Committed to making the world’s
scientific and medical literature
a public resource
“Re-engineering the scientific journal”
Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing
www.plos.org
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
www.plos.org
The life cycle of a research article
Research
Rejects
Submission
2-3 Experts
Is it rigorous?
Good enough?
Right audience?
Peer review
Takes months/years
Publication
Journal name is
key
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
www.flickr.com/photos/sewpixie/2374778051/
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
www.plos.org
Awareness
Part 1
Open Access
www.plos.org
Free
≠
access
Open
access
www.plos.org
What is open access?
• Free, immediate access
• Unrestricted reuse
• Deposition in a digital public archive
Bethesda definition, 2003
www.plos.org
Translation
Coursepacks
Photocopying
Deposit in
databases
No permission
required
for any reuse
Downloading
data
Text mining
Redistribution
Reproduction
of figures
www.plos.org
PLoS publishing strategy
• 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
www.plos.org
PLoS Biology
October, 2003
PLoS Medicine
October, 2004
PLoS Community Journals
June-September, 2005
October, 2007
PLoS ONE
December,
2006
www.plos.org
PLoS Progress Report, June 2009
www.plos.org
PLoS Progress Report, June 2009
www.plos.org
www.oaspa.org
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Awareness
Part 2
Discoverability
www.plos.org
What is open access?
• Free, immediate access online
• Unrestricted use
www.plos.org
What is open access?
• Free, immediate access online
• Unrestricted use
www.plos.org
What is open access?
• Free, immediate access online
• Unrestricted use
www.plos.org
What is open access?
• Free, immediate access online
• Unrestricted use
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
Text mining
www.plos.org
Document
A network of literature
www.plos.org
Document
Database
A network of literature and data
www.plos.org
Linking Open Data
www.plos.org
http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData
www.flickr.com/photos/chris_short/79656776/
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Certification
Part 1
Focusing on
rigour
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
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.
www.plos.org
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
www.plos.org
PLoS ONE – statistics
Year
Subs
Pubs
% of annual
PubMed
2006
473
138
0.02%
2007
2497
1231
0.16%
2008
4401
2723
0.34%
4310*
0.52%*
2009*
6619*
*Targets for 2009
Figures to April 2009
–
–
–
–
9,195 submissions
5,314 publications
31,700 Published authors
11,021 peer reviewers
www.plos.org
Certification
Part 2
Adding value after
publication
www.plos.org
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
www.plos.org
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/
www.plos.org
How can impact be measured?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Citations
Web usage
Expert rating
Community rating
Media/blog coverage
Policy development
Commenting activity
and more…
www.plos.org
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
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
CiteULike Landing Page
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
Postgenomic Landing Page
www.plos.org
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
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
www.plos.org
The life cycle of a research article
Research
Rejects
Submission
2-3 Experts
Is it rigorous?
Good enough?
Right audience?
Peer review
Takes months/years
Publication
Journal name is
key
www.plos.org
The life cycle of a research article
Research
Enhanced
Article
Based on
activity of an
entire
community
Rejects
More info on
impact and
relevance
Submission
Is it rigorous?
Peer review
Publication
www.plos.org
The landscape is changing
www.flickr.com/photos/keepitsurreal/1884615328/
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