Open Access News

Prediction 8: Experimentation will continue in open access, driven by funding shifts, new alliances, and technology innovation à la Google Scholar. Google Scholar is still going strong; Public Library of Science is still adding titles. The shift to open access continues. This year PLoS Biology has been assessed by Thomson ISI to have an impact factor of 13.9, which places it among the most highly cited journals in the life sciences, ahead of several prestigious traditional journals. That’s a solid sign of legitimacy and PLoS’ ability to attract high-caliber editors and authors....Key Trends: Transition from print to online accelerating; open access growing, but with little effect on publishers’ bottom lines; reference content hot in the form of e-books and other electronic products; young students driving new collaborative ways to use information in their studies....[H]igher education trends include open access, new delivery methods, and pressure on textbook pricing....Some of the biggest changes in the market are coming in the academic sphere. Open access is taking root, not just in new forms of scholarly journals but in the many forms of collaboration and knowledge-sharing that are expanding in academia, especially as a new digital-native generation moves in. Alternative publication models such as e-books, electronic reference, and print-on-demand are finding fertile ground here. Pressure on traditional textbook pricing will continue....This segment is heavily weighted toward a few players including giant Reed Elsevier, which continues to innovate, has stellar renewal rates, and publishes must-have content. Library budgets – a big factor in this segment – are loosening up, but pressure on prices of textbooks and journals continues. Open access has yet to make a significant dent in revenues, and next-generation players are small....Open Access: Traction, but Little Effect on Publishers’ Bottom Lines. New models have been adopted by American Institute of Physics, Springer, PLoS, and BioMed Central. HighWire Press and the American Chemical Society both freely post articles six months to a year after publication. Open access is here, even as it continues to be debated by the information professional community....Universities and research funding organizations have tired of paying for research and then paying to buy it back in the form of journals; even business and professional publishing will see new forms of “open” creation and distribution including authoring, editing, peer review, and distribution....Content is collaborative and social; publishing models are moving from one-to-many to many-to-many. Scholarly publishing, particularly in the STM sector, is clearly making this shift; other professional sectors will be next.