A previous post on this blog showed how the proportion of open access content in UKPMC was increasing. By open access, we mean “free to read AND free to reuse”, at least for non-commercial purposes, although all the content on UKPMC is free to read. At that time the trend reported showed that the proportion of open access content had grown to 33% in 2009.

Last month, the wettest April in the UK since records began, there was also a deluge of articles in the popular press about open access.  This is a round-up of some of the articles (and perhaps notable by their absence are any articles that are behind a paywall!).   Harvard backs open access in face of ‘prohibitive’ journal costs Times Higher Education 28 April 2012

The graphic above shows articles available in UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) – read-only articles: green; Open Access articles: blue – compared to the number of abstracts in PubMed.

SpringerPlus, the new Open Access journal from Springer (and based on the PLoS One model) is now accepting manuscripts from all disciplines of science.   The journal will accept manuscripts describing original research as well as case descriptions and methods.  The submission of data reports and large datasets is actively encouraged.

Yesterday the UK OAIG released research reporting on the benefits of open access to commercial companies and findings from a JISC Collections consultation on the practicalities of paying for open access publication.

Today is the official launch of the Royal Society’s first wholly open access and online journal – Open Biology. The new journal is publishing research in cell biology, developmental and structural biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, neuroscience, immunology, microbiology and genetics. It is overseen by a team of academic Subject Editors with support by an international Editorial Board.

Dr Mark Patterson, director of publishing at the Public Library of Science (PLoS), has been named managing executive editor of a new open-access research journal that the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust are launching next year. Further details are available at the Wellcome Trust web site.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust announced today that they are to support a new, top-tier, open access journal for biomedical and life sciences research. The three organisations aim to establish a new journal that will attract and define the very best research publications from across these fields.

Papers published under the Royal Society of Medicine’s open access option (RSM Open) are now deposited in PubMed Central and mirrored to UKPMC. The open access option is available to all authors and applies to all RSM journals. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for RSM Open is $3000.  All papers published under this model are licenced using the Creative Commons Attribution, Non-commercial licence.

A new online open access journal from Nature Publishing Group, Scientific Reports, is now live. The journal is a primary research publication covering all areas of the natural sciences. The APC for UK articles has been set at £1,112 (from January 2012). Scientific Reports will apply to be indexed in all relevant databases and repositories, and all content will be archived in PubMed Central.