Open Access Publishing in the Electronic Age

The principle of open-access (OA) publishing is more and more prevalent also on the field of laboratory medicine. Open-access journals (OAJs) are available online to the reader usually without financial, legal, or technical barriers. Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author. OAJs are one of the two general methods for providing OA. The other one is self-archiving in a repository. The electronic journal of the IFCC (eJIFCC) is a platinum OAJ— i.e. there is no charge to read, or to submit to this journal. Traditionally, the author was required to transfer the copyright to the journal publisher. Publishers claimed this was necessary in order to protect author’s rights. However, many authors found this unsatisfactory, and have used their influence to affect a gradual move towards a license to publish instead. Under such a system, the publisher has permission to edit, print, and distribute the article commercially, but the author(s) retain the other rights themselves. An OA mandate is a policy adopted by a research institution, research funder, or government which requires researchers to make their published, peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers OA by self-archiving their peer-reviewed drafts in a repository (“green OA”) or by publishing them in an OAJ (“gold OA”). Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. The free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use creative work. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” OA publishing also raises a number of new ethical problems (e.g. predatory publishers, fake papers). Laboratory scientists are encouraged to publish their scientific results OA (especially in eJIFCC). They should, however, be aware of their rights, institutional mandate, the procedures of publishing and post-printing, and the potential risks of OAP. Recent research shows that OA articles are wider seen, and are just starting to be better cited than equivalent papers published in traditional subscription journals.