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The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, Tony Waldrop, has set up a fund to provide support for author fees (page charges) for UNC researchers who publish their work in open-access or open-archive journals. This is one of many efforts taking place across the country and throughout the global research community to promote free and unrestricted access to scientific research. Open-access publishing has received a great deal of attention in recent years as copyright issues and soaring library costs have become increasingly unsustainable. Until the last five years or so, there were few options for researchers to publish their work in well-regarded, peer-reviewed journals without relinquishing their copyrights. This not only creates an enormous financial burden on libraries, teachers and scientists, but also prevents other scientists and the general public from accessing and using the information. In this increasingly digital age, barrier-free access to scientific information (both text and datasets) can have a tremendous impact on the pace of research, and can fundamentally change how research is done. The full potential of open-access publishing, however, can only be realized with full participation by publishers and scientists alike. This notion is what motivated the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI/NIH) to create PubMed Central in February of 2000. PubMed Central is a repository of full-text, peer-reviewed articles from participating life science journals. Since it is not a publisher, it relies on the willingness of independent publishers to deposit copies of articles they have published. Three months after PubMed Central was established, an independent publisher of online open-access biomedical and clinical journals called BioMed Central was created. All of the titles from BioMed Central in addition to several other open-access titles are deposited in PubMed Central immediately upon publication. Although there are over 150 titles now available through PubMed Central, many researchers are skeptical about the long-term success of open-access publishing due to the lack of “high-impact” open-access journals. Recent trends suggest that the tide may be slowly turning in favor of open access. Several high-profile journals have recently adopted an “open-archive” policy in lieu of open access whereby publications are made available to the public, but only after an embargo period (generally 6-12 months after publication). Moreover, a non-profit worldwide coalition of research scientists called the Public Library of Science (PLoS) was founded in October 2000 to promote the open-access model. Though this group has enjoyed wide support from the research community, they decided that the longstanding status quo of scientific publishing would only change by competing directly with the most prestigious and most powerful journals. In October of 2003, PLoS sought to compete head-to-head with high-profile life science journals such as Science, Nature and Cell by launching PLoS Biology with a cadre of experienced editors and an illustrious editorial board. Since then, PLoS has also launched PLoS Medicine and plans to add three new titles in the near future: PLoS Computational Biology (June 2005), PLoS Genetics (July 2005) and PLoS Pathogens (September 2005). Although PLoS has achieved a groundswell of support and critical acclaim from the scientific community, it remains to be seen whether publishers and funding agencies will follow suit and embrace the open-access model. The NIH recently issued an official policy (released Feb 3, 2005) on public access to publications resulting from NIH-funded research, after a year of contentious public debate. Although the policy has been criticized for being merely “suggested guidelines” with no requirements or compliance system in place, it marks a significant milestone for the open-access movement. Below is a selected list of open-access and open-archive journals that may be of interest to CCGS faculty and are eligible for funding via the UNC Open Access Fund: American Journal of Human Genetics Additional
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