RE: Does BMC's business model conflict with Editorial Independence?

[<matt@biomedcentral.com>]

Phil,

The concerns that you express ignore the core function of 
journals, which is to convey an authoritative stamp of editorial 
approval on research.

Neither BioMed Central's editors, nor BioMed Central, nor Public 
Library of Science, nor any other open access journal publisher, 
would advance their own interests by accepting articles 
regardless of quality, since journals which cannot convey a 
meaningful stamp of editorial approval will not attract 
submissions.

To take just one example, the BioMed Central journal which 
publishes the *most* articles, 'BMC Bioinformatics', also has the 
highest impact factor of any BioMed Central journal. More 
generally, the number of publications in each of our journals is 
strongly positively correlated with impact factor.  So the idea 
that somehow quality and quantity tug in opposite directions is 
misguided. Having a reputation for quality attracts more papers.

Matt

> The editorial remuneration practices of BMC do not give me
> assurances that BMC editors are fair and honest arbitrators of their
> editorial responsibilities.
>
> --Phil Davis