Aiding researcher productivity

There have been dramatic improvements in electronic dissemination and availability of STM information in the last decade. Elsevier led the transition to online in STM publishing with our journal platform ScienceDirect. Launched in 1998, ScienceDirect is now available to 11 million users worldwide, 18 million people have access, and as of December 2009 has had over 31 million full-text Mathematics articles downloaded.

This electronic distribution and the development of new online tools has spurred significant increases in researchers' usage and productivity and today' scientists read around 50% more articles per year than 25 years ago, and read from almost twice as many journals. 

Elsevier's high value knowledge discovery tools are purpose built for academia. In the internet age of ubiquitous (free) information, these best-in-class products have enabled the science & engineering communities to be the only fields where knowledge workers spend less time searching for and more time analyzing information – enabling increased researcher productivity.

Science is the only sector where increased time is spent on analysing more information     Elsevier continuously works on innovating its productivity tools - Scopus is now used at 1,000+ institutes and is serving as a building block for futher increasing productivity

Elsevier and our partners in the scientific and health communities have a shared interest in encouraging wide access to authoritative, peer-reviewed scientific, technical and medical (STM) information. Disseminating scholarly information is fundamental to our contribution to advancing scientific and medical knowledge, and enabling its use and application.

Elsevier-published research is disseminated globally to an ever-growing range of users by subscription, as well as through a variety of initiatives, to provide access for nonsubscribers – including patients, the public, and libraries and institutions in the developing world.

Through a variety of initiatives, Elsevier provides access to non-subscribers including patients, the public and the developing world. Some initiatives have been cited as “Open Access” approaches, a widely used term that covers a range of different approaches to electronic publishing, such as article sponsorship, where authors can sponsor non-subscriber access to articles on ScienceDirect, or author archiving, where authors can archive their final manuscripts to their institution’s repository or website. These and other approaches illustrate how Elsevier continually explores and tests new approaches to meet the needs of the research communities we serve. As we test these approaches we look to balance the needs of both authors and researchers and allow for cost recovery and sustained investment in peer review, quality, global dissemination, and preservation.

Forty-three journals published by Elsevier offer authors the option to sponsor non-subscriber access to individual articles. The charge for article sponsorship is $3,000. This charge is necessary to offset publishing costs – from managing article submission and peer review, to typesetting, tagging and indexing of articles, hosting articles on dedicated servers, supporting sales and marketing costs to ensure global dissemination via ScienceDirect, and permanently preserving the published journal article. The fee excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges which are additional.

Authors can only select this option after receiving notification that their article has been accepted for publication. This prevents a potential conflict of interest where a journal would have a financial incentive to accept an article.

Elsevier continues to engage, test and learn.

More information on access and dissemination

Driven by the needs of the research and clinical communities we serve, Elsevier has led in the transition to online in STM publishing and has developed award-winning products that deliver significant improvements in research productivity.

Covering 18,000 titles from 5,000 different publishers
Scopus covers the world' research literature. It was designed and developed with over 300 users and librarians internationally. This breakthrough new product saves time and increases productivity for users, and helps librarians maximize their investments in full-text resources. Its unique database contains abstracts and references from over 18,000 titles from 5,000 different publishers.
www.scopus.com



36 full-text downloads every second during an average working day
ScienceDirect is a journals database which provides access to over 9,6 million articles, more than 2000 Elsevier and third party journals and free linking to non-Elsevier content from hundreds of other STM publishers via CrossRef™.
ScienceDirect offers researchers remote, desktop access, fast search, interlinked articles and eFunctions such as e-mail alerts. For librarians it offers easier collection management, usage data per journal, reduced storage space and staff efficiencies

Continuously focusing on the future ScienceDirect is now looking at developing novel ways to use technology to best meet the information needs of global as well as individual research communities. For example, integration of chemical structures, video clips, and the possibility of including data sets are currently being introduced.
www.sciencedirect.com

Scirus is one of the most comprehensive science-focused search engine available on the Internet and provides free support to all researchers, clinicians, and students worldwide. It offers users a unique combination of free Web information and journal content, clearly branding search results from proprietary sources, assuring users the validity of content. It reaches over 1 million researchers and students worldwide executing 4 million searches per month.
www.scirus.com

Elsevier honours its responsibilities to disseminate and preserve STM literature to meet the information needs of the world' present and future scientists, scholars and clinicians - linking thinkers with ideas.

Journal distribution to scientists and researchers has never been better with Elsevier' journals available in print and electronic formats to 20 million readers in some 200 countries. Worldwide usage of our electronic articles on ScienceDirect has grown six-fold in the last four years and the number of ScienceDirect regular active users has grown tenfold.

Access in developing countries has also increased dramatically, and at little or no cost, through initiatives such as HINARI and AGORA, both UN-based initiatives providing free or low cost access to health, agriculture and related information in developing countries.

In 1999 Elsevier committed itself to not exceeding a single digit percentage price rise for our core journal collection in our invoicing currencies. This has been honoured in every subsequent year when growth in the number of articles delivered has been running at 3-4% each and every year.

Today Elsevier offers moderate price increases for increasing content. For the eigth year this year, our average price increase for our journal collection remains within the lowest quartile of average price increases across all STM publishers and has contributed to a year-on-year decline in the overall average price rises in the industry.

Elsevier works with libraries to develop flexible purchasing options and institutional subscription options and collection prices are designed to offer choice and flexibility to institutes of varying sizes and needs. Substantial collection discounts are offered to institutes to extend access to more titles. Electronic package prices are usually individually negotiated and offer significant discounts over list prices.