BioMed Central

Not to be confused with PubMed Central.
BioMed Central
Parent company Springer Science+Business Media
Status Active
Founded 2000
Founder Current Science Group
Headquarters location United Kingdom
Distribution Open access
Publication types Scientific journals
Nonfiction topics Science
Official website www.biomedcentral.com

BioMed Central (BMC) is a United Kingdom-based, for-profit scientific publisher specialising in open access journal publication. BioMed Central and its sister companies Chemistry Central and PhysMath Central publish over 200 scientific journals. Most BioMed Central journals are now published only online. BioMed Central describes itself as the first and largest open access science publisher. It is owned by Springer Science+Business Media. The Managing Director was Matthew Cockerill[1][2] until end 2013.[3]

History

BioMed Central was founded in 2000 as part of the Current Science Group (now Science Navigation Group, SNG), a nursery of scientific publishing companies. SNG chairman Vitek Tracz developed the concept for the company after NIH director Harold Varmus's PubMed Central concept for open-access publishing was scaled back.[4] The first director of the company was Jan Velterop. In 2002, the company's business model evolved to include article processing charges, and these have since been the primary source of revenue.

In October 2008, it was announced that BioMed Central (along with Chemistry Central and PhysMath Central) had been acquired by Springer Science+Business Media, the second largest STM publister.[5]

In 2007 Yale University Libraries stopped subsidizing page charges for affiliates of Yale who are using BioMed Central as the publisher of their works.[6]

In November 2008, BioMed Central became an official supporting organisation of Healthcare Information For All, a global initiative committed to a future where people are no longer dying for lack of knowledge.[7]

Journals

BioMed Central owns and produces in-house five flagship journals: Genome Biology, Genome Medicine, Arthritis Research and Therapy, Breast Cancer Research, and Critical Care. It also produces the BMC journal series of 65 journals covering the fields of biology and medicine, and including the leading titles BMC Biology and BMC Medicine. Chemistry Central Journal and the PhysMath series of journals are also produced by the company. Most of the other journals published by BioMed Central are owned and produced independently by societies and academic editorial boards, with BioMed Central providing the hosting, publishing platform and marketing.

All journals are published online; some of the flagship journals have in the past also been available as print subscriptions, but currently Arthritis Research and Therapy is the only journal to offer this. Publications in BioMed Central journals are, immediately upon publication, released under the Creative Commons "Attribution" license which grants permission to reuse publications and produce derivative work. The only exceptions to this are the flagship journals, which reserve rights on review and commentary content; those articles are available to purchase on a subscription or on a pay-per-view basis, becoming freely available (but not fully open access) to all after six months.

BMC journal series

The BMC-series of journals is a collection of 65 online research journals published by BioMed Central.[8] Like all other BioMed Central journals, they have a policy of open access to the research articles they publish. Between them, they cover all major subject areas within biology and medicine. Two of the journals, BMC Biology and BMC Medicine, have a broad scope, and aim to publish particularly significant research. A third journal, BMC Research Notes, publishes research from all areas of biology and medicine without making impact or interest criteria for publication, while BMC Proceedings publishes conference proceedings. The other 61 journals specialise on a particular subject area. Due to their free licensing, images from BMC journals can be reused in other places.

Most BMC series journals have an impact factor. For the 42 journals with official 2011 impact factors, it ranged from 1.00 (BMC Ophthalmology) to 6.04 (BMC Medicine), with a mean of 2.62.[9] Several of the subject-specific BMC journals are among the top quarter of journals in their field with regard to their impact factors, including BMC Genomics, BMC Bioinformatics, BMC Evolutionary Biology, and BMC Molecular Biology.[10]

Databases

The company also has hosted biomedical databases, including Current Controlled Trials, a database of clinical trials.[11] The Biology Image Library and the Cases Database, a database of medical case reports,[12] were closed in 2014.[13] The company also provides hosting for institutional repositories of publications based on the DSpace platform under the brand Open Repository.[14]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Butler, D. (2000). "BioMed Central boosted by editorial board". Nature 405 (6785): 384–384. doi:10.1038/35013218.
  2. ↑ Hall, D. (1999). "Online research archive will be free to all". Nature 402 (6763): 721–721. doi:10.1038/45366. PMID 10617188.
  3. ↑ "Matt Cockerill to leave BioMed Central/Springer: BioMed Central mission and branding to remain unchanged". 2013-09-17. p. 384. Retrieved 2014-01-03.
  4. ↑ "Interview with Vitek Tracz: Essential for Science". Infotoday.com. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
  5. ↑ Suber, Peter (2008-10-07). "Peter Suber, Open Access News". Earlham.edu. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
  6. ↑ Connor, Elizabeth (2008). "Interview with Harold E. Varmus of PLoS". Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries 5 (2): 149–159. doi:10.1080/15424060802064352.
  7. ↑ "HIFA Supporting Organisations". HIFA2015.
  8. ↑ "The BMC-series journals". BioMed Central. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
  9. ↑ "BMC journals impact factors". Retrieved 2008-09-14.
  10. ↑ "BMC Molecular Biology Impact Factor in the Top 25%". Retrieved 2008-09-14.
  11. ↑ "Current Controlled Trials - Clinical Trial Search. ISRCTN numbering scheme. Database of Clinical Trials". Controlled-trials.com. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
  12. ↑ "Home Page". Cases Database. Retrieved 2014-02-15.
  13. ↑ http://casesdatabase.com/, Notice of Closure, July, 2014, accessed 2015-04-06
  14. ↑ "Home". Open Repository. Retrieved 2012-03-15.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Media from BioMed Central.