IEEE Now Provides Open-Access Option for All Peer-Reviewed Journals

IEEE, the world's largest technical professional organization, today announced that all IEEE-owned peer-reviewed journals now offer open-access (OA) publishing options, the latest sign of OA's growth as it continues to transform the scholarly research publishing industry.

Open access allows all technologists and the general public to access research articles online for free, as opposed to the traditional scholarly publishing model that requires paid subscriptions. By removing these access barriers, OA publishing can help gain more exposure for new concepts that can advance research and scientific applications. Additionally, studies have shown that OA publishing may increase article citations.

As of June 2012, there were more than 7,600 OA journals published in 117 countries, according to a report from the UK-based Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings. IEEE joins the open-access ranks in a big way by adding to the total figure more than 100 journals capable of accepting open-access content. Each of IEEE's journals is written by technologists for technologists, and many of those journals are considered among the most prestigious in their respective fields. For example, IEEE publishes 17 of the top 20 most cited journals in electrical and electronic engineering, according to a 2011 report from ISI Journal Citation Reports.

"More authors, organizations, and institutions want open-access options, but many authors still find it critically important to publish in peer-reviewed journals that offer prestige through proven track records," said Robert E. Hebner, the Vice President for Technical Activities for IEEE and Director of the Center for Electromechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. "IEEE's journals are some of the technology industry's most prestigious, and offering open access through these journals gives authors very flexible, visible, and credible options for publishing their research and reaching established technical communities."

Under its "hybrid" journal model, IEEE's existing, subscription-based journals give authors the choice to publish either via the traditional model or pay an article-processing charge to publish open access. This approach allows authors to take advantage of the many IEEE journals that carry established Impact Factors, a measure of average citations per recent article in a journal. The large number of journals also provides wide topic options, which means authors should be able to find the right publications for their articles.

In addition to these hybrid journals, IEEE also offers four fully open-access topical journals: IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society, IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing, IEEE Photonics Journal, and IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine. IEEE also publishes a newly launched, fully open access mega-journal entitled IEEE Access, which publishes articles that are at the boundaries of traditional engineering fields or that cross multiple disciplines of engineering and thus don't easily fit into more targeted journals.

All of IEEE's open-access articles are available through its Xplore Digital Library database of articles.