...[T]he classical peer reviewed journal is not likely to be replaced anytime soon. However, that does not mean that a parallel internet based universe of information sharing (the market) cannot flourish. Over the past few years, Nature Publishing Group has set up a number of open access platforms for non-journal based information exchange. Databases such as the Molecule Pages and gateways (for example, [Signaling Gateway] and [Cell Migration]) aid human and bioinformatic navigation of published information. Blogs — be it subject centred ones such as Free Association, Action Potential and The Niche, our methods blog Methagora or newsblogs — aim to foster informal discussion, although involved online debates remain all too rare. Finally, our reference manager, Connotea, was described in our September 2005 editorial....
PLoS recently launched an innovative journal called PLoS ONE....
As this journal goes to press, the next step in web-based scientific exchange has set a number of science blogs abuzz: Nature Publishing Group is about to launch Nature Precedings, a platform that aims to facilitate sharing and discussing prepublication data....It is noteworthy that, similarly to PLoS one, the content carries a 'Creative Commons Attribution' licence, which requires only proper citation....
In essence, biologists will get a taste of what has been an integral part of the physical sciences community for decades in the form of preprint servers such as arXiv with its over 100,000 articles. The jury is out on how this service will be used....However, there is good cause to be optimistic, as even traditionally secretive research areas, such as pharma-research, are occasionally opening up with laudable open-access projects such as Synaptic Leap — a site that facilitates sharing data on neglected tropical diseases. We are keen to hear your views, perhaps via one of our blogs?
We hope that these parallel universes of information distribution will flourish side-by-side to aid navigation of the formidable knowledgebase accumulating in the biosciences....
Comment. Also see my own list of Nature’s OA and near-OA projects, which is (interestingly) longer than the one in this editorial. There is some controversy about how open some of these projects are. But there is no doubt that some of the projects are full OA and that Nature is genuinely experimenting with different ways to widen access. What’s new and encouraging here is that a Nature journal is editorializing its endorsement of OA, not just its willingness to experiment —even if it’s not an unqualified endorsement of OA but only of OA/TA coexistence.
Update. On July 27 Nature launched an OA supplement on AIDS --too new to appear in the NCB editorial or in my earlier list.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/30/2007 04:19:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
