BioMed Central: The Open Access Publisher

CSU affiliates will now receive a 15% discount on the article processing charge for articles submitted to any BioMed Central, Chemistry Central, PhysMath Central or Springer Open journal.

 The CSU Libraries has purchased supporting membership to BioMed Central, a publisher of 212 peer-reviewed open access science and medical journals.  Articles published in BioMed Central journals are immediately and permanently freely available online.  

What kinds of journals are published by BioMed Central?
BioMed Central publishes 212 peer reviewed science, technology, and medical journals.  Disciplines covered include all branches of medicine and nursing, ecology, physiology, biochemistry, biology, genomics, ecology, and more.  Click here for a complete list of journals by subject.

What are the benefits of publishing articles in BioMed Central journals?

There are many reasons to publish in BioMedCentral journals, including:

• Research is instantly available to an international audience.
• Papers are automatically deposited in PubMed, fulfilling the NIH Public Access requirement
• YOU retain the copyright to your article via a Creative Commons License, and you may freely redistribute and link to the article as long as proper attribution is given.
• Publishing in an open-access journal is oa proactive way to help combat the high costs of journal subscriptions.

What are article processing charges?
In order to provide free access to articles online, BioMed Central assess an article processing charge that is applied to all articles that have been accepted for publication.  The charges vary by journal, but the standard article processing charge is $1,650.  This means that CSU’s BioMed Central supporting membership will save CSU affiliated authors almost $250 per published article!  See BioMed Central’s FAQ about article processing charges for complete details.

Who pays the article processing charge?
The article processing charge is paid for by the person who submits the article.  Many funding agencies, including some federal agencies, allow their grants to cover the article processing charge.

How do CSU authors take advantage of the BioMed Central discount on the article processing charge?
For people who are submitting articles from an on-campus computer, BioMed Central system will automatically display a message alerting them to the 15% discount provided by CSU’s membership.

If an article is submitted from an off-campus IP address, BioMed Central will use the author’s affiliation and email address to determine whether the discount applies. Off campus users who are logged into https://secure.colostate.edu/ will be recognized as having a CSU IP address, so the discount will automatically be applied.

Can CSU’s BioMed Central discount be used in cases where a CSU affiliate is an author, but the article submitter is from another institution?
No. The discount is calculated according to the affiliation of the submitting author only.  In order to get the discount, the article submitter must be from CSU.

Have any Colorado State University faculty already published in BioMed Central journals?
Absolutely!  Click here to see a list of some of articles by CSU affiliates that have been publishedi n BioMed Central journals. 

Are BioMed Central  journals peer reviewed?  Do they have impact factors?
All BioMed Central journals are peer –reviewed, and according to BioMed Central many of the articles go through the peer review process in two months or less. 

In order to be assigned an Impact Factor, journals have to be tracked by by ISI, the company that produces Web of Science. The BioMed Central FAQ has detailed information about Impact Factors for BioMed Central journals.  CSU affiliates can use Journal Citation Reports to see how BioMed Central Impact factors compare to the Impact Factors of other publications.

Where are BioMed Central journals indexed?
All BioMed Central Journals are automatically indexed in PubMed and SciFinder.  Many titles are also indexed in Web of Science and other scientific databases.