the publication of results. Such submissions should use the Methods article type (see our instructions to authors for details) and the title should either lead with "Detailed Methods:..." or otherwise include the phrase "detailed methods". Authors are welcome to report some study results to provide context, but the article's focus should be the methods, not the results. We also encourage investigative reporting – submissions by authors who have been able to determine some of the not-publicly-available details of the methodology used in influential research studies published by other authors (see endnote 5).Since the purpose of this type of article is to provide enough detail to scrutinize or replicate a method, authors should include any detail that required a decision about study protocol or analysis method. Though we have no set limit, we would expect any submission that contained enough detail to be more than 4000 words long. Details that should be reported include:• What previously established study designs were used as a template for the study and why? What variations on that template were introduced, and why?• What data analysis methods  were tried and what results did they produce? Why was a certain one chosen to produce "the" results of the study? If results have been published, what other data analyses were run but not reported, and why?• Why were certain cutpoints chosen to categorize variables, define exclusion criteria, etc.?• What design decisions, in retrospect, were suboptimal or led to notable problems? What changes in the originally conceived protocol were introduced and why?• What, if anything, in the study design or analysis method is particularly noteworthy and recommended for use to future researchers?To better conceptualize the goals of such publications, authors should think of themselves as trying to fulfill one or more of the following goals:• Providing enough detail about data sources and analysis to allow readers to make better use of the study results. Such uses could include quantifying uncertainty about the study results , inc• Presenting a case-study lesson for researchers who want to learn more about data gathering and analysis methods. Typically junior health researchers learn methods from one mentor or the overly-idealized presentations in textbooks, and even senior researchers have limited information about how others do things. There is a lot of room for better open exchange.• Telling the story of how health science actually happens, as might be of interest to such chroniclers as historians of science, sociologists, and popular science writers.Some partial solutions to the problem of diminutive methods sections already exist, including online methodology appendices and the reporting of a study's methods across multiple published articles. But these options have limitations and do not go as far as our proposed article type. Moreover, they do not properly reward authors with credit for a publication for the extra effort required to report their methods in a scientifically complete manner.EP&I and submitting your reports of study results to other Open Access journals.We are delighted to be able to provide this forum for scientific publishing and to be able to participate in the Open Access movement. We hope you will support this effort by submitting a paper to .1. For a list of member institutions, see .2. For more details on copyright and other policies, see the BioMed Central Open Access Charter, 3. The value of carefully reported methods, rather than broad sketches, is exemplified by the huge number of choices that must be made about how data is analyzed and reported, and the dramatic effect those choices can have on the reported results .EP&I will find ample evidence to the contrary.4. We cannot resist pointing out a few observations: The length of the methods section of the praised article, which describes a field study and data analysis methods, comes out to about 70 words per author. The article's discussion section is almost twice as long as the methods, and though our journal encourages articles that are entirely "discussion" , this se5. Such information might be inferred by replicating the results, examining regulatory or litigation testimony, or other methods. We encourage authors of such analyses to contact the original study authors to confirm or add to the analysis, and to invite them to be coauthors if they are willing to contribute substantially.Critical Care 2003, 7:331–332) that was suggested as a template by the publisher (used by permission).Parts of this editorial were adapted from a previous article . All scientific researchers and journal editors have motives outside some Platonic ideal of scientific publishing. These include the oft-cited financial interests, but perhaps more importantly also the bolstering of careers  and scientific politics . We continue to encourage authors to disclose competing interests, and to not mistake that phrase for "funding source".Some critics of the author-pays publishing model have suggested that journals have a financial incentive to accept more articles to increase revenue, allowing authors to buy their way into publications. We believe that the quality of articles in


