ASM OA journal mBio challenges OA microbiology champion, PLoS Pathogens
The American Society for Microbiology(ASM) is one of the most distinguished and successful biomedical science publishers. ASM is already a full participant in PubMed Central for all of its non-open journals, offering free access at six months after publication, in effect already complying with the six month intent of the FRPAA legislative proposal. Now an open access journal has been added to the ASM journal publication lineup:
As ASM’s first broad-scope, online-only, open access journal, mBio™ will offer rapid review and publication of the best research in microbiology and allied fields. The new journal will continue ASM’s non-profit publishing mission and will be edited by scientists involved in active research. mBio™ will be published in association with the American Academy of Microbiology, from which editors and reviewers will be recruited. AAM Fellows also will be entitled to submit one paper per calendar year via a special, accelerated submission path. Authors will retain copyright and grant ASM a nonexclusive license to publish their work if it is accepted. Upon publication, the work becomes available to the public to copy, distribute, or display under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. For more details and conditions, see the instructions for authors page for the new journal.
Thomas Shenk, ASM’s Publications Board Chairman and a Princeton Professor, is interviewed about this open access venture in an mBio™ podcast available from their blog.
No doubt the impact factor success of PLoS Pathogens in the Microbiology category of Journal Citation Reports and its similar broad approach to microbiology was useful ammunition in getting ASM and the Academy behind mBio™.
PLoS will be at the 100th meeting of ASM later this month. Competition is never a bad thing…right?
