There are many renowned medical informatics journals that accept articles under Open Access arrangements. The trend has been recognized by most journal publishers and many of them are working with a hybrid open access model. Most have a dedicated section for open access articles and some are listed among traditional published articles. However, there are some exceptions.
In order to be accepted for publication in Informatics, an article has to be a peer-reviewed manuscript. Once accepted, the manuscript undergoes a standard peer review process that takes up to 4.9 days. After peer review, the manuscript is published online. It is then available to the public for free.
Open Access is a model in which a journal publishes articles under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This license allows users to copy, modify, and redistribute the work with proper credit given to the original author. It also allows the reuse of the work for commercial purposes.
Medical informatics is a research field which requires a lot of resources. When researchers are conducting their studies, they often need to search through multiple linked websites in order to find the information they need. If they are funded by a research funding agency, their articles have to be published in a journal that is deemed to be a suitable outlet for their work. Many of these agencies will require the articles to be published under an open access arrangement.
Most research organizations expect to see the impact of their funding on the scholarly community. However, there is no guarantee that these articles will be found easily. For this reason, some funding agencies are now adopting a mandate to have all their funded papers made freely available to the public within a set timeframe. Although green open access is sometimes adequate, many funding agencies are now requiring all articles to be fully open access.
To be able to comply with the funding organization’s requirements, authors have to check their regulations. Some funding agencies will require that their publications be submitted through a third-party service such as PubMed Central or Google Scholar. These services are designed to streamline the publication process. Another issue with these systems is that they can take months for results to be available. While publishing through a service like these is a viable option for many researchers, the process can be frustrating.
There are a number of ways that authors can ensure that their work is not subject to any such restrictions. One option is to join a journal’s institutional membership program. By joining an institution, the author gets a free publication facility and the benefits associated with the membership. Additionally, the member is entitled to a discount on the APC fee.
Some journals have also started offering an offsetting discount. This means that an institution can benefit from the articles for free while allowing the publisher to recover the cost of publishing.
Regardless of which option an individual chooses, open access can be a valuable way to protect intellectual property and defend the quality of scholarly material. It can also be used to speed the translation of research to the marketplace, enhance national research capacity, and increase the visibility of developing-country research.
