Digital open access initiatives in health information: Oman Medical Journal as a model

Open source is one of the modern terminologies in the field of accessing information. They have several objectives; they are important in providing information to the reader and researcher without incurring any financial expenses. They can be beneficial any time anywhere for they are in an electronic form through some websites in various human knowledge fields. There are plenty of international examples of open sources like directory of open access journal. The organizers define this guide: We define open access journals as journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. From the BOAI definition [1] of "open access" we take the right of users to "read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles" as mandatory for a journal to be included in the directory. [1] http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess Researchers found a set of models and initiatives in the field of open access journal like Oman medical journals [2] Oman Medical Journal was founded in 1984. It is a peer-reviewed journal, publishes six issues a year by Oman Medical Specialty Board. Oman Medical Journal is indexed by PubMed Central, Index Copernicus, Google Scholar, EBSCO Academic Search Complete, Index Medicus (WHO), UlrichsWeb Directory, CABI Publishing (Center for Agricultural Bioscience (CAB) Abstracts & Global Health Database), CINAHL, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Genamics JournalSeek, GALE (InfoTrac, Academic One File, & Health Solutions), and Open J-Gate. It is distributed free to all Medical doctors and allied health professionals in various institutions locally and internationally. It intends to engage and inform doctors, researchers and other health professionals by publishing a wide range of peer-reviewed articles in various medical disciplines.[2] http://www.omjournal.org/index.aspx The researchers will discuss in this paper several important topics, including: 1 - Open sources and their role in supporting Omani researchers. 2 - Omani medical Journal: its history, objectives and role in research activity. 3 - Omani Medical Journal: its work mechanism. 4 - The scientific assessment of the Omani Medical Journal.