People outside of Canada may or may not be aware we had some controversy over whether or not we had adequate editorial independence in our main medical journal. That episode was important to the formation of this new journal. Appended is an announcement of the launch that was circulated among our local research group. I hope it is successful and that it furthers the importance of other open and independent projects :-) ---------
Open Medicine: A New, Independent Canadian Open- Access (OA) Medical Journal Open Medicine is a new scientific medical journal that was launched internationally on April 17, 2007. The founding editors of Open Medicine have created a journal that they hope will represent a new way forward in scientific publishing, one that places the integrity of scientific discourse ahead of commercial interests. In 2006, the Canadian Medical Association fired two distinguished editors of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), John Hoey and Anne Marie Todkill, following a controversy that erupted at that journal over editorial independence. Shortly thereafter, the majority of CMAJ's remaining scientific editors and its editorial board resigned in protest. Those individuals who were affiliated with CMAJ, in addition to many other renowned scientists worldwide, have now founded Open Medicine. This new Canadian medical journal is a not-for-profit corporation and is unique in that it is independent of any medical body or association, commercial publishing interests and pharmaceutical advertising. This independence speaks to the most basic principles of academic freedom. They are committed to providing open access to the entire content of Open Medicine in order to ensure that the work it publishes is publicly and globally available. While they believe that such independence is crucial to upholding the integrity of scientific discourse, it also poses significant financial challenges. The editors of Open Medicine are working with the Public Knowledge Project at UBC and the SFU Library to take advantage of Open Journal Systems (OJS), as this open source software can reduce the costs of operating an online peer-reviewed journal. The SFU Library has also agreed to host Open Medicine on one of its servers. The journal may be freely accessed at http://www.openmedicine.ca. _______________________________________________ Gnumed-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnumed-devel
