Informationsplattform Open Access: Chemistry

Chemistry

In this section we have compiled some information on Open Access (OA) in the field of chemistry. If you have any comments or suggestions on this topic, please do not hesitate to send us an E-mail.

 

General information on Open Access in the field of chemistry

OA is far less accepted and widespread in the field of chemistry than in the neighbouring disciplines of biology and physics. Although there are roughly as many OA chemistry journals as there are physics periodicals (as of August 2008, 81 titles in the Directory of Open Access Journals and 389 titles in the Electronic Journals Library – EZB), the number of chemistry contributions deposited in OA repositories (preprint archives, university servers etc) is only half that deposited by physicists (based on the number of documents which can be accessed via OAI interfaces).

Scientific societies in the field of chemistry differ with regard to their stance on OA and the extent to which they promote the principle. For example, the American Chemical Society (ACS) is not well-disposed towards OA at all. As one of the largest providers of chemistry databases and a leading publisher of chemistry journals, it fights against OA competition such as the database PubChem. (The ACS finances its large staff from profits on sales of its information products.) In 2007, the British Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) introduced an Author Choice Option, whereby authors can provide OA to their articles by paying a publication fee. However, despite this option, the RSC's stance on OA is similarly critical to that of the ACS.

In a discussion paper on Open Access issued in September 2004, the German Chemical Society (GDCh) expressed its support in principle "for the goal of Open Access to ensure enhanced access to scientific and scholarly information". However, the GDCh indicated that its acceptance of OA was conditional upon the assurance of scientific quality. Therefore, it rejected as a matter of principle "the publication of results before they have undergone quality control" and expressed concern and scepticism with regard to quality control in OA journals funded through publication fees. In the GDCh's view, the quality of a contribution alone should determine whether it is accepted for publication. The GDCh also expressed scepticism as to whether an OA publication-fee model could ensure a "balanced and fair distribution of costs between academic users and users in industry", and it criticised the fact that publication fees place authors who are less well-supported financially at a disadvantage, thereby undermining equal opportunity.

Although OA chemistry publishing is not yet widespread, some other interesting and relevant OA/Open Source resources are available to chemists [see Todd, 2007]:

The following Open Source initiatives also deserve mention:

  • The Blue Obelisk group endeavours to ensure the interoperability of chemistry applications by maintaining open standards and specifications in the field of chemo-informatics.
  • UsefulChem and Synaptic Leap are collaborative Open Notebook Science projects in the field of biochemical and pharmacological research which focus on neglected tropical diseases.

References

Discussion paper on Open Access to Scientific Knowledge issued by the German Chemical Society in September 2004.

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Open Access journals

Unless otherwise stated, the following journals do not charge publication fees. The Journal Impact Factors are taken from the online edition of the Journal Citation Reports (copyright 2008).

  • Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP)
    European Geosciences Union; Copernicus, 2001-
    ACP's two-stage peer-review system is worthy of note: If the competent editors consider a manuscript worthy of publication, it is published first as a discussion paper on the website of the scientific discussion forum Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions. Peer comments and the author's replies are visible. In the second stage, the editors make the final decision on whether the (revised) manuscript should be accepted for publication. Impact Factor: 4.865
  • Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry
    Beilstein Institute, 2005-
    Rapid turnaround from submission to publication (generally less than 30 days). Contributors include leading authors such as C.P. Casey (ACS President 2004) and W.R. Roush (Michigan University).     Impact Factor: 0.767
  • Chemistry Central Journal
    BioMed Central’s chemistry publishing platform Chemistry Central, 2007-
    Financed through article processing charges of € 990 per article (as of September 2008) and institutional membership of BioMed Central.
  • Chemistry Education Research and Practice
    Royal Society of Chemistry (previously University of Ioannina), 2000-
  • Journal of Computer Aided Chemistry
    Chemical Society of Japan, 2000-
  • Nucleic Acids Research
    Oxford University Press; PubMed Central, 1974, Open Access since 2005,     Impact Factor: 6.954
  • International Journal of Molecular Sciences
    Molecular Diversity Preservation International, 2000-
    Impact Factor: 0.750
    (Since 2005 Open Choice only, i.e. authors can provide OA to their articles by paying a publication fee.)
  • Arkivoc
    (chemistry and pharmacy)
    Publisher: Arkat 2002-
    Impact Factor 1.253
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Subject-based repositories and databases

Repositories

Databases

  • eMolecules
    An online database of chemical structures which contains some 10 million chemical structures (as of September 2008). It can also be searched via a structure-search feature.
  • PubChem
    PubChem is a database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) which contains several million chemical structures. PubChem is organised as three linked databases:
    • PubChem Substance (substance database)
    • PubChem BioAssay (bioassays of the substances described in PubChem Substance)
    • PubChem Compound (description of chemical compounds)
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Member of open-access.net Scientific Advisory Board from the field of chemistry

 

Prof. Dr. Wolfram Koch - Managing Director of the German Chemical Society (GDCh)

 

Other board members

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