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Author Topic:   PLOS and Open-Access publishing
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 1 of 9 (77927)
01-12-2004 5:31 AM


Happy New Year everybody!
Now that we are firmly entrenched in the 21st century is it time for a new publishing paradigm to take off in science? Is open-access 'the next big thing'? After the arguably poor success, or possibly just very slow getting off the ground, of the biomedcentral site's Journals is PLOS going to be able to make a proper go of it? Has anyone read PLOS Biology and feels it is going to revolutionise things? I certainly like the fact that the Biomedcentral model gets rid of grant money being sucked up just for getting a publication. PLOS only seems to offer discounted publishing rates, although at the top end the discount is 75% which is pretty hefty, which doesn't seem as handy to me.
So what are peoples thoughts and feelings about this 'new' model for scientific publishing?

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by helena, posted 01-12-2004 7:07 AM Wounded King has replied
 Message 4 by Mammuthus, posted 01-12-2004 10:55 AM Wounded King has replied
 Message 6 by mark24, posted 01-12-2004 11:54 AM Wounded King has replied

  
helena 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5844 days)
Posts: 80
Joined: 03-27-2008


Message 2 of 9 (77934)
01-12-2004 7:07 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Wounded King
01-12-2004 5:31 AM


Two major concerns:
(a) Editors etc.: If you don't make any money out of the publication, it will be hard to get good editors which in turn are responsible for finding good referees.
(b) If an article is not printed but only electronically published, you can not take it for granted that the article will be accessible in a couple of years (when the publisher runs out of money, shuts down server etc. - if it was printed you can always get a copy from a library).
regards

This message is a reply to:
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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 3 of 9 (77940)
01-12-2004 8:10 AM
Reply to: Message 2 by helena
01-12-2004 7:07 AM


As far as PLOS is concerned the editorial board seems pretty solid, at least I recognise several big names from my own field. In terms of money, there is still cash coming in from people wanting to publish in the journal, either individual payments to publish or large one off payments by institutions allowing all their staff to publish in the journals for a year (in the case of BMC.
PLOS also produces a print run of its issues which at the moment is pretty cheap compared to most journals, somewhere in the region of $160. One major advantage of the open access model is that you can simply download the PDF version of the article and keep it yourself and freely distribute it - legally, although I appreciate this won't help in finding old references several years hence.

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Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 4 of 9 (77992)
01-12-2004 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Wounded King
01-12-2004 5:31 AM


Hi WK,
I saw the first printed issue of PLOS. As you observed, the editorial board contains a group of bigwigs including a former editor for Nature Genetics. So in terms of personell running the show, it is no slouch. The articles were hard to distinguish in quality etc. from many other biology journals though none were as flashy, catchy, newsworthy as Nature or Science (not that this is a bad thing)..at least they had an article on elephants
Thus far, it does not seem to be so different from your standard journal other than how it finances itself. I think it is way to early to tell if it will have an impact.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by Wounded King, posted 01-12-2004 11:51 AM Mammuthus has replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 5 of 9 (78003)
01-12-2004 11:51 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Mammuthus
01-12-2004 10:55 AM


I think the fact that anyone knows about it already after only 3 issues is a pretty good sign compared to previous efforts. BMC never really seemed to get much publicity, even when a whole lot of universities took up institutional subscriptions a year or two after it had started up. PLOS seems to have made a pretty strong concerted push to advertise themselves, particularly at lab level, I have seen a few of the online PLOS posters with people like James Watson giving endorsements, stuck up around my department.

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 Message 4 by Mammuthus, posted 01-12-2004 10:55 AM Mammuthus has replied

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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 6 of 9 (78004)
01-12-2004 11:54 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Wounded King
01-12-2004 5:31 AM


What is PLOS?
Ta,
Mark

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Wounded King, posted 01-12-2004 5:31 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by Wounded King, posted 01-12-2004 12:00 PM mark24 has replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 7 of 9 (78007)
01-12-2004 12:00 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by mark24
01-12-2004 11:54 AM


PLOS is short for the Public Library Of Science. PLOS is a non-profit organisation starting up science journals using an open access model where the money comes mostly from the labs submitting the papers rather than from the subscribers buying the journals. The papers are published online and access to them is free.

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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 8 of 9 (78026)
01-12-2004 1:38 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Wounded King
01-12-2004 12:00 PM


Ta very much!

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Mammuthus
Member (Idle past 6475 days)
Posts: 3085
From: Munich, Germany
Joined: 08-09-2002


Message 9 of 9 (78158)
01-13-2004 3:25 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Wounded King
01-12-2004 11:51 AM


I also hope this particular experiment works. Harold Varmus has been championing such a system for a long time so it is good to see it take flight. But it will be an uphill struggle at first since impact factors and "newsworthiness" have an unhealthy hold on a lot of science at the moment. But at least it is a good step for the taxpayers who subsidize the research in the first place and then cannot read the results without paying a fortune to publishers like Elsevier.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Wounded King, posted 01-12-2004 11:51 AM Wounded King has not replied

  
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