Until now, online scientific journals have been little more than electronic versions of the printed copy. Today, that all changes with the launch of PLoS ONE, which publishes primary research from all areas of science and employs both pre- and post-publication peer review to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.
PLoS has taken a close look at the way scientific and medical publishing works now, and has asked how the Internet can be used to make it work better. As a result, virtually everything about PLoS ONE is new: the peer-review strategy, the production workflow, the author experience, the user interface, and the software that provides the publishing platform.
Harold Varmus, Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of PLoS and President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, remarks, "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." ...
Although PLoS ONE opened its doors to manuscript submissions only in August, it already receives in excess of 100 submissions each month and launches with the publication of 100 peer-reviewed research articles. The volume of articles is unprecedented for a journal launch, and is an indication of the strong support within the research community for the PLoS ONE approach....
In almost all other journals, publication of a research paper is a full stop. The next significant step forward will be the publication of another paper following on from the previous work. But in PLoS ONE, as soon as an article is published, a conversation between authors and readers can begin. There might be a question about a method that is described in the article, a link to another useful work or resource that can be added, or an alternative interpretation that can be offered for some of the results. In each case, readers and authors can respond to the addition, and everyone else can benefit from the resulting dialogue. The possibilities are without limit, and the applications of this technology will no doubt hold some surprises.
The beta versionof PLoS ONE that is launched today is a work-in-progress. It is presented in beta because PLoS wishes the community to help shape PLoS ONE, and the underlying publishing platform, into its most valuable form. The software is open source, and will form the first part of an innovative and flexible publishing system that will be developed over the next two years and will be available to all groups for storing, disseminating, and sharing literature and data....
PS: Congratulations to PLoS and bon voyage.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/21/2006 09:23:00 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.
