Springer Renews Its Commitment to Open Access

"Springer Science+Business Media announced that the influence of its open access (OA) journals has increased over the past year. In Thomson Reuters’ new edition of Journal Citation Reports for 2012, which calculates a journal’s impact factor in the industry based on its articles’ cited references, 46 Springer journals received an impact factor for the first time, meaning that their citation data improved over the year. Springer now has 1,539 journals with impact factors from Thomson Reuters, out of its full publishing program of 2,200 titles last year. Springer received more good news from the report: 86% of its journal titles have increased citations, and 55% increased their impact factor numbers. Springer now has 163 OA journals with an impact factor, which is 41% of its entire OA output. 'Not only did our overall numbers grow, but nearly one half of those with new impact factors were open access. This reaffirms the importance of peer-reviewed publications supported by different models,' says Peter Hendriks, president of scientific, technical, and medical publishing at Springer."