BJPsych Open: an Open Access sister journal to theBJPsych
Summary
It is proposed to launch a new journal under the College’s imprint. This would be a fully open access journal, aiming to develop and extend the BJPsych brand. The Publications Management Board believes that there is both a market opportunity and an editorial rationale for such a journal, and recommends that we proceed to launch as quickly as possible. Council is asked to approve this proposal.
Rationale
The BJPsych has an acceptance rate of about 25%. Many of the rejected papers are methodologically sound, but are rejected either without review or after peer review on the grounds that they are insufficiently novel or interesting. Most of these papers are eventually published in other journals. Funders now insist on open access publishing and also timely publishing so authors are choosing online-only, open access journals over paper based journals because once accepted, publication can take place immediately. By establishing our own OA journal that offers an easy path from rejection in the BJPsych to acceptance for BJPsych Open(henceforth BJPO), we can:
- offer authors a route to faster publication than resubmission elsewhere.
- offer authors a more convenient and streamlined process than resubmission elsewhere.
- provide a way of monetising some of the many rejected papers which pass through the BJPsych’s peer review process.
- reduce the overall burden on referees in the system as a whole.
- establish a firmer foothold in the world of OA publishing than the present optional OA system for the BJPsych affords.
- show that the College is responsive to the way the journals market is moving generally.
- encourage submissions to the BJPsych itself by offering a fallback route.
- provide a home for work that is perhaps more developmental and has not made a definitive impact yet, but which is promising.
- Develop a new income stream.
Scope
The journal would have a broader scope than the BJPsych, offering publication for any papers in the mental health field which are methodologically sound and offer some new knowledge. This could include areas that are more interdisciplinary than the BJPsych explores, and more specialist papers that would otherwise be published in very specialist journals related to particular disciplines or societies. KB feels that many papers he rejects without review would make the grade, along with many that are reviewed and rejected. It will not focus on any particular editorial area (unlike e.g. Lancet Psychiatry, whose blurb states it is particularly interested in “innovative treatments, novel methods of service delivery, and new ways of thinking about mental illness promoted by social psychiatry... we will encourage the new wave of biomedical research that is challenging dogma and pointing out possible future directions for classification and treatment.” LP also majors strongly on patients’ rights, patient-led research, and the voices of service users.)
BJPO will be primarily a research journal, but may also include reviews and news items. Papers that might otherwise go to specialist journals can be placed here if methodologically sound.
The areas of possible overlap with the Psychiatric Bulletin(and to a lesser extent Advances) need to be carefully defined. BJPO will not explicitly rule out any type of research within the mental health field. However, it will generally aim to steer papers related to services towards the Bulletin, and will encourage narrative reviews to be submitted to Advances instead.
The BJPsych is moving to a policy of not accepting economic analyses without the main results. Such papers might instead go to BJPO.
Policy research might be another area of interest that doesn’t current fit tidily into the BJPsych.
Brand
The idea is to make use of the BJPsych brand. The journal should not be perceived as “second rate” research. The brand carries weight about high standards of peer review, editorial and production values, and the BJPsych’s policies well developed editorial policies and approach will be carried over to the new journal.
Quality
Scientific standards would be expected to be high, but papers that are not as strong and have some weaknesses, or which are not novel, would be considered. The BJPsych is largely heading in the direction of studies with large cohorts. BJPO could look at pilot studies, exploratory studies, and qualitative research.
Attracting authors
As an author of many BioMed Central papers, KB usually takes up the offer of publication in a lesser journal if it sustains the pace of publication rather than requiring starting again. If reviews from one journal can be used to inform the decision from the new journal, this will be attractive to many authors. The flow from BJPsych to BJPO should provide an easy route to publication which should be attractive to authors. Authors would be invited to select this option on submission, rather than on rejection.
Format
The journal would be online-only, with no print edition. It would be hosted on the HighWire platform, and have a look and feel similar to the BJPsych.
The journal would be research- focussed, but could permit other elements at the discretion of the editor. There would be no slicing of the content according to subspecialty. eLetters would naturally be available.
Some news items might be relevant, but in this area it might be difficult to compete with e.g. Lancet Psychiatry, which is currently advertising for freelance journalists to contribute feature articles.
Unreviewed opinion pieces or hypotheses that would not make it to the BJPsych may be permitted, along with protocols and methodological commentaries for new techniques and concepts in research.
Themed issues would be at the discretion of the editor.
