Rethinking the Functions of a Journal - some case studies from PLoS by Mark Patterson

www.plos.org

“Re-engineering the scientific journal”

Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing

EDIT Meeting, Copenhagen: Oct, 2010

Committed to making the world’s

scientific and medical literature

a public resource

www.plos.org

The functions of journals

• Registration– Who’s done what and when?

• Certification– Is the work sound?

• Dissemination– The right information to the people who need it

• Preservation– Archiving for future generations

Roosendaal and Geurts

www.flickr.com/photos/sewpixie/2374778051/

Journals are a giant sorting mechanismOrganization

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Re-engineering

• Dissemination– Open access

• Organization of content– Impact and audience

• Authoring and certification– Eliminating all unnecessary delays

www.plos.org

Re-engineering dissemination

Open Access

www.plos.org

PLoS Founding Board of Directors

Harold VarmusPLoS Co-founder and Chairman of the BoardPresident and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Patrick O. BrownPLoS Co-founder and Board MemberHoward Hughes Medical Institute & Stanford University School of Medicine

Michael B. EisenPLoS Co-founder and Board MemberLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory & University of California at Berkeley

www.plos.org

• 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 publishing strategy

www.plos.org

PLoS BiologyOctober, 2003

PLoS MedicineOctober, 2004

PLoS Community JournalsJune-September, 2005 October, 2007

PLoS ONEDecember,2006

www.plos.org

0

2000

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2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

PublicationsSubmissions

Growth in submissions and publications

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Financial growth

% Operating expense covered by operating revenue

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

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90%

100%

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

www.oaspa.org

What is open access?

• Free, immediate access online

• Unrestricted use

www.plos.org

A network of literature

Document

www.plos.org

A network of literature and data

Document

Database

www.plos.org

www.flickr.com/photos/chris_short/79656776/

Open access

• Free, immediate access

• Unrestricted reuse

www.plos.org

Re-engineering organization of

content

The life cycle of a research article

Journal name is keyPublication

Research

Submission

Peer review

Rejects

2-3 ExpertsIs it rigorous?Good enough?Right audience?Takes months/years

www.plos.org

What do we need to do before research is

published?

What is best left until after publication?

www.plos.org

www.plos.org

• Editorial criteria– Scientifically rigorous

– Ethical

– Properly reported

– Conclusions supported by the data

• Editors and reviewers do not ask– How important is the work?

– Which is the relevant audience?

• Use online tools to sort and filter scholarly content after publication, not before

PLoS ONE’s Key Innovation –The editorial process

www.plos.org

Y/E 0.83%464290602010**

0.52%440468192009

0.34%272344012008

0.16%123124972007

0.02%1384732006*

% of annual PubMed

PublicationsSubmissionsYear

*Started publishing Dec 20th, 2006

**Up to Oct 5th

Community acceptance

– largest peer-reviewed journal

– >50,000 authors

– >1300 Academic Editors

PLoS ONE – statistics

www.plos.org

www.plos.org

What do we need to do before research is

published?

What is best left until after publication?

www.plos.org

Who cares about

measuring researchimpact?

InstitutionsResearchers (authors and

readers)

Publishers

Funders

The public

Librarians

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How do we measure ‘impact’?

The impact factor of the journal in which an article is 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 could we measure ‘impact’?

• Citations

• Web usage

• Expert Ratings

• Social bookmarking

• Community rating

• Media/blog coverage

• Commenting activity

• and more…

Current technology now makes it possible to add

these metrics automatically

At the ARTICLE LEVEL, we could track:

(http://tiny.cc/ALM1)

CrossRef Landing Page

www.plos.org

CiteULike Landing Page

www.plos.org

Downloading the data

http://www.plosone.org/static/plos-alm.zip

Evaluating the (usage) data

www.plos.org

Next steps for article-level metrics

• More sources for each data type– Citations, blog coverage

• New data sources– F1000, Mendeley

• Expert analysis and tools

• Broader adoption– By publishers

– By tenure committees, funders etc

• Develop and adhere to standards

The goals of PLoS Hubs

• Aggregate open access content

– Wherever it is published

• Add value to content by connecting with data

• Build communities around content

Demonstrate the power of open access

ITIS

Flickr

Wikipedia

NCBI

GBIF

Steering Committee

Michael J. DonoghueYale University

Jonathan A. EisenUniversity of California, Davis

Georgina MaceImperial College, London

David MindellCalifornia Academy of Sciences

Roderic D. M. PageUniversity of Glasgow

Richard PyleBernice P. Bishop Museum

Curators

Edward Vanden BergheOcean Biogeographic Information System

Thomas BrooksNatureServe

Brian FisherCalifornia Academy of Sciences

Robert GuralnickUniversity of Colorado, Boulder

Peter KareivaThe Nature Conservancy

Patricia MiloslavichUniversity Simon Bolivar

Hugh PossinghamUniverity of Queensland

Andy PurvisImperial College London

Peter RoopnarineCalifornia Academy of Sciences

Quentin WheelerArizona State University

The Hub Community

Next steps for PLoS Hubs

• Enhance and automate content enrichment

• Develop Hubs community

– allow users to ‘follow’ a curator

• Extend literature sources beyond PMC

– ideally to non-OA content

• Extend Hubs concept to other disciplines

• Make Hubs easy to replicate

www.plos.org

Re-engineering authoring and certification

www.plos.org

New models of scholarly communication

1 year

100 days

1 day

Conventional PLoS ONE PLoS Currents

Publication

www.plos.org

• An innovative forum for the rapid exchange of results and ideas

• Registration– Articles are date-stamped and citable

• Certification– Reviewed by expert researchers

• Dissemination– All content is open access

• Preservation– Archived at PubMed Central

PLoS Currents: Key features

www.plos.org

Seeking Lessons in Swine Flu Fight

“Another problem is communication.

Officials and experts say they have learned a lot about human swine influenza. But relatively little of that information...has been reported and published. Some experts said researchers were waiting to publish in journals, which can take months or longer.”

New York Times, August 10th, 2009

Lawrence K. Altman, M.D.

PLoS Currents – Inspiration

www.plos.org

Google Knol: Author(s) assemble content and control access and editing. Authors submit content to PLoