Committed to making the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource “Re-engineering the scientific journal” Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing

The functions of journals Registration Who’s done what and when? Certification Is the work sound? How important is it? Awareness The right information to the people who need it Archiving Preservation for future generations Roosendaal and Geurts

The life cycle of a research article Submission 2-3 Experts Is it rigorous? Good enough? Right audience? Takes months/years Rejects Peer review Journal name is key Publication

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How can the functions of a journal be re-engineered online? Awareness Open access Discoverability Certification Focusing on scientific rigour before publication Assessing importance/relevance after publication

Awareness Part 1 Open Access

Free access ≠ Open access

What is open access? Free, immediate access Unrestricted reuse Deposition in a digital public archive Bethesda definition, 2003

No permission required for any reuse Coursepacks Translation A word about copyright – this is the license we use. It’s very important that authors do pay attention to this issue – the signing of a more restrictive license limits the uses to which the literature can be put. Deposit in databases Photocopying No permission required for any reuse Downloading data Reproduction of figures Text mining Redistribution

PLoS publishing strategy This summarizes the broad aims that we have for our publishing operation. Establish high quality journals put PLoS and open access on the map Build a more extensive OA publishing operation an open access home for every paper achieve sustainability Make the literature more useful to scientists and the public

PLoS Community Journals June-September, 2005 PLoS Biology October, 2003 PLoS Medicine October, 2004 PLoS Community Journals June-September, 2005 October, 2007 PLoS ONE December, 2006

PLoS Progress Report, June 2009

PLoS Progress Report, June 2009

www.oaspa.org

Awareness Part 2 Discoverability

What is open access? Free, immediate access online Unrestricted use

What is open access? Free, immediate access online Unrestricted use

What is open access? Free, immediate access online Unrestricted use

What is open access? Free, immediate access online Unrestricted use

Text mining

A network of literature Document A network of literature

A network of literature and data Document Database A network of literature and data

Linking Open Data http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData

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Certification Part 1 Focusing on rigour

What makes PLoS ONE different? Editorial criteria Scientifically rigorous Ethical Properly reported Conclusions supported by the data Editors and reviewers do not ask How important is the work? Instead, that question can be answered after the work is published.

What else is different? Inclusive scope A publication for all science and medicine Encouraging discussion and debate At PLoS ONE – community commenting, rating and annotation Elsewhere – Editorial Board discussion forum; EveryONE blog; Twitter; FriendFeed; Facebook etc Streamlined production Publication on every weekday

PLoS ONE – statistics Year Subs Pubs % of annual PubMed 2006 473 138 0.02% 2007 2497 1231 0.16% 2008 4401 2723 0.34% 2009* 6619* 4310* 0.52%* *Targets for 2009 Figures to April 2009 9,195 submissions 5,314 publications 31,700 Published authors 11,021 peer reviewers

Certification Part 2 Adding value after publication

Measuring impact of research output Different levels of granularity for different purposes Research groups / institutions - to know who to fund Individual researchers - to know who to promote Individual articles - to know what to read

How do we measure impact? We judge the worth of a paper on the basis of the impact factor of the journal in which it was published. Recommended reading: Adler, R., Ewing, J. Taylor, P. Citation statistics. A report from the International Mathematical Union. http://www.mathunion.org/publications/report/citationstatistics/

How can impact be measured? Citations Web usage Expert rating Community rating Media/blog coverage Policy development Commenting activity and more…

Impact metrics at PLoS Journals At the article level All PLoS Journals Provide range of metrics not just citations and usage Preference for open data

Current View (March ‘09)

Current View (March ‘09)

CiteULike Landing Page

Current View (March ‘09)

Postgenomic Landing Page

Next steps for article-level metrics More sources for each data type Citations, blog coverage New data sources F1000, Mendeley Web usage data Provide data and tools Adhere to standards Not a PLoS-only initiative

The life cycle of a research article Submission 2-3 Experts Is it rigorous? Good enough? Right audience? Takes months/years Rejects Peer review Journal name is key Publication

The life cycle of a research article Publication Research Submission Peer review Rejects Enhanced Article More info on impact and relevance Based on activity of an entire community Is it rigorous?

The landscape is changing www.flickr.com/photos/keepitsurreal/1884615328/