Matthew Cockerill von BioMed Central hat in einer längeren Email auf die Kritik von Kuan-Teh Jeang, den Editor-in-Chief des independent BMC-Journals Retrovirology, geantwortet. Dieser hatte die Diskussion um den Code of Conduct for Editors mit ausgelöst. Da die Antwort etwas länger ist und außerdem von großem Interesse über den aktuellen Fall hinaus, poste ich ihn hier. Die Email von Kuan-Teh Jeang, auf die MC detailliert eingeht, habe ich gelöscht, da ich seine Einwilligung zur Veröffentlichung nicht habe.
First, I would like to say how grateful BioMed Central is to
Dr Jeang for the great enthusiasm and energy that he has
brought to the development of the journal Retrovirology, and
to the promotion and advocacy of open access in general.
It is certainly not accurate to characterize BioMed Central’s
model as throwing quality to the wind.
BioMed Central’s model does differ from that of PLoS, however.
As of 16th March 2006, PLoS had published 745 research
articles in its 5 journals. In comparison, this month alone,
BioMed Central will publish 600 research articles, and to date
we have published more than 12,000 such articles.
Whereas PLoS’s journals currently address only the very top
of the „pyramid“, effectively leaving all other research to
be published in traditional journals, BioMed Central has
some journals that cater exclusively for top calibre
research, and others that also accept more incremental contributions.
So, while many of BioMed Central’s journals are highly
selective (e.g. Respiratory Research, Retrovirology, Genome
Biology, BMC Biology, BMC Medicine, Journal of Biology to
name a few), others have a policy of publishing all research
that is judged by peer reviewers to be sound science, while
highlighting the most important work.
BioMed Central’s fundamental goal here is to make the
communication of research results between scientists as
efficient as possible. To achieve this, it is not enough to
have a few top-flight open access journals for a small
scientific elite. The whole science publishing model needs to
change, and BioMed Central is working hard to bring this about.