Open Access and SETAC Journals

“Most of you are familiar with the term ‘open access,’ which means that a journal article is freely available online to the non-subscriber public. As a SETAC [The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry] member subscriber, you already enjoy open access to ET&C [Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry] and IEAM [Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management], as do our institutional subscribers and the beneficiaries of our publisher Wiley-Blackwell’s philanthropies in the developing world.  But ‘freely available’ does not come free, and the costs of managing submissions and peer review, editing, typesetting, hosting online, and maintaining archives are recovered in varying ways by varying business models. Many journals that are entirely open access, such as those published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS), rely on ‘publication fees’ that are paid by authors directly, by funding bodies, or by sponsoring institutions. Most journals, however, like ET&C and IEAM, operate under hybrid models, in which open access is an option, with the majority of published work being supported by subscriptions, advertising, or other revenue.  SETAC and Wiley-Blackwell are constantly working together to address the changing market for scientific journals, in which library budgets are stressed and in which there is increasing demand for open access, including government mandates around the world. The European Commission, for example, is backing open access to publicly funded research with the €80 billion Horizon 2020 program. In the United Kingdom, the UK Research Councils are supporting open access for all published scientific research by 2014. These are just a few examples of funding possibilities for publishing your future research.  So if you’re considering submitting your paper to a SETAC journal, first explore the funding opportunities available to you, and then take time to consider the OnlineOpen option to make your published paper open access.  Once you choose OnlineOpen, Wiley-Blackwell will automatically deposit your published paper in both PubMed Central US and PubMed Central UK. Other funding agency policies and deposit procedures are included in OnlineOpen as well: Austrian Science Fund, Telethon Italy, US National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Wellcome Trust.  SETAC and Wiley-Blackwell offer flexible and responsive approaches to publishing, and we welcome your comments and questions about open access. If open access is important to you, we hope you will take full advantage of OnlineOpen. If you're interested in more information on open access, you might find this article of interest: http://the-scientist.com/2012/08/01/whither-science-publishing/  Stay tuned for forthcoming Globe articles on other items of interest to ET&C and IEAM authors: self-archiving, copyright agreements and author rights, member-in-good-standing status, and author services such as linking, tracking, and sharing your article with colleagues. And in the meantime, check out the open access volumes from 2010 in ET&C and IEAM.”