Background
Since January 2017 (volume 56) the journal “Methods of Information in Medicine” (Methods) consists of two tracks [[1]]. Authors can decide to submit their manuscript to either the subscription track
consisting of six print and electronic (non-open access) issues per year, or the Methods
Open track consisting of electronic publishing as gold open access only. With this
step, Methods aimed to improve the visibility of the journal generally and contribute
to sharing research results as timely and as widely as possible so as to promote scientific
progress.
The submission and review processes for manuscripts in Methods are identical for all
articles irrespectively whether they are submitted to the traditional subscription
track or the Methods Open track. The author’s choice of track is not visible for the
reviewers who evaluate the manuscript.
In case of selecting Methods Open, accepted manuscripts are immediately online accessible
at the journal site after acceptance, copy-editing and typesetting. They are also
immediately deposited in PubMed Central®. The copyright regulations are different,
with significantly more rights to authors and readers of Methods Open papers through
a Creative Commons licence. In particular, Methods Open articles are published under
the Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-ND. This license means that anyone may freely
read, download, distribute and make the article available to the public (in printed
and electronic form), provided that the author and the journal as the source are acknowledged
(BY = attribution), whereas no commercial use is allowed (NC = non commercial) and
the work may not be altered, transformed or serve as the basis for a derivative work
(ND = no derivative). For manuscripts, appearing under this license in the Methods
Open track, authors have to pay an “Article Publication Charge” (APC) of currently
1650 €, which is in the lower region of APCs in the field of medical informatics [[2]].
Hybrid open access papers have disappeared from Methods in 2017, as open access publications
now appear in Methods Open and regular papers will only be published in the printed
issues of the journal. Thus “double-dipping” is avoided.
Expectations
When starting the Methods Open track, the aim was to provide a goal-oriented, stepwise,
sustainable and fair approach for transforming a subscription-based into an open access
journal [[3]] that should
-
increase visibility and accessibility of the articles,
-
maintain or improve the quality of the review and publishing processes,
-
maintain or improve the journal’s reputation,
-
limit financial risks for the publisher,
-
guarantee long-term availability of publications, and
-
provide appropriate copyright regulations and fair financing models.
How did Methods Open develop during its first year?
How did Methods Open develop during its first year?
Methods Open was well received by the journal’s authors. On average 22 % of all submissions
are sent to the Methods Open track. Submissions to the Methods Open track do not seem
to depend on the author’s country of origin. Whereas the first Methods Open submissions
came predominantly from the United States and Germany, subsequently authors from different
European, Asian-Pacific, South American and African countries submitted their manuscripts
to the Methods Open track.
Acceptance rates of the submissions to both tracks ressemble the submission ratio,
with 23.3 % of this year’s publications appearing in Methods Open. ►[Table 1] shows the numbers of printed articles for each print issue during 2017 compared
to the numbers of articles published in the Methods Open track during the same time
period.
Tab. 1
Number of printed articles vs. Methods Open articles
|
Print issue# printed articles
|
Open Access Part # Methods Open articles
|
|
Issue 1/2017 (January)
|
9
|
4
|
|
Issue 2/2017 (March)
|
12
|
2
|
|
Issue 3/2017 (May)
|
9
|
2
|
|
Issue 4/2017 (August)
|
9
|
2
|
|
Issue 5/2017 (October)
|
8
|
3
|
|
Issue 6//2017 (December)
|
9
|
4
|
|
Total # of articles
|
73
|
|
Percentages
|
56 (76.7 %)
|
17 (23.3 %)
|
The possible transformation of Methods from a subscription-based into an open access
journal will be carefully followed and analysed by the Trans-O-MIM research project
[[3]]. To provide transparency, Methods will continue to consist of six issues per year.
However, we plan to reduce the number of print issues as of January 2018 from six
to four print issues and to bundle Methods Open manuscripts into two open access issues.
Focus Themes
Methods regularly issues open calls for Focus Themes that address topics in the intersection
of biomedical informatics, biostatistics and epidemiology. Authors who submit their
manuscripts to one of the Methods Focus Themes have of course also the option to submit
to either track which results in parts of the Focus Theme publications being included
in the printed issue and parts only published online but openly accessible. The Focus
Theme published in this issue of Methods presents a good example. It consists of nine
publications whereof three are published in Methods Open. The Focus Theme on the topic
of “Single subject (n-of-1) Research Design, Data Processing and Personal Science”
exemplifies the intersection of the journal’s main topics (i.e. biomedical informatics,
biostatistics and epidemiology) in an excellent way and also introduces “Personal
Science Reports” as a new publication format that might gain increased interest in
the light of precision medicine.
Changes in the Core Editorial Team
Changes in the Core Editorial Team
After having served for Methods as an Associate Editor for six years, Neil Sarkar was appointed Editor-in-Chief of JAMIA Open, the new Open Access journal and official
publication of AMIA, the American Medical Informatics Association. We congratulate
Neil to his new position, we congratulate AMIA for having recruited an excellent candidate
and we look forward to collaborate between journals in future.
In the Methods Core Editorial Team we welcome Fernando Martin-Sanchez as new Associate Editor. Fernando is Research Professor at the National Institute
of Health ´Carlos III´ in Madrid, Spain and has been a member of the Methods Editorial
Board since 2003. He also served as one of the guest editors for the Focus Theme that
is published in this issue. We are very happy to have recruited an excellent colleague
with long experience in biomedical informatics research.