Podcasts, blogs, etc. would be encouraged.
Metrics
In the initial absence of an impact factor, the introduction of altmetrics should be considered. This will have cost implications, and needs further research. However, many open access journals offer metrics for individual papers like downloads, citations, and viewings rather than relying on the journal impact factor. These are attractive metrics for authors.
Volume
About half of the papers currently rejected without review could be considered for publication in BJPO, and about two thirds of those rejected after review. This would amount to approximately 970papers p.a. (80/month) as a potential pool. How many authors would wish to translate a BJPsych submission into a BJPO submission is an unknown variable at present, but this seems to offer enough scope to present a reasonable business model. There would naturally be cold submissions as well – i.e. those that have not come through the BJPsych channel. It is difficult to estimate how many this might amount to, but it could become significant as the journal establishes itself. As an online-only OA journal, there would be no effective upper limit to the volume of papers published. Capacity to handle the editorial processes could and would be scaled up as required, firstly by use of freelancers and secondly by appointing additional staff as a need is established.
Governance
BJPO would require its own editor and editorial board. A very clear brief would need to be agreed with the editor on appointment, with clear terms of reference as to what we expect from them in editorial terms. Within that brief, the editor would have editorial freedom. As with the other journals, the BJPO editor would be expected to take advice from the BJPsych Editor; PMB would be responsible for all business decisions, and the editor would ultimately be answerable to the College’s Trustees.
Competition
The obvious immediate point of reference is Lancet Psychiatry, due for launch this summer. A more detailed analysis of the various competitors, both specifically within psychiatry and in the more general journals such as PLOS and PeerJ, is required. Price pressures introduced by the latter in particular need careful review. We need to be able to position BJPsych Open carefully within the market, and to be very conscious that this market is one of authors, not readers.
Timescale
The most likely and realistic timescale for launch would be January 2015. A more detailed timescale would need to be planned, and this target would be subject to review. The Publications Management Board has recommended that we proceed to launch without delay. The longer we leave it, the more established other OA competitors can become, and the longer Lancet Psychiatry has to establish itself in the field. PMB’s view is that we need to act speedily.
An additional consideration is that we will be launching new designs for the existing journal sites in September. HighWire have suggested that we should set up BJPO as a fourth site at the same time, as this would have significant cost benefits. Their cost structures are structured on a “cost per first journal plus incremental cost per additional journal” basis. If we give them the go-ahead now, the new journal will cost $4000 to set up. If we delay making a decision, or decide to build the site later for any reason, the cost will be $12,000. We have costed it at $4000 here.
The journal needn’t go live until we are ready, but a decision to go ahead with the set-up work would be required in the next few weeks.
Challenges and further research required
There are a number of areas in which further research is desirable. However, this can proceed alongside implementation, and need not hold up a decision to proceed.
Editorial team. Part of the offering needs to be a speedy turnaround. This would require a large team of associate editors working with the peer reviewers. A staff function screening for relevance, formatting, and checking that ethical and other policy requirements etc. are all met might speed up the process and reduce the burden on the associate editor team, making it easier for them to handle the work. This is not currently budgeted; it would probably add a day or two per week of staff time. A decision would not necessarily be required immediately; this might be implemented at some point after launch in response to circumstances. It would be a response to a high throughput of papers, and thus should be easily fundable from income.
Impact factor. We would want to achieve indexing and an IF as quickly as possible. Research into how new journals attract papers before an IF is established is needed.
Altmetrics. A thorough understanding of the usefulness, cost, and likely longevity of various types of altmetrics is required. The cost of a standard Altmetrics implementation such as the example here: been budgeted for.
Availability of OA funds. How many authors have ready access to OA funds? What restrictions are there on use of these funds (e.g. is lack of an IF a bar to use of institutional funds?). The view of the Publications Management Board and the BJPsych Editorial Board is that such funds are generally available and that this should not be a problem, but more research would be advisable.
Volume of LAMI papers. The BJPsych attracts more than its share of LAMI papers. Such papers are usually offered heavy discounts or free publication. If this feeds through into BJPO, the impact on income would need to be factored in carefully.
Competition. A more detailed look at the competition, present and likely future, is required.We need to look at price, scope, services offered to authors, IFs, and volume of papers published.
Licence type. Do we use CC-BY? CC-BY-NC? A mixture? Allow authors to select their own? Research into developing trends is required.
