German Medical Science as Open-Access Publication system

German Medical Science (GMS) was established in 2003 by the Association of German Scientific Medical Societies (AWMF), DIMDI (German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information), and the ZB MED Koln (German National Library of Medicine in Cologne) as an open access portal (i.e. the golden road). Along with an interclisciplinary journal, GMS now publishes 12 specialist journals and a wide number of congress proceedings and reports. The number of monthly visits is growing steadily and currently amounts to over 500,000 per month. At this portal the authors retain their copyright and dissemination rights. Additionally, the articles are provided with a Creative Commons license. All journals are peer-reviewed and the rejection rate is in some cases as high as 70%. Subsequent to the start-up funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Federal Ministry of Health, GMS is now financed by the ZB MED and DIMDI. Its future business plan envisions charging contributions from professional associations and authors as well as congress organizers. This fee collection will be conducted through a non-profit company set up by the AWMF. The leading reasons for the success of GMS are a successful marketing strategy within the professional associations, the high quality of service, the reliability of its technical infrastructure and sound editorial support.