Medical publisher BMJ Group has launched six specialty editions of its online journal, BMJ Open, to coincide with Open Access Week. The editions are meant to showcase BMJ Open's specialist research, and will initially cover dermatology, HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases, neurology, obstetrics & gynaecology and oncology.
BMJ Open, which launched in February 2011, is the group's first online general medical journal dedicated solely to publishing open access research. All its research, supplementary files and peer reviewers' reports are fully and openly available online. Underlying data, where available, is linked to in open repositories, such as Dryad.
To date, BMJ Open has published more than 600 original research papers and protocols, many of which have reportedly attracted considerable attention from academics, healthcare professionals and the media.
High impact studies have included a technique to pick up outbreaks of hospital acquired infections more quickly, from Oxford University; the potential link between sleeping pills and cancer, from California's Scripps Clinic; and research on the wellbeing and quality of life of people with locked-in syndrome in France.
