Open access policy
The Microbiology Society’s policy statement was published in March 2014 and summarises our position on open access.
Gold open access
The Society publishes six key journals in microbiology and virology:
- Microbiology, Journal of General Virology, Journal of Medical Microbiology, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology are subscription journals which offer a gold open access option
- JMM Case Reports and Microbial Genomics are fully open access journals operating under a gold model
The Society provides an immediate open access option known as OpenMicrobiology which allows authors and their funding bodies to make the final published version of their article freely available online upon payment of the article processing charge.
- The Society will make the article freely available for anyone to read online from the time of publication
- The final version can be posted to institutional and subject repositories immediately
- Articles published under the OpenMicrobiology option are deposited automatically in PubMed Central and their mirror sites
- All OpenMicrobiology articles are highlighted on the journal website and in eTOC alerts
Licensing
With the exception of Microbial Genomics, all OpenMicrobiology papers published in the Society’s journals are published under a CC-BY licence. For Microbial Genomics, the default licence is CC-BY-NC, but where the funder requires it the author can select CC-BY.
The Society continues to monitor the debate around the optimal license arrangements for open access articles.
OpenMicrobiology pricing
Information on our article processing charges and discounts are available on the OpenMicrobiology Pricing page.
Choosing OpenMicrobiology
The OpenMicrobiology option should be selected when you submit your article on Editorial Manager.
This will allow you to access our affiliated Rightslink platform to view article processing charge rates, obtain cost estimates and see any discounts that may be available to you.
Selecting the OpenMicrobiology option at this point will also inform the Society about your preference to publish your article with open access status. If your article is accepted, you will receive an email containing a link to the Rightslink platform where you can complete your open access order.
Please note that you will not be required to make any payment or share any financial details before acceptance of your article.
You can also notify the Editorial Office via email at any point prior to acceptance if you wish to choose OpenMicrobiology.
Green open access
Authors publishing in Microbiology, Journal of General Virology, Journal of Medical Microbiology, and International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology who do not choose the OpenMicrobiology option will have their paper made freely available following an embargo period of 12 months.
Depositing articles
Authors have a range of options for depositing their articles in a subject or institutional repository; these are set out in the Society’s Preprint policy and Postprint policy.