The new BMC Evolutionary Biology open access journal just received its first Journal Impact Factor rating. This Impact Factor of 4.45 places it 6th out of 33 journals in the Evolutionary Biology category. Impact Factors are a standardized measure of the frequency that the "average article" in a particular journal has been cited within a year or other specified period of time. The higher the Impact Factor, the greater number of citations the "average article" receives and thus, the more "important" the journal itself is.
BMC Evolutionary Biology is open access and publishes original peer-reviewed research articles from all aspects of molecular and non-molecular evolution for all organisms, as well as phylogenetics and paleontology. In my opinion, this journal in particular is serving the greater public good by providing free access to original research in evolutionary biology, a topic that is very poorly understood by the public.
.
Let's hope we see more of this kind of thing.