First full year results from Oxford Open released

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

***Apologies for cross posting***

Please find below the latest news from Oxford Open.

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Kind regards

Mithu Mukherjee
Assistant Communications Manager
Oxford Journals
mithu.mukherjee@oxfordjournals.org

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Full year results from Oxford Open show wide variation in open access
uptake across disciplines

Oxford Journals, a division of Oxford University Press, today 
released full year figures from its optional open access 
experiment, Oxford Open 
<http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/>. In the first year of 
launch, almost 400 papers have been published under the optional 
open access model across 36 of the 49 participating titles.

The majority of uptake of optional open access has, as predicted, 
been in the life sciences, with approximately 10% of authors 
selecting the open access option across 16 participating journals 
in this area, compared with approximately 5% in medicine and 
public health, and 3% in the humanities and social sciences. 
Three life sciences titles in the areas of molecular and 
computational biology have seen over 20% uptake. The highest of 
these was for Bioinformatics, which has published over 50 open 
access papers in 2006. 2007 online subscription prices have been 
adjusted for these journals to reflect this uptake.

Oxford Open, launched in July 2005, gives authors the option of 
paying for their research to be made freely available online 
immediately upon publication in the participating journals. 
Twenty-one titles adopted this model in July 2005, and further 
titles have joined in 2006, giving 49 journals participating at 
present.

Claire Bird, Senior Editor, Oxford Journals, commented, "we 
continue to see wide variation in uptake, and different levels of 
interest in 'author-pays' open access models between disciplines. 
The highest uptake has been in areas where more funding for open 
access is available, such as the life sciences, and we would 
expect this trend to continue in 2007."

Managing Director, Martin Richardson also commented: "We launched 
Oxford Open to help foster a better understanding of the 
advantages and disadvantages of open access and 
subscription-based business models. These results show that while 
open access is beginning to be embraced in some subject areas, 
the level of uptake is generally quite low.  These results 
continue to suggest that open access is likely to be only one of 
a range of models that will be necessary to support the 
requirements of different research communities.

"We remain committed to sharing the results of these experiments 
with the community in order to increase knowledge and 
understanding of open access, and to help direct us, and other 
publishers, towards viable business models for the future."

Oxford Journals will continue to offer optional open access to 
the 49 participating journals for 2007, in addition to continuing 
its other experiments with open access with Nucleic Acids 
Research (NAR), Journal of Experimental Botany, and 
Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (ECAM). It 
also expects further journals to join the initiative over the 
coming year.

Oxford Journals continues to offer two standard charges: 1500 GBP 
standard, and a discounted rate of 800 GBP for authors based in 
an institution with an online subscription to the journal. 80% of 
authors who chose open access in the first year of Oxford Open 
have paid a discounted open access charge, as members of a 
subscribing institution.

Oxford Open charges will remain the same for authors wishing to 
publish open access in 2007. Further reduced charges are also 
available to authors in developing countries: see the Oxford Open 
website, and participating journal homepages, for further 
information.

The online subscription prices of 3 journals (Bioinformatics, 
Carcinogenesis and Human Molecular Genetics) have been adjusted 
for 2007 to reflect how much original research material was made 
freely available in the first phase of the initiative in 
2005-2006.

END

Notes for Editors

The Oxford Open experiment is an optional open access model, 
allowing authors the option to pay for their paper to be made 
freely available online immediately upon publication. There are 
49 journals currently participating. Read more about the 
initiative <http://www.oxfordjournals.org/oxfordopen/>

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

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

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