Jan 1, 2007
PLoS ONE
With the new year, a new type of journal. And, yet another product using the word “one”.
Until now, online scientific journals were really just e-versions of the printed copy. Of course, we had advance publication online and ToC alerts etc, but now Public Library of Science will publish a general science journal to rival Science and Nature that covers primary research results from all areas of science. Unique to the new format is the use of both pre- and post-publication peer review, which are set to revolutionize the way the scientific literature evolves.
PLoS co-founder Harold Varmus says, “For those of us who have been engaged with PLoS from its conception, the launch of PLoS ONE is tremendously exciting—this is the moment when we seize the full potential of the Internet to make communication of research findings an interactive and fully accessible process that gives greater value to what we do as scientists.”
It has launched with publication of 100 peer-reviewed research articles peer-reviewed under the guidance of an extensive academic editorial board, and covering molecular science and clinical studies with topics including the evolution of language, the control of rabies, mimicry of jumping spiders, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Every article published is under an open access license, which means everyone is free to read, reuse, and build upon these research papers.
One of the key selling points is the possibility of almost instantaneous publication with virtually zero delay between submission and publication. As soon as a paper is published a dialog between author and reader is opened.
PLoS launched in “beta” in December, 2007 could see big changes in the way the scientific literature evolves.
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Wilf Krutzmann said,
January 2, 2007 at 12:51 am
David: What a great way to bring the marvels of scientific research and the power of the internet together.
Congratulations on and continued success with your very interesting blog.
Happy New Year!
Wilf
johann said,
January 8, 2007 at 4:41 pm
When I heard about Plos ONE, I thought, Yes, that is how scientific publishing should work: I can be quite sure that the papers I see there are technically ok, because they passed peer review, and then there is an open, transparent discussion of the whole community about how important the study actually is, what is missing, which experiments could be done to prove this and that, etc.. (Compare to the procedure in journals like Nature or Science: Anonymous reviewers not only judge the technical quality, but also decide what is important news and what can not appear in the journal, without telling the public what the criteria for this decision are.)
However, I see the problem that most scientific papers today are so highly specialized that the actual community which might be willing to discuss specific issues of the data at hand is depressingly small. I wonder if the critical mass will be reached to start lively discussions.
A second concern: Will enough scientists consider PlosOne as the first choice to submit their work? Discussing science can be fun even for those who are not in the “inner circle” of whatever topic if there are exciting/totally novel/ controversial issues to talk about. However, will such work find its way to PLosOne in the long run or will too many PhD students, postdocs and supervisors be afraid that publishing in a format that does not provide an “impact factor” might harm their careers?
So, in summary, I wish this new way of scientific publishing all the best, but I am a bit sceptical .
David Bradley said,
January 8, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Johann, I’d have to agree, to be honest, it could take a lot longer than a few months to convince working scientists not to publish in the likes of Cell, Science, Nature, PNAS, in preference for the burgeoning numbers of OA journals and their like.
Check out today’s related announcement on a UK version of PubMed Central, which launches today.
Markus said,
January 12, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Dear readers,
first of all, many congratulations to the authors published in the inaugural issue of PloS One, at least in my opinion, there are several highly exciting papers published.
Lots of people are highly frustrated by the current way of peer-review. Its too subjective. So, many people have serious problems to get their work published, even when its sound. Only because reviewers may think that the submitted work might not appropriate for the chosen journal- or because they simply have no time for an in-deep review and therefore do not understand the significance of the submitted work.
PloS One attempts to reduce the subjectivity of this process- and I hope they will be successful. Don’t forget - publishing your work takes tons of time. Of course, dear Johann, when you think, your paper is suitable for Nature or Science, you wouldn’t send it directly to PloS ONE… but, whats with the hundreds of excellent papers published in mid-range journals? For the advancement of particular fields in science, these papers are as important as the papers found in the top-tier journals.