BioMed Central

Not to be confused with PubMed Central.

BioMed Central

Parent company	Springer Nature
Status	Active
Founded	2000 (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 Nature.

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. 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.

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

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.

Journals

Main category: BioMed Central academic journals

BioMed Central owns and produces in-house five flagship journals: Genome Biology, Genome Medicine, Arthritis Research & Therapy, Breast Cancer Research, and Critical Care. It also produces the BMC journal series of 65 journals covering the fields of biology and 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 & 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 (as of 2010) were the flagship journals, which reserved rights on review and commentary content; those articles were 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; however, as of January 2015, "no subscription fees apply to these journals or to any articles published in them."

BMC journal series

The BMC-series of journals is a collection of 65 online research journals published by BioMed Central. 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.

Biology

• BMC Biochemistry
• BMC Bioinformatics
• BMC Biology
• BMC Biophysics
• BMC Biotechnology
• BMC Cell Biology
• BMC Developmental Biology
• BMC Ecology
• BMC Evolutionary Biology
• BMC Genetics
• BMC Genomics
• BMC Immunology
• BMC Microbiology
• BMC Molecular Biology
• BMC Neuroscience
• BMC Physiology
• BMC Plant Biology
• BMC Structural Biology
• BMC Systems Biology
• BMC Veterinary Research

Medicine

• BMC Anesthesiology
• BMC Cancer
• BMC Cardiovascular Disorders
• BMC Clinical Pathology
• BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• BMC Dermatology
• BMC Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders
• BMC Emergency Medicine
• BMC Endocrine Disorders
• BMC Family Practice
• BMC Gastroenterology
• BMC Geriatrics
• BMC Health Services Research
• BMC Hematology
• BMC Infectious Diseases
• BMC International Health and Human Rights
• BMC Medical Education
• BMC Medical Ethics
• BMC Medical Genetics
• BMC Medical Genomics
• BMC Medical Imaging
• BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making

• BMC Medical Physics
• BMC Medical Research Methodology
• BMC Medicine
• BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders
• BMC Nephrology
• BMC Neurology
• BMC Nursing
• BMC Nutrition
• BMC Obesity
• BMC Ophthalmology
• BMC Oral Health
• BMC Palliative Care
• BMC Pediatrics
• BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology
• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
• BMC Psychiatry
• BMC Psychology
• BMC Public Health
• BMC Pulmonary Medicine
• BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation
• BMC Surgery
• BMC Urology
• BMC Women's Health

Most BMC series journals have an impact factor. For the 53 journals with impact factors, it ranged from 1.02 (BMC Ophthalmology) to 7.98 (BMC Biology).

Databases

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

See also

• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, of which BioMed Central is a founding member
• Trials (journal)

Further reading

• Chillingworth, Mark (9 August 2004). "BioMed Central Seeks Open Access Advice." Information World Review.
• Accessed July 17, 2005.
• Galbraith, Kate (July 11, 2003). "British Researchers Get to Publish in 90 Online Medical Journals Free". The Chronicle of Higher Education 49 (44): A28.
• Gavaghan, Helen (June 30, 2003). "Open-Access Publishing Finds Official Favor". The Scientist. Accessed July 17, 2005.
• Loxton, Liz (May 1, 2003). "NHS Information Project Launched." Information World Review.

• MacLeod, Donald (June 17, 2003). "Publish and Be Free". The Guardian. Verified availability July 17, 2005.
• Peel, John (February 2000). "BioMed Central". D-Lib Magazine 6 (2). Accessed July 17, 2005.
• Quint, Barbara (January 7, 2002). "BioMed Central Begins Charging Authors and Their Institutions for Article Publishing". Information Today 19 (2): 37-39. Accessed July 17, 2005.
• (September 3, 2001). "BioMed Central Launches 12 New Author-Initiated Research E-Journals". Information Today 18 (9): 24-25. Accessed July 17, 2005.
• Shearer, Kathleen (January 2002). "BioMed Central: An Alternative to Scholarly Publishing (CARL/ABRC Backgrounder Series No. 4)". Ottawa: Canadian Association of Research Libraries. Accessed July 17, 2005.
• Suber, Peter (September 6, 2001). "BioMed Central's Method of FOS". Free Online Scholarship Newsletter.
• Watson, Linda A., Ivan S. Login, and Jeffrey M. Burns (2003). "Exploring New Ways to Publish: A Library-Faculty Partnership". Journal of the Medical Library Association 91 (2): 245-247. Accessed July 17, 2005.
• Young, Jeffrey R (January 18, 2002). "Publisher of Free Online Science Journal Charges Authors a "Processing Fee"". The Chronicle of Higher Education 48 (19): A36.

External links

• Official website
• Science Navigation Group
• Open Access News by Peter Suber
• Vitek Tracz, founder of open access publisher BioMed Central, talks to Richard Poynder

• http://casesdatabase.com/, Notice of Closure, July, 2014, accessed 2015-04-06