Peer-review and publication of research protocols offer several advantages to all parties involved. Among these are the following opportunities for authors: external expert opinion on the methods, demonstration to funding agencies of prior expert review of the protocol, proof of priority of ideas and methods, and solicitation of potential collaborators. We think that review and publication of protocols is an important role for Open Access journals. Because of their electronic form, openness for readers, and author-pays business model, they are better suited than traditional journals to ensure the sustainability and quality of protocol reviews and publications. In this editorial, we describe the workflow for investigators in eHealth research, from protocol submission to a funding agency, to protocol review and  publication at JMIR, to registration of trials at the International eHealth Study Registry (IESR), and to publication of the report. One innovation at JMIR is that protocol peer reviewers will be paid a honorarium, which will be drawn partly from a new submission fee for protocol reviews. Separating the article processing fee into a submission and a publishing fee will allow authors to opt for “peer-review only” (without subsequent publication) at reduced costs, if they wish to await a funding decision or for other reasons decide not to make the protocol public. It has long been advocated that journals take on a more active role in the “primary prevention” of poor research not only by peer reviewing final reports but by becoming involved earlier in the process through reviewing research protocols -3. Even highlighting good-quality studies at an early stagecontribution to a register of selected trials, to reduce publication bias against negative  or inconvenient findingspromotion of recruitment of cooperating centres and trial participantshelping researchers in funding applicationsprevention of poor researchprevention of data dredging by documentation of intended analysesestablishment of priority of an important ideaIn addition, the current development of journal editors asking for trial registration prior to enrollment of participants  places aJMIR now also encourages submissions of protocols for peer review and  subsequent publication. This, in conjunction with its newly established study register, will increase the possibility of other researchers (such as systematic reviewers) finding negative and ongoing studies. It is also part of a larger vision of making JMIR a one-stop-shopping site by offering services for eHealth researchers at all stages of the knowledge production and dissemination cycle.                The possible “workflow” from study conception to publication is shown in the figure. Authors have the opportunity of submitting a research protocol for peer review to JMIR (point 1 in figure) either before or after submitting it to the funding agency. Peer review at JMIR will encompass suggestions for improvement and an expert opinion on the value of the research plan. Authors may either incorporate the suggested changes and resubmit the revised version, or publish the unchanged protocol alongside the peer-review report (2), or opt to refrain from publication. In addition, authors are, under the new policy of most medical journals, now required to register their studies. This can be done at the new International eHealth Study Register (IESR) located at JMIR . The regPeer reviewers of protocols will be asked to use different standards from those used for peer-reviewed articles. There will be no “accept” or “decline” decision except in cases where the protocol is off-topic  or is clearly ethically or scientifically flawed. Reviewers are asked to comment on the existence of potential flaws which might threaten the validity of the research, to make suggestions for overcoming these flaws if they exist, or to suggest minor improvements to the research plan or the writing. The peer review and optional publication of protocols will be separate processes, in that the author may have the protocol peer reviewed only and not proceed to publication. The option of “peer review only” might be used by some investigators to obtain peer-review input before submission to a funding body while reserving disclosure of the research plan until after funding. Others might prefer to publish in order to be able to cite a fully peer-reviewed research protocol in a funding proposal, while some might wish to use the publication option after success of the funding applications in order to claim priority of the research ideas outlined in the protocol.Peer review and publication of protocols will have a different cost structure from regular article submissions to JMIR. For normal research papers, authors' institutions or authors pay an article processing fee  only if the article is accepted for publication. The fee covers costs incurred both at peer-review and at publication. For protocol submissions only, JMIR is introducing a separated fee. A $250 levy, payable upon submission, will cover the costs of honoraria to peer reviewers, and a separate $500 fee will cover the copyediting and typesetting costs of the optional publication. JMIR needs to recover the costs of peer reviews of protocols which are not published, while researchers might view the submission fee as payment for value received in the peer review.To our knowledge, JMIR is the first Open Access journal taking this critical step of levying a submission fee. To encourage the sustainability and quality of Open Access journals, the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has in fact recommended this step. In its Report the Committee stresses, “The introduction of a submission fee would be an important step towards ensuring the quality of scientific publications and we strongly recommend that author-pays publishers introduce this system [paragraph 174 and recommendation 67] [As peer reviewers may find review of protocols less appealing than review of finished research, we will offer an honorarium as a small incentive. This will help maintain the quality of reviews and promote a quick turnaround time. Authors will have the opportunity to nominate specific reviewers whom we will approach first, but we reserve the right to replace them if they decline or seem unsuitable.This model is an experiment, but we think it is viable. Protocol review and publication may become an important role for Open Access journals. Clear advantages flow to all parties in the process. Authors obtain external expert opinions on their methods and are able to show funding agencies reviewed protocols. They are also able to document priority of ideas and methods and to solicit potential collaborators. Open Access journals because of their electronic form, openness for readers and author-pays business model are better suited than traditional journals to provide the sustainability and quality of protocol review and publication.


