Nucleic Acids Research, 2003, Vol. 31, No. 21 6063
© 2003 Oxford University Press
EDITORIAL
Open Access PublicationNucleic Acids Research has a well-established history of innovation in publishing. We have long insisted upon the unhindered sharing of research materials and we were the first journal to require authors to deposit DNA sequences into GenBank. We were one of the first journals to make the full content of all articles freely available at our own website six months after publication and to deposit these articles with PubMed Central. As promotions, both the Database and the Web Server special issues have been freely available online immediately upon publication. We now announce a bold new initiative in Open Access publication.
The principle of Open Access publication has been much heralded recently within the academic community. In this model all published papers are made freely and immediately available online without the barrier of paid subscription to access, and the costs of publication are covered instead by author charges. We wrote recently to all contributors to Database issues enquiring whether they would support the introduction of author charges concomitant with Open Access publication, and a two-thirds majority voted in favour of this. Accordingly, NAR is pleased to announce an Open Access experiment whereby authors submitting papers to the 2004 Database issue will partially offset the costs of publication by making a financial contribution. Full details of the experiment can be found at the NAR website (http://www.nar.oupjournals.org). The charge is scheduled to increase in stages over 4 years such that by the end of this period Database authors will pay the full costs of publication. In return the Database issue will be fully and freely available each year immediately upon publication at the NAR web site and via PubMed Central.
If this experiment proves successful, the rest of NAR will also move gradually to an Open Access model over a transitional period of perhaps 4–5 years. In this way NAR will be one of the first journals to move from a traditional subscription-based, restricted access model to a free Open Access model.
For Open Access to become established, it is essential that the major granting agencies follow the lead of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and provide authors with the necessary funds to support Open Access initiatives. We hope that the funding agencies, our authors and our readers will support Open Access and help us to demonstrate that a traditional subscription-based journal can make this transition successfully. We welcome comments and suggestions by emailing us at openaccess{at}oupjournals.org.
Continuous Publication
Another innovation, starting in January 2004, will be continuous publication. As papers are accepted, they will be prepared for publication, paginated and will appear on the NAR website in their final form without delay, in searchable full-text HTML and PDF format. Thus, unlike some other journals, they will be immediately citable by page number, issue and volume. Issues will be collated on the website and printed every two weeks as at present, ensuring that print subscribers retain their continuity. This new system will enable most papers to appear on the website considerably faster than now, since the journal currently operates a two-week issue cycle.
2004 Web Server Issue
Following the success of the 2003 Web Server issue, we plan another special issue for July 1, 2004. The deadline for submission of papers will be February 15, 2004. Prospective authors should consult the NAR website (http://www.nar.oupjournals.org) and follow the links to ‘Advice to Authors’, then ‘Submitting to the Web Server issue’ for detailed instructions.
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