OSA NEWS

December 7, 2004

SPARC Partners with Society-Published Open Access Journal

Washington , DC – SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) today announced that the Optical Society of America's Optics Express had been selected as a SPARC "Leading Edge" partner. The partnership is intended to call attention to the potential for open access publishing in the society-publishing environment by publicizing the success of journals such as Optics Express. Ranked in the top ten optics journals by ISI, Optics Express was among the first peer-reviewed open-access journals in the marketplace and has played an increasingly important role for OSA since the journal's founding in 1997.

From the beginning, OSA designed Optics Express (www.OpticsExpress.org) to be an “author-centric ” journal. Its online peer-review process and rapid turnaround from submission to publication -- averaging 47 days -- were groundbreaking steps. Free publication of color figures and acceptance of all kinds of multimedia also helped boost the journal's standing among authors. Its early commitment to electronic-only publication was a bold step that kept operating costs down.

The idea for Optics Express was born when OSA convened a planning group to respond to the rapid changes in scholarly publishing. After an examination of new technologies and market needs, OSA elected to make access to articles free and recover costs through a publication fee. This has proven not to be a barrier to submission, and the journal never refuses a worthy article because the author cannot afford the fees. By 2002, Optics Express broke even, with revenue covering staffing, overhead and development costs, and this year, OSA will generate a modest net surplus. Optics Express receives its total revenue from publication charges, which are $450 for articles six pages and under, and $800 for articles over six pages.

“Optics Express has succeeded editorially, technologically, and financially because authors have embraced it,” said John Childs, senior publications director of OSA. “ As publishing technology matured and grew more sophisticated, we saw our investment in the journal, and our experiment with open access, as an investment in knowledge. Ultimately, the journal has achieved a positive financial outcome because we have built a solid scientific reputation which did not exploit either our readership or libraries.”

Childs added that the wide reach provided by open access had meant a wider readership among the optics community worldwide. “The popularity of Optics Express among scientific readers has grown by leaps and bounds, accelerated by open access. This widened exposure to the high quality of OSA's peer-reviewed scientific literature can't help having a positive effect on OSA's traditional ‘signature' journals.”

“The Optical Society of America responded proactively to dynamic changes in scientific publishing,” said Rick Johnson, SPARC Director. “ Before today's debate over scientific publishing models, OSA concluded that what we now call ‘open access' offered an opportunity to advance their mission and organizational interests. They built a leading journal that offers a useful example for many other societies. It shows the opportunity to expand a society's reach, solidify its role, and facilitate effective scientific communication. While there are many flavors of open access publishing, the OSA example is interesting, successful and apparently durable.”

About OSA

The Optical Society of America (OSA) brings together an international network of the industry's preeminent optics and photonics scientists, engineers, educators, technicians and business leaders. Representing more than 15,000 members from approximately 100 different countries, OSA promotes the worldwide generation, application and dissemination of optics and photonics knowledge through its meetings, events and journals. Since its founding in 1916, OSA member benefits, programming, publications, products and services have set the industry's standard of excellence. Additional information on OSA is available on the Society's Web site at www.osa.org.

About SPARC

SPARC and SPARC Europe are initiatives of universities, research libraries, and library organizations that support increased competition in scholarly publishing. SPARC publishing partnerships and educational activities encourage expanded dissemination of research and reduced financial pressure on libraries. Worldwide membership currently includes over 300 institutions and organizations. SPARC is located on the Web at www.arl.org/sparc. SPARC Europe is at www.sparceurope.org.