Oxford Journals share evidence-based open access results with the community

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

Oxford Journals share evidence-based open access results with the 
community

The impact of open access for publishers, authors, and readers 
was the subject of a one day conference held in London last week, 
organised by Oxford Journals. Findings presented from three 
studies conducted by LISU 
<http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/dils/lisu/index.html>, CIBER 
<http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ciber/ciber.php>, and Oxford Journals 
<www.oxfordjournals.org>, gave researchers a rare opportunity to 
view how the open access business model is working in practice.

This event marks a continued commitment by Oxford Journals 
towards responsible experimentation with open access models, and 
an equal commitment to disseminating this information. Over 90 
delegates from across the international academic spectrum 
attended the event, including researchers, librarians, 
publishers, editors, and representatives of several scholarly 
organizations.

"Until recently there has been a lack of data to support whether 
an open access model would result in cost effective dissemination 
of research," commented Martin Richardson, Managing Director, 
Oxford Journals, who also chaired the event. He continued:

"The event has received strong support from across the scholarly 
community, for presenting hard evidence into the effects of open 
access, and also for enabling others to share their experiences 
of open access. We hope that by making the results of our 
experiments public we can help to foster a better understanding 
of the advantages and disadvantages of open access and 
subscription-based business models."

The day focussed on the preliminary findings from three key 
experiments* relating to Oxford Journals open access content. 
Findings were presented by Claire Saxby, Senior Editor, Oxford 
Journals; Claire Creaser, LISU; and David Nicholas, CIBER. Some 
of the key findings included:

*	The importance of search engines in driving up usage
*	The relationship of open access driving up usage of non-open
 	access 	content in the same journal
*	Changes in user behaviour for abstract and full-text usage
*	The varying standpoints of authors on open access.

Presentations from Oxford Journals, LISU, and CIBER, are now 
available online 
<http://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/Presentation%20slides>.

A full report of the findings will be freely available online 
from the Oxford Journals website later this month.

For further information on Oxford Journals' open access 
experiments, click here 
<http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/>

For further information on the Oxford open access workshop, click 
here <http://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/oa_workshop.html>

* Oxford currently has three separate open access models: one 
full open access journal, Nucleic Acids Research (NAR), optional 
open access for 49 journals in the Oxford Open initiative, and 
sponsored open access for Journal of Experimental Botany (JXB), 
and Evidence based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (eCAM).

END

For further information please contact:
Mithu Mukherjee
Assistant Communications Manager
Oxford Journals

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

Notes for Editors

The Oxford Journals open access workshop took place on 5 June 2006 at
the Institute of Physics conference Centre, 76 Portland Place, London

A full conference schedule, plus an overview of the 
presentations, and access to presentation slides, is available 
online: <http://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/oa_workshop.html>

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

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

####