Like elite colleges, top scientific journals often advertise their rejection rates — to show how exclusive they are. But the open-access publisher Public Library of Science is now moving in the opposite direction. PLoS is starting a multidisciplinary journal in August that will publish papers no matter how unimportant their results are.
The multidisciplinary online journal, PLoS ONE will concentrate on speedy review and publication of just about anything that editors deem scientifically sound. Online discussions, along with reader ratings, will accompany published papers to give readers a sense of the papers' importance. When editors of other journals receive a manuscript, says Christopher D. Surridge, managing editor of the new journal, they often have to say, "'It should be published, but not in this journal.' That's not something we want PLoS ONE ever to say."...
But PLoS doesn't want to be alone in its efforts. Its online technology is open source, so it can be used by others. "PLoS's mission," says Mr. Surridge, "is to get as much of the literature into an open-access environment as possible," whether PLoS publishes it or not.
The publisher revealed PLoS ONE just two days after Nature announced a three-month experiment allowing users to add online comments to manuscripts under consideration for publication. Perhaps Nature anticipated the online competition? "That was not the impetus," says Linda J. Miller, U.S. executive editor of Nature and the Nature Publishing Group's research journals. Mr. Surridge says both journals were reacting to users' demand for online services. "This really fits in with where the Web is going," says Mr. Surridge.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/19/2006 11:19:00 AM.
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.
