APL materials will be a premier, international, rapid-publication, open-access journal in advanced materials research. It will span the whole breadth of functional materials research. Submitted papers will be afforded a high-quality review process with fast turnaround, and will benefit from exceptional visibility and prestige once published. Articles of both an experimental and theoretical nature on materials with a range of functional properties (including but not limited to electronic, optical, electrical, magnetic, biological, ionic, multifunctional and emergent phenomena) are invited. Submissions open on 1 January 2013.

• Free, permanent, online access to your article
• Article level metrics; analytics to measure reader-interest in your article
• Fair, fast, and rigorous peer review
• Worldwide media coverage for your work
• Creative Commons licensing so you retain copyright

SCOAP³, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics, has developed an innovative model to achieve open access to peer-reviewed journals in high-energy physics (HEP).

SCOAP³ will convert high energy physics articles in the leading journals to gold open access. The publishers of these articles and journals are fully acknowledged through peer review and editorial services and the provision of the final published versions. The objective is to convert content in these journals from their current subscription-based model to open access, while preserving all the values provided by quality publishers and publications. SCOAP³ is funded without additional cost to libraries, via the re-direction of their currently funded HEP subscriptions.

ScienceDirect has provided free access to the 2012 Nobel Laureates most-cited ground-breaking research published in Elsevier journals in recognition of these extraordinary scholars and their contributions to science in the fields of Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. All eight Nobel scientists have connections with Elsevier, publishing journal articles and book chapters. Find links to selected free articles here. Check the Nobel Prize website for further information on the 2012 Nobel Laureates.

The Guardian reported this week on a new study in the BMC Medicine on open access (OA) and academic publishing. The primary aim of the study was to "measure the volume of scientific articles published in full immediate OA journal from 2000 to 2011" (Laakso & Bjork 2012). Further to this, the study also measured the share of open access articles which included publications that were made open access by publishers. The study concluded that nearly 17% of scholarly journal articles are already now made openly available on the Web within a year by the publishers (Laakso & Bjork 2012).

For further information on Open Access go to:

• The Guardian - Open Access news on the current debate on open access.
• BMC Medicine - Anatomy of open access publishing: a study of longitudinal development and internal structure
• UQ Library Open Access Week Events

The Denton Declaration: an Open Data Manifesto, is the latest announcement on the growing debate on open data.

The declaration includes:

• Open access to research data is critical for advancing science, scholarship, and society.
• Research data, when repurposed, has an accretive value.
• Publicly funded research should be publicly available for public good.
• Transparency in research is essential to sustain the public trust.
• The validation of research data by the peer community is an essential function of the responsible conduct of research.
• Managing research data is the responsibility of a broad community of stakeholders including researchers, funders, institutions, libraries, archivists, and the public.

To read further, go to Open Access@UNT

eLife, the new open access journal initiative of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society, and the Wellcome Trust, have made their first few articles available. The site will be officially launched in December 2012. The full content will also be made available via PubMed Central (PMC) and its mirror sites, such as UKPMC. The open access journal will cover advances in life sciences and biomedicine. The eLife annoucement is available from: http://www.elifesciences.org/12-1015/

SAGE Open Engineering is a new open access journal covering wide ranging topics on engineering. The new journal's aim is to be inclusive and according to the journal's website "lend itself to papers of both a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary nature but all engineering research will be considered provided authors can demonstrate that their work contributes to the academic narrative in some way."

Those willing to take the risk and submit to this new journal, can do so at an introductory rate of US$495. There is no indication how long this discounted rate will apply.