Scientific Journal Publication with Open Access - the SNE Success

Publication in scientific journals is a must for scientist, and especially for PhD students (preparatory work for PhD thesis) and for master students (publication of master thesis). Publication of scientific journals has been for a long time the domain of big publishers, who finance publication with individual and institutional subscriptions, and who nowadays charge fees for access to electronic publications. On the other side, in the scientific community we hear more and more the call for open access publication, especially for quick electronic publication: access and download to scientific publications without restrictions and without fees. This contribution sketches the structure and the development of the scientific journal SNE – Simulation Notes Europe, a success story for open access publication and for publication independent on commercial publishers. SNE is also the membership journal of EUROSIM, the Federation of European Simulation Societies and Simulation Groups. SNE has set up an interesting business model: Basic financing is coming from membership publication fee of the EUROSIM societies. As benefit, members of EUROSIM societies can download issues and articles in high quality and with extended content, and SNE gives publication space to EUROSIM societies for post-conference publication of contribution of the EUROSIM society’s international conferences, and for SNE Special Issues edited by EUROSIM societies. As furthermore most work is done on honorary, voluntary, and complimentary basis, SNE can offer the basic electronic publication version with open access. For authors, the publication process shows a linear structure: contribution submission, contribution review, contribution acceptance, contribution layout, contribution proof reading, and electronic contribution publication. SNE has set up an efficient publication structure, which makes of open access software tools for layout, and electronic web publication – e.g. LATEX, and (Open) Office for layout, and Typo3 web content management system for electronic web publication at www.sne-journal.org