Current fate of BJPsych rejects. It would be very helpful to have a clear idea what currently happens to papers rejected from the BJPsych. A preliminary analysis shows that 75% achieve publication elsewhere; more work is ongoing.
Costings
The costs and possible income are appended to this paper.
Costs
Costs are expressed as set-up costs, annual costs which will be largely unaffected by the volume of submissions and acceptances, and a “per-paper accepted” cost. Assuming a January 2015 launch, the set-up costs are those that will be incurred in 2014 and are therefore not covered in the current College budget. Ongoing costs after January 2015 can be included in next year’s budgeting cycle.
These costs are similar in nature to those incurred by the existing journals, and can be estimated fairly accurately.They are given on the basis of actual costs to the College: items which would appear as overheads in the College accounts which represent actual costs generated by the project (such as new PCs, training costs, etc.) are included; overhead costs which will not be increased by taking on the project (e.g. costs relating to the building generally) are not.
Staff costs are budgeted on the basis that we will need an Editorial Assistant working 3 days per week, starting four months before launch, and a Staff Editor working 3 days per week, starting at launch. (Copy editing and production work will be handled by existing staff in the months before launch, but this is not sustainable in the longer term.)Marketing will be handled by existing staff.
Income
OA publishing is a volume-dependent business. A fair proportion of the cost is in the infrastructure, and additional volume in terms of published papers increases the income linearly but adds to the cost only on a marginal basis (this is why the OA mega journals are attractive as a business proposition). Running it successfully will depend on attracting enough papers.
The income projections attached give potential outcomes based on varying throughput of papers and for different author fee rates. The average or typical OA rate is in the region of £1300; we believe that (since we are selling the proposition on the BJPsych brand, with its quality connotations) we can reasonably charge a little more than that. PMB recommends a rate of £1500. At that rate, the journal would break even publishing 9 papers per monthly issue. At 12 papers per issue, it would generate £46k p.a. The rate need not be determined immediately, and would bear further discussion. For example, we might decide to offer an introductory rate, in order to attract papers.
The costing assume that free publication will be offered to a proportion of accepted papers – this is typically offered to papers from LAMI countries, for example. A figure of 20% has been used in the calculations (i.e. we have assumed that one in five papers will fall into this category). This requires further testing, but if required the number might be capped by editorial fiat.
There is no upper limit to the possible throughput of papers intrinsic in the set-up; any increase would more than amply generate enough income to cover the additional costs, for the reasons noted above.
These costings have not attempted to predict how quickly we could build up to the required throughput. A traditional subscription-based journal would typically take 5 years or so to build up enough subs to go into profit. An OA journal should achieve a stable throughput and reach profitability much more quickly, but there is still likely to be an initial ramp-up phase. As (to start with, at least) most papers will be cascaded through the peer review process from the BJPsych, and as the pool of potential articles currently rejected by BJPsych is quite high, we believe that such a ramp-up phase should be quite short, but this needs to be borne in mind.
Unbudgeted spend in 2014
This proposal requires an unbudgeted spend of £33450 in the 2014 financial year. The following questions apply to such spends:
- Why was this not considered when the budget was built?
(a) This is an initiative from the new Editor, who was appointed just as the budget was finalised. (b) The position on OA mandates, and the Government’s position on them, has continued todevelop, and researchers’ attitudes have been changing rapidly as well. The market opportunity was not as striking last autumn.
- Can we justify the spend? Is there a business case?In evaluating this, one may not necessarily get a financial return to cover the spend. Some of the benefits could be intangible. Sometimes we may wish to fund something for strategic or tactical reasons.
We hope that this paper has made the case clear. Although there may not be a short-term financial return, the long terms projections indicate financial gains as more papers are published per issue.
- What are the implications of not spending this money?
The open access movement is a long-term threat to the financial health of the BJPsych. Launching our own OA journal is a means of clawing back some of this income, and shoring up the appeal of the BJPsych to authors at the same time, thereby strengthening it editorially at a time when this is needed. If we take no action, we will be forced merely to manage its decline.
- Can the spend be delayed to the next financial year? What are the implications?
PMB and the BJPsych Board are agreed that if we are to do this, we should move as quickly as possible. The sooner we can establish the new journal, the better its chances of success.
- Is the spend of sufficient magnitude to adversely impact the College’s financial performance for the year? If yes, consider the implications.The larger the spend, the more important to make a business case.
The unbudgeted spend will increase the College’s budgeted deficit.