Re: BioMed Central and new publishing models

From: John Peel <john_at_BIOMEDCENTRAL.COM>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 16:42:38 -0000

Some interesting questions. I hope I can answer them satisfactorily.

Part of Reed Elsevier? No. Current Science is an independent, privately-
owned company. The confusion may have arisen because the group sold some of
its
journals to Reed a couple of years ago. Many of us are former Reed
employees. Read into that what you will.

How will we cover our costs? Honestly, we're not entirely sure yet. Our
goal is to charge for additional services that we might offer in the future
such as review articles, reprints, paper collections etc. We may have
advertising but that has yet to be decided. Many of us have worked on
online initiatives before (BioMedNet, MD Consult) and experience would
suggest that having a business plan at this stage is just a waste of time.
Right now, we're just figuring out how to deliver the service and we'll
worry about the revenue later.

Part of NIH? No, but we will be working very closely with colleagues at
PubMed Central. We see ourselves as complementary rather than competing.

Who will do peer review and to what standards? The same people that do it
now to the standards they use now. We will be setting up teams of referees
under the editorial guidance of an editorial board and work in exactly the
same way, using the same people, as traditional journals. We'll just do it
quicker and more efficiently by using electronic tools.

If this sounds like something you'd be interested in we are currently
recruiting beta-testers. This would be the best way to have input into what
we're trying to do. You can sign up at www.biomedcentral.com.

Thanks
Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT