Created in the wake of a scandal over editorial independence, Open Medicine aims to publish outside the influence of health care's vested interests.
So is Open Medicine a radical departure in terms of medical publishing? It’s all relative. Traditional journals often charge hefty subscription fees that can cost individuals hundreds of dollars (thousands, sometimes, for institutions). Unlike a traditional journal, Open Medicine has no print edition and no subscription fees. However, the CMAJ is similarly available for free on the web, in full, with archived issues going back to its early twentieth century days (the cost for a print subscription ranges from about $35 for students to $325 for an institution). But there are a series of significant differences:
Open Medicine is non-profit, while the CMAJ is a for-profit publication.
Open Medicine is open-source. Both journals can be described as free-access, i.e. available for free. However, open-source means that authors published in Open Medicine retain copyright to their articles, and that readers can legally download, reproduce and distribute articles so long as authors and the source are properly cited. In other journals, such as the CMAJ, authors do not retain copyright and articles may not be reproduced for free (unless they are reproduced for personal, research or educational purposes).
Like traditional journals, Open Medicine is peer-reviewed and edited, but unlike traditional journals, this is done on a volunteer basis.
In both journals, authors declare any competing interests that might be relevant to their articles (in Open Medicine, these are displayed in bold at the top of the page, while in the CMAJ they are displayed at the end of an article).
Open Medicine does not run ads promoting specific medical devices or drugs. This policy dissociates the journal from major pharmaceutical companies and other established interests seen as first and foremost concerned with profit or self-promotion. The idea is that journals can be freer to publish studies and take editorial positions critical of major pharmaceutical players if they don’t depend on their advertising dollars.
Despite these differing governing principles, the content of open-source versus traditional journals is similarly comprised of editorials and research articles covering an array of subjects. Whether or not open-source journals can overcome inherent handicaps - lack of the massive institutional support and long-standing credibiilty enjoyed by established journals - partly depends on whether they can fulfill their mandate of engaging a wider, multifarious audience by grabbing more mainstream attention.
Such attention can come from content into which journalists can easily insert a political hook - for example, a study in Open Medicine's first issue which tackled the perennial issue of private versus public health care in North America. The study made headlines north and south of the border with its contentious conclusion: that the American and Canadian systems performed about equally well, but the Canadian one for much less money, and thus a much better deal.
See also: Medical Publishing Controversy
