Open access more successful than traditional publishing

EGU's interactive open access journals among the world's highest ranking scientific journals

The open access journals published by the European Geosciences Union have become very succesful in a matter of a few years. Among them are Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), Biogeosciences (BG), Climate of the Past (CP), Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS), Ocean Science (OS), and a rapidly growing number of new journals as detailed below. To the surprise even of the editors who pioneered this new publishing philosophy, it took only a few years for the new journals to move to the ranks of the world's highest impact journals.

Dr Ulrich Pöschl, the editor in chief of ACP and chairman of the EGU publications committee says: "We are very pleased that the results of the Science Citation Index confirm the high standards and success of our journals. For example, ACP started in 2001 and from 2005 onwards has had one of the highest ISI impact factors (average number of citations per paper and year) of several hundred journals across the fields of “Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences”, “Geosciences”, and “Environmental Sciences”. We had expected the journal to break even financially in 2010, but we reached the break-even point already in 2008."

The traditional peer review system has several shortcomings, which are resolved in interactive open access publishing. Among these are the poor transparency of the review process, which makes it vulnerable to scientific fraud, and the large proportion of carelessly prepared scientific papers that dilute rather than enhance scientific knowledge.

The system that the EGU adopted for its journals uses clever publishing software, allowing editors to send manuscripts to reviewers and discussion forums with the push of a button and preparing them for final online publication fully automatically. This makes this system very cost effective. But the main advantages for the readers as well as for the authors are the transparency of the reviewing process, the speed at which new scientific results are published and the completely free access for everyone, scientists and the general public alike.

Articles in EGU's open access journals are published in two stages with public peer review and interactive discussion. In the first stage, manuscripts that pass a rapid pre-screening are immediately published as “discussion papers” on the journal’s website. They are then subject to interactive public discussion for a period of eight weeks. During this time, the comments of designated referees, additional comments by other interested members of the scientific community, and the authors’ replies are published alongside the discussion paper. While referees can choose to sign their comments or remain anonymous, comments by other scientists must be signed. In the second stage, manuscript revision and peer review are completed in the same way as in traditional journals. If accepted, final papers are published in the main journal. Every discussion paper and interactive comment remains permanently archived and individually citable. This provides a lasting record of review and secures the authors’ publication precedence.

The interactive two-stage publication process resolves an apparent dilemma between rapid communication and quality control. It promotes open scientific discussion with great advantages for the scientists involved and other interested parties. Firstly, the Discussion Papers allow authors to speak freely and publish their results almost instantly. Secondly, the users of the Discussion Forums have immediate access to new data and developments. Quite often, the publication and documentation of controversies and background information is as interesting as the paper itself. Thirdly, the completely public and transparent review process is a stimulus for referees to produce high-quality comments thus fostering a high quality of the final publications. Finally, authors will think twice before submitting papers that are not ready for publication since they can expect to be publicly critcised. This leads to low rejection rates and helps saving referee capacities, which are the most limited resource in scientific publishing.

While traditional journals from commercial publishing houses often charge extremely high subscription rates, EGU's open access journals are completely free to read. This gives scientists from anywhere in the world, including developing countries, in fact anyone interested in science including policy makers, access to scientific information that may benefit society. Because the journal production is very cost effective, the process is financed by relatively modest paper charges payed by the authors or their institutions.

Today, the EGU publishes nine interactive open access journals, and more are in the pipeline:

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, Biogeosciences, Climate of the Past, e-Earth, Geoscientific Model Development, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Ocean Science, The Cryosphere.

Information for editors

EGU Mission Statement for Publications and list of publications:

http://www.egu.eu/publications/statement.html

See "Most commented papers" in the ACPD online library:

www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/most_commented_papers.html

European Geosciences Union (EGU) www.egu.eu  

Contact:

Dr Ulrich Pöschl, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, D-55128 Mainz, Germany, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it