The new journal, Chinese Medicine (CM), is a peer-reviewed, open access, international, interdisciplinary and scholarly journal in Chinese medicine. CM aims to provide evidence-led force for the advancement of Chinese medicine research. CM is the official journal of the International Society for Chinese Medicine (ISCM)  with acamateria medica, acupuncture and other non-pharmacologic modalities of the Chinese medical system. CM welcomes submission of papers on application of Chinese medicine in disease prevention, treatment/management, and rehabilitation. In addition to biomedical research, CM also accepts reports on various aspects of Chinese medicine research, including public health, regulation, management, education, technical translation, cultural exchange and internationalization. Multidisciplinary and translational research reports are also strongly encouraged. All research and review articles must be peer-reviewed to ensure that the valuable knowledge drawn from them is evidence-based, scientifically justified and ethical. Peer-review is conducted by at least two internationally recognized experts in the respective fields. Our high calibre reviewers and editors will only accept papers of high quality.CM publishes articles reporting valuable research with general interest in any aspect of Chinese medicine, such as basic research, clinical research, methodologies, theories and diagnoses, Since the 1990s, there has been a phenomenal growth of interest in traditional medicine knowledge and practices, which is evident in the increasing World Health Organization (WHO) activities and publications, such as Global Strategy for Traditional Medicine (2002–2005) . ResearcOur concept of evidence-led Chinese medicine (ELCM) is broader than that of evidence-based Chinese medicine (EBCM). We believe that the advancement, including modernization and internationalization, of Chinese medicine should be led by evidence. Chinese medicine research should gather new evidence which can be used to break new grounds and/or to verify old traditions. For fruitful research, ELCM should be: (1) inheriting without dogmatic restriction; (2) innovating without random deviation; and (3) reasoning for true understanding. Similar opinion was echoed in the consensus reached at the 2004 ISCM International Expert Forum [Chinese medicine is a treasure of the Chinese people, who not only have been benefiting from its well-known clinical effectiveness but also have been inspired by its ancient wisdom. With a natural and holistic approach, in addition to disease treatment, Chinese medicine does care about a person's well-being. It restores and maintains the dynamic balance of a person, and achieves a harmony between human and nature. While Chinese medicine is based on a holistic system that is inherently different from the modern biomedical sciences, its holistic theories and practices are not contradictory to general principles of logic and science. Chinese medicine sees all components of the whole person (system) interact dynamically with one another to maintain a balanced physiological state. Serious imbalance results in a diseased state. Conventional investigations on isolated components and/or processes are missing the big picture and therefore will not fully unlock the scientific value of Chinese medicine. The situation had remained unchanged until systems biology, omics and related technologies, new approaches and methodologies for scientific study of Chinese medicine began to emerge. From the perspective of systems biology and omics, all components in a living organism/system interact dynamically to maintain homeostasis , and serious deviations from homeostasis cause diseases. This idea is in line with the holistic concept and practices of Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine research adopting the approaches and methodologies of systems biology and omics as well as those from other relevant fields, such as evidence-based medicine (EBM) and clinical and molecular epidemiology, will generate macroscopic, microscopic and integrative macroscopic-microscopic evidences for ELCM. Supported by an international community of active researchers in the relevant fields, CM will advocate ELCM in order to help unlock the scientific value of Chinese medicine.To better serve its authors and readers, CM strives to ensure that the best Chinese medicine research is published, and read by the widest possible range of international audience. Open access journals provide the best solution. While it is true that most of the established and printed journals are available online, access to an article usually requires a journal subscription or a purchase of an individual article. Due to the high costs of subscription fees, many research groups or libraries around the world, especially those in the developing countries, are cutting down on the numbers of subscribed journals. This limits the dissemination of research findings.Supported by strong Editorial and Advisory Boards, and working closely with BioMed Central, an open access publisher based in London, we make all articles published in the journal totally free to anyone who has access to the Internet. Moreover, unlike many other journals within the BMC family where authors pay an article processing charge (APC), CM pays the APC for all authors in full, so that authors have no financial burden to publish articles.Our authors retain the copyright for their work and are free to email the articles to their colleagues, post them on the Internet, grant anyone the right to reproduce and disseminate them, provided that it is correctly cited and no errors are introduced. Apart from being available online, articles published in our journal are also archived permanently in PubMed Central , the US The distinctive features of CM, provided by BioMed Central and our editorial office, offer special advantages to our authors, readers, the scientific and medical communities and the general public. The efficient electronic publishing process sustained by BioMed Central ensures easy online submission and fast online peer review and publication. Furthermore, there are no length restraints or figure limits and large datasets are also accepted. Articles are published immediately upon acceptance and soon after indexed by PubMed and other major repositories, meaning that they will be read and searched quickly and globally. Our editorial office believes that the more important the submitted articles (i.e. papers of great interest and high profile), the more they deserve the best treatment: (1) fast, thorough, fair peer reviews by the most appropriate referees; (2) effective presentation and professional formatting of the articles both on the web and in print; and (3) promotion of the articles to all interested parties. In a speedy and professional manner, the scientific value and potential impact of all published articles in CM will be judged and evaluated by the international scientific community.Chinese Medicine is an exciting medium for fostering evidence-led force for the advancement of Chinese medicine by committing to professional excellence and open access publishing. CM aims to promote the generation of a research knowledge base in Chinese medicine. CM is devoted to bridging the gap between traditional Chinese medicine and modern medicine. CM will endeavour to unlock the scientific value of Chinese medicine. We believe that it is now high time for a renaissance of traditional Chinese medicine and that the success of this journal relies very much on its editors working in concert with its reviewers and authors to keep publishing high quality papers in ELCM. Please join us and help make this happen.


Changes in the structure of commercial scholarly publishing have led to spiraling subscription prices. This has resulted in a "serials crisis" that has eroded library budgets and threatened the system of scientific communication. Open access represents one possible solution, and librarians are working to help make it a reality. However, changes in commercial publishing, as well as the very volume of information published, have combined to put this model under great strain.Science fundamentally requires communication, and the scholarly article has been the primary medium for this communication for the past three centuries. For at least half that time, scientific communication has also relied upon libraries. No researcher alone could ever hope to own every work needed, but by pooling their resources, a The structure of scientific communication has undergone a quiet revolution over the past decade. A researcher can now do a literature search and click through to full-text articles in minutes, all without leaving her desk. It can be so effortless as to seem almost like magic, at least until she attempts to follow a citation to a journal that the library doesn't subscribe to. At that point, all magic ceases – she has the option of either waiting several days, parting with a substantial sum from her own pocket, or just throwing up her hands and looking for another article.needs is in journal A, then no number of articles from journal B will suffice. This all adds up to a distinct lack of pricing pressure – libraries essentially have to agree to pay whatever a publisher demands.The fundamental problem is that the market for scholarly information is broken. Researchers use content, but are insulated from the costs, as they aren't directly responsible for the library's bills. Furthermore, the substitution of expensive titles with less expensive ones is impossible. If the article one Commercial publishers have reacted to this market inefficiency by extracting as much money as they can. Prices for an individual title are typically in the thousands of dollars for titles in science, technology and medicine (STM), and some approach the twenty-thousand dollar mark. Publishers also often "bundle" access to weaker titles along with more popular ones, requiring libraries to pay for the whole package if they want favorable terms. As commercial scholarly publishers have consolidated through mergers, STM publishing has grown into a huge industry, one with total revenues of nearly ten billion dollars and an average profit margin of 25% .serials crisis. Subscription charges have become a black hole into which the library's budget disappears. Unit costs for serials at American Research Libraries (ARL) institutions rose by some 188% percent between 1986 and 2004 [Librarians have coined a term for this state of affairs: the and 2004 .decreased since 1986. As tight budgets have led to recurring journal cancellation projects at institutions of every size, the situation for unique journal titles is much the same [At the same time, a smaller proportion of recorded knowledge actually makes it into libraries for scholars to use. Library purchases of books have actually the same . This isMolecular Cancer is an open access journal, you are likely already aware that open access publishing represents an attractive alternative to the current system. By design, open access literature is available to all, regardless of institutional affiliation or library budget. For researchers, there is evidence to support the notion that open access directly benefits authors by making it more likely that their work will be cited by others [As y others . For libIt is to this end that academic libraries are at the forefront of open access activism. At many institutions, librarians seek to educate faculty members about the crisis in scholarly communications and their rights as authors. They do this either informally or increasingly through Offices of Scholarly Communications, often sited within the library. Indeed, one of the premier organizations in this effort, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), is funded by the Association of College and Research Libraries.Institutional Repository – a place online where the scholarly output of an institution can be gathered up and shared on an Open Access basis. There are now hundreds of these systems up and running around the world, many of them managed by the institution's library. The arXiv [There are also libraries that are supporting Open Access in more direct ways. One of the most welcome developments of the past several years has been that of the he arXiv , the onlensuring that such work is available to taxpayers on an open access basis [Open access is beginning to take root outside of libraries as well. The NIH operates PubMed Central, a repository of open access literature, and has established a policy that requests NIH-funded scientists to contribute their manuscripts . A numbess basis .None of this will really have an impact however, until researchers realize the power they have and demand more open access to their own work. It is time for librarians and scholars to work together to preserve the system of scholarly communication upon which science depends.


Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health is a new, peer-reviewed, scientific journal devoted to the rapid dissemination of high-quality reports relevant to mental health of children and adolescents. It is the first open access electronic journal in child and adolescent mental health and aims to become an essential instrument of communication for researchers, clinicians, and policy makers.The launch of this journal has been prompted by several considerations. First, mental health has acquired an increasingly prominent relevance to the health of our communities. After a century of major advances in general medicine and pediatrics, common birth complications and infectious diseases in the first years of life can now be successfully managed in economically developed countries. Consequently, behavioral and emotional disorders have become the primary causes of morbidity and mortality in childhood and adolescence . Second,Empirical research has driven the progress in child psychiatry and clinical child psychology during the past decades. For further progress, the interface between basic science and clinical research appears especially important. More complex and sophisticated models of child-onset psychiatric disorders have been achieved by interdisciplinary collaborations between basic scientists and clinicians, such as the recent findings on specific gene-environment interactions. Another interface that has emerged as critically important is that between clinical research and implementation of empirically based interventions in clinical practice. To this end, it is essential to build collaborations between researchers and professionals involved in the care of children and adolescents, such as mental health specialists, pediatricians, social workers, and educators. This journal aims to help integrate basic science, clinical research and practical implementation of research findings.In fact, even more than other medical disciplines, the field of child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health psychiatry is closely associated with various allied disciplines. Interdisciplinary collaboration, however, has been hindered by the compartmentalization of scientific publications and generally limited access to the print journals of neighboring disciplines. This journal aims to address these issues by taking a broad approach which inclusive of topics such a forensic psychiatry, prevention of psychiatric disorders, early interventions addressing the caregivers of infants, toddlers and preschoolers, mental health economics, and interventions specifically tailored to the needs of high-risk populations.International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP)[Because it can be accessed at no charge through the Internet, this journal is expected to attract a broader readership than traditional journals, including those from parts of the world where access to subscription journals is limited. In return, a broader and more diverse audience is likely to generate a greater variety of contributions. Because of the impact of social and cultural factors on the approach to diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, we believe that there will be a significant benefit from a wide exchange of information coming from different cultural approaches to mental health. In launching this new journal, we strongly feel encouraged by the (IACAPAP), an orgaChild and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health is committed to:a) Publishing high quality scientific reports of new data that enhance knowledge on critical aspects of child and adolescent mental health, such as developmental psychopathology, etiopathogenesis, nosology, identification of risk factors, preventive interventions, treatment, bioethics, and economics implications.b) Publishing challenging and thought provoking clinical case reports and commentaries on timely and controversial issues relevant to child and adolescent mental health.c) Providing reviews of the literature on current and/or sometimes neglected issues of mental health of children and adolescents.d) Fostering communication among disciplines relevant to child and adolescent mental health and thus contributing to interdisciplinary projects.e) Rapid peer-review and publication process. The goal is to provide to the author(s) the reviewers' comments within six weeks from manuscript submission. Articles will be posted on the journal website immediately upon publication.f) Open access of all publications to all interested readers through the Internet.Open access, online publishing is a relatively new form of publication that has quickly spread out in the last few years especially in medicine and basic sciences. Many public and private research funding organizations support open access publishing or even require open access publishing in connection with their grants. This approach is driven by the idea that public money or money from scientific foundations should lead to scientific results that can be easily accessed by everybody without restrictions.Because, by definition, open access journals do not levy subscription fees, the cost of publishing, maintaining and indexing articles has to be derived from other sources. For every article accepted for publication in the journal an article-processing charge is levied to cover the costs incurred by open access publication. Many universities, hospitals, and research institutions are members of BioMed Central , the jouhild and Adolescents Psychiatry and Mental Health will immediately appear PubMed and become openly accessible through the Internet. Therefore, we encourage all potential contributors to consider fast publication in this new open access journal. In addition, authors retain the copyright of their article and have the right to reproduce and distribute as they please. We hope that readers all over the world will participate in the development of the journal and make it a success by informing their friends and co-workers about this new platform, and considering it for their next publication. We would like to thank our Associate Editors and the Editorial Office as well as the experts from BioMed Central for all their work that they have invested before we could launch this new journal. We feel strongly supported by a broad Editorial Board [Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health.Open access, online publishing has many advantages. Following a rigorous, but still expeditious, peer-review process, articles will be promptly posted by BMC on the Internet for anyone to download at no costs. All the articles published in Cal Board  with exp


Three months have passed since the WJES was launched.  In theseAs you know, publishing in WJES has been free of charge, but starting June 24, the journal will introduce the usual Biomed fee. WJES articles will become financially self-sufficient through article-processing charges [APCs]. Authors are asked to pay GBP 750, if their research is accepted for publication. However, authors from resource-poor countries, who are unable to pay the APC for their manuscript, can apply to the Editors-in-Chief to have the APC waived. Other authors, who belong to BioMed Central member organizations, will have the APC covered in full or part by their membership. No charge is made for articles that are rejected after peer review. [Open Access publishing provides instant and universal availability of published work to any potential reader, worldwide, completely free of subscriptions, passwords, and charges. Furthermore, authors retain copyright of their work, facilitating its dissemination. Open Access publishing is made possible by article-processing charges assessed "on the front end" to authors, their institutions, or their funding agencies . With thThe benefits from such Open Access will reward readers, with unrestricted access to information; to authors, through the widest possible dissemination of their work; and to science and society in general, by increasing the availability of information and scientific advancement.We believe World Journal of Emergency Surgery will benefit clinical care and aid scientific research, and we hope you will support this progress by submitting your next research article to this open access journal.


Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases, an open access, peer-reviewed journal that will encompass all aspects of rare diseases and orphan drugs. The focus will be on review articles, but the journal will consider all contributions that are scientifically sound and within its scope.We are pleased to announce the launch of We wish to express our gratitude to the many colleagues who have agreed to serve as section editors for their specialties. To a considerable extent, the quality of the journal will depend on their commitment. The journal's editorial office is established at the Orphanet headquarters in Paris and supported by several major institutions including INSERM, the French Ministry of Health and the European Commission .Traditionally, readers pay to access articles, either through subscriptions or by paying a fee each time they download an article. Escalating costs of journal subscriptions have resulted in libraries subscribing to fewer journals and the range of articles available to readers is therefore increasingly limited. Although traditional journals publish authors' work for free (unless there are page or colour charges), there are limits on how many people can read, use and cite these articles given the requirement to pay for access.Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases' open access policy changes the way in which articles are published. First, all articles become freely and universally accessible online, and so an author's work can be read by anyone at no cost. Second, the authors hold copyright for their work and grant anyone the right to reproduce and disseminate the article, provided that it is correctly cited and no errors are introduced. Third, the results of publicly funded research will be accessible to all taxpayers and not just those with access to a library with a subscription. As such, open access holds the potential to increase public interest in, and support of, research. Fourth, a country's economic strength will not influence its researchers' ability to access articles because readers in resource-poor countries (and institutions) will be able to access the same material as wealthier ones (access to the internet being the only requirement).Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases to serve the scientific community with this open access forum. We hope you will support this major advance by submitting articles to our journal. Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases will usually levy an article-processing charge for manuscripts accepted after peer review (payable on acceptance), but will cover the cost of publication for invited review articles. Many institutions [Article-processing charges will enable itutions  and reseitutions  will covOrphanet Journal of Rare Diseases [Please submit your work to Diseases . Help usSégolène Aymé, Bruno Dallapiccola and Dian DonnaiOrphanet Journal of Rare DiseasesThe Editors-in-Chief,


This was judged as necessary, in order to be able to serve better the aims of the journal. Our initial thoughts were that including the term 'General Hospital' in the journal's title would help us to launch a journal dedicated to the idea of Psychiatry as a medical specialty. But they were not justified; so, now the Annals of General Psychiatry (AGP) is born! It is still an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal covering the wider field of Psychiatry, Neurosciences and Psychological Medicine, and aims at publishing articles on all aspects of psychiatry. Primary research articles are the journal's priority, and both basic and clinical neuroscience contributions are encouraged. The AGP strongly supports and follows the principles of evidence-based medicine. AGP's articles are archived 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. We hope that the change in the journal's name will cure the confusion caused by its previous title and help to achieve the journal's aims and scope, that is to help the world-wide promotion of research and publishing in the mental health area.Our regular readers will notice that the title of our journal has changed from Annals of General Hospital Psychiatry (AGHP) to Annals of General Psychiatry (AGP) since January 1 It was aimed at publishing articles on all aspects of psychiatry.However, it seems that the title caused a certain degree of confusion. As a reflection of this confusion, we received a lot of questions from colleagues asking whether their paper would fit the journal or not. These colleagues had authored general psychiatry papers, definitely inside the scopes of the journal, but their impression was that the journal, because of its title, had to do only with 'psychological medicine', 'psychosomatic medicine', 'consultation-liaison psychiatry' and similar areas, and not with general psychiatry as part of the medical model and tradition.Repeated efforts from our side to change this impression were largely unsuccessful. So, changing the title seemed to be the only solution left in order to cure this misunderstanding.. Our editorial board has been enlarged to include eminent figures from the field of Psychiatry. It is still an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal covering the wider field of Psychiatry, Neurosciences and Psychological Medicine, and aims at publishing articles on all aspects of psychiatry. Primary research articles are the journal's priority, and both basic and clinical neuroscience contributions are encouraged. The AGP strongly supports and follows the principles of evidence-based medicine.So, now the Annals of General Psychiatry (AGP) is born! The web site has changed to The AGP is not a new journal. Instead, it is the continuation of the AGHP. It emphasizes a biopsychosocial approach to illness and health, and where possible a wider dialogue will be opened on specific articles thereby placing the research into a wider framework. Online publication with Open Access, are powerful tools to achieve these goals.AGP continues to be published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognized free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and license agreement. AGP takes this a step further by ensuring that all published articles are Open Access.AGP's articles are archived 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.BioMed Central is working closely with the Institute for Scientific Information to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in AGP will be soon available. Also, by being part of BioMed Central, AGP is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).Recently both the BioMed Central and the AGP joined the World Health Organization Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse initiative and signed the January 2004 joint Statement which was published in the AGHP . This giWe hope that the change in the journal's name will cure the confusion caused by its previous title and help to achieve the journal's aims and scope, that is to help the world-wide promotion of research and publishing in the mental health area.Dr KN Fountoulakis has received support for research and educational reasons as well as honoraria and financial assistance with registration, accommodation, and/or travel expenses for conferences and meetings from Eli Lilly, Janssen-Cilag, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sanofi-Synthelabo, Novartis, Wyeth, Organon and Bristol-Myers Squibb.


First scientific journals were simply a way of informing colleagues about new research findings. In due course, they started filtering out unreasonable claims, and introduced a peer-review system.The purpose of peer reviewing changed with time. Since the middle of the past century, commercial publishers have owned a large number of scientific journals and as a result, the marketable value of a submitted manuscript has become an increasingly important factor in publishing decisions.Recently some publishers have developed business schemes which may stop this tendency. In the case of an open-access publication, the marketable value of a manuscript is not the primary consideration, since access to the research is not being sold. This innovation challenges scientists to re-consider the purpose of peer review.This editorial indicates some of the commonly used criteria for publication that consequently should receive less or little emphasis under the open-access model. Many researchers still consider publication in a research journal to be a way of laying claim to a new research result. Many years ago, researchers were doing this by sending mails directly to their colleagues. Then scientific journals appeared. First scientific journals were simply a more efficient way for extensive mailing . In due The purpose of peer reviewing changed with time. Since the middle of the past century, commercial publishers owned a large number of scientific journals and introduced a business scheme that was distinct in nature from the original scheme invented by Henry Oldenburg (see Appendix). In contrast to widespread belief, most commercial scientific publishers did not start out as publishers of scientific journals. They were used to publishing textbooks, not scientific journals, and they started publishing scientific journals as if they were textbooks. This business scheme suggests making a profit from selling research articles to readers – and so the publisher needs to evaluate how many readers will buy an article submitted for publication . EventuaWith the passage of time, the bias has come to be remarkably consistent, and many scientists have forgotten the primary purpose of a scientific publication – to transmit a claim for a new research result to a relevant scientific community. If the claim is reasonable it does not matter whether the readership is large or small . In someOne may hardly expect that a reader-oriented publisher would be willing to pay the cost associated with pursuing such a goal. To be profitable a scientific journal must reject manuscripts that are not found to be sufficiently interesting to a broad readership. Hence, the current business scheme eventually transforms the process of publishing a research result in an unexpected way .Only recently have BioMed Central and some other publishers suggested a business model which may address this problem. In the case of an open-access publication, reviewers need not evaluate the marketable value of a manuscript, since the cost of publication is paid directly , and does not need to be recouped from readers via subscriptions. This allows publishers to concentrate on the validity of the claim for a new research result – that is, check whether the manuscript is free from obvious errors, or unjustified conclusions.Under this new model of publishing, scientists can refine the culture of peer-review.What may be a reason for rejecting an article if the cost of publication does not need to be recouped through subscriptions? In fact, there are many reasons.First, the article must fall within the general scope of the journal. Second, it must be an original work, not a copy or adaptation of someone else's work. Third, it must show a departure from previous works. Fourth, conclusions must be justified. Moreover, the article must be written in understandable language, and it must contain no obvious errors.All these requirements are essential for filtering out an unreasonable claim for a new research result and cannot be ignored.Then, what should not be a reason for rejecting an article, under an open access business model?Obviously, the marketable value of the article should not be a reason for rejection, and all such evaluations must be ignored.For example, more than often, peer-review turns into voting. Reviewers simply express their emotions: "interesting"," boring", "good paper", "not impressive", and so on. Such evaluations are essential to predict reader's willingness-to-buy but they are not a primary consideration when choosing what to publish under an open access model.Some evaluations, however, are not easy to categorize. For instance, reviewers often require revisions to improve manuscript quality. They may ask the author to add more references, or more illustrations, or even to do further research. Most of these recommendations could be really useful to the author as long as they remain discretionary. Nevertheless, if compulsory revisions are required to entertain the reader or to form the impression that the reported results form an entirely solid piece of knowledge, they serve the commercial interests of the publisher, and not that of the research community.It is worth mentioning in this connection that a journal's reputation is an essential factor for selling it to readers, and therefore publishers commonly confuse textbook science and frontier science. Solid scientific knowledge is the knowledge that has stood the test of time and is well confirmed by a number of independent research studies. Frontier research is that which produces something really new, and something really new cannot be turned into solid knowledge immediately. The vain attempts to transform research journals into instant textbooks may only retard the pace of scientific advances .Evaluations of scientific novelty are also difficult to categorize. There is a tendency to evaluate the "degree of novelty", which is not a well-defined concept. If a manuscript reports something that was not already known, its scientific novelty is obvious. However, the degree of novelty cannot be estimated in an objective manner.  The tendency to publish only the articles demonstrating a high degree of novelty poses a serious problem. In order to fit such a vague requirement, authors have to exaggerate the significance of their works, which leads, sometimes, to fraud. Since peer review cannot be expected to detect fraud, it would be only prudent to ignore the "degree of novelty" or the "level of interest" .The obvious advantage of the open-access scheme is that it relieves authors of having to impress readers. It is not clear, however, whether the research community is ready to take advantage of the scheme and re-consider the purpose of peer review, but it is clear that it opens new perspectives, which must be explored.Carbon Balance and Management.What makes an open-access journal play a vital role in the research community? Opinions may differ. Some researchers may consider journal's selectivity as a hugely important factor. Therefore, it would be only prudent to address this question to recent and prospective authors of Warning: This article does not reflect either the current policy of CBM journal or that of BioMed Central. Its major purpose is to encourage recent and prospective authors to make use of 'Post a comment' tool (see the link on this web page) for exposing their expectations and needs to the members of editorial board, and vice versa.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. The journal aimed to create a public record of original contributions to knowledge, and set up a new model of scientific correspondence. Let us illustrate the nature of this model by using a case study of a hypothetical research network.Henry Oldenburg is known for creating the first scientific journal – n correspondents. Every year each of them sends (n-1) copies of a letter informing other network members about obtained research results. The cost of correspondence is, hence, equal to the cost of writing and mailing one copy multiplied by (n-1); it grows linearly with the size of network , and therefore the size of the network is limited by the ability of an average network member to pay this cost.Consider a network of n copies of the letter and the cost of delivering n copies of it (bound up with other letters) to all network members. The cost of correspondence in this case is not a linear function of network size , "allowing scientists to reach a wider audience than they would by exchanging private letters" [Oldenburg's model suggests that each correspondent pay the cost of mailing one copy of such a letter and membership fee covering the cost of printing letters" .Nevertheless, the size of the network remains limited by the ability of an average member to pay the membership fee. This may explain why most scientific societies failed to recover publication costs from members' dues since the middle of the past century: the typical size of a scientific society seemingly exceeded a certain threshold.  of articles published in traditional journals.


Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care is dedicated to the rapid and universal dissemination of peer-reviewed research and scholarly work within its scope. It aims to bridge diverse professional communities by providing a common forum for the publication of research relevant to the clinical practice of primary care. Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care is dedicated to the rapid and universal dissemination of peer-reviewed research and scholarly work related to osteopathic and allopathic clinical practice. The scope of primary care covered by the journal includes all aspects of family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology. Relevant topics include therapeutics, diagnostic tests, preventive services, clinician-patient interactions, and ethics, just to name a few. Research that is unique to primary care responds to the need for evidence-based findings that can be generalized and applied to populations that are served by primary care clinicians. Such research is integral to sustaining the primary care community [ommunity , particuommunity . Practicommunity , such asommunity . The jouOsteopathic Medicine and Primary Care also seeks submissions on topics that are uniquely osteopathic. Osteopathic medicine in the United States still struggles to establish a unique professional identify [Naturally, identify . It alsoidentify . Althougidentify , much moOsteopathic Medicine and Primary Care is strategically placed and poised to assume a leading role in disseminating peer-reviewed research and scholarly work within its scope. The journal includes an Editorial Board [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) [As a BioMed Central independent, open access journal, al Board  of diverciences) . This stOsteopathic Medicine and Primary Care and then reviewed using an electronic system (accessible online [All manuscripts are submitted to e online ) that opOsteopathic Medicine and Primary Care. If a manuscript is ready to be accepted, following peer review, the corresponding author will be notified that the APC payment is due. Additional information about APCs is available online [In the absence of revenue from subscriptions, article processing charges (APCs) cover the cost of the journal's daily operations, rapid and universal dissemination of its contents, and indexing and permanent archiving of its articles. Authors at institutions that are members of BioMed Central will receive either a full or partial discount of the APCs. Many funding agencies, such as the United States National Institutes of Health, explicitly authorize the use of grant monies for payment of APCs to encourage open access publication. The corresponding author must confirm, on submission, that the APC will be paid should the article be accepted for publication in e online .Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care provides the opportunity to publish high-impact research with rapid and universal dissemination. We are eager to receive and review the work of investigators and scholars in the diverse fields related to primary care.Osteopathic Medicine and Primary Care respectively.JCL and RC are Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor of


This article and editor's summary give the impression that the tuberculosis infection rate was actually reduced by opening windows . A carefNot every case will result in the differences observed in the Peruvian hospitals studied. One must be careful not to overgeneralize the results.Indoor Air, the International Journal of Indoor Environment and Health, available at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/ina/17/1 [A new article, “Role of ventilation in airborne transmission of infectious agents in the built environment—A multidisciplinary systematic review” by Yuguo Li et al., is a thorough review of infectious disease transmission and ventilation just published in the February 2007 issue of the journal


EHP and other members of the African Medical Journal Editors Partnership Program (AMJEPP) have worked with counterpart African journals to increase the latter journals’ capacity and reach. Now Mali Médical, the African partner journal for EHP and the American Journal of Public Health, has taken a big step forward in getting its published research out to a worldwide audience by becoming the second of the African AMJEPP journals to be accepted for indexing in MEDLINE, the essential database for far-reaching distribution of biomedical information. African Health Sciences, the Ugandan partner journal for BMJ, was indexed prior to the formation of the AMJEPP.Since 2005, EHP 113:A452–A454 [2005]).Due to the sustainability and capacity challenges typically faced by developing nations, the African journal partners have been hampered in their efforts to disseminate essential research information internally as well as internationally. The AMJEPP, currently funded by the National Library of Medicine and the NIH Fogarty International Center, pairs these journals with established journals in the United States and the United Kingdom that can offer guidance, training, and expertise  Register, the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative registration source for the identification of serial publications. This will allow the journal to be cited, abstracted, and indexed more accurately.Adding to this increased visibility is EHP’s ongoing mission to make environmental health science literature available to the largest audience possible, especially to those in developing countries, the journal joined Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) in January 2007. An international public–private consortium sponsored by the UN Environment Programme and Yale University, OARE provides web access to more than 1,000 scientific journals to developing, low-income countries for free or minimal cost. For more information on OARE, visit http://www.oaresciences.org/.Keeping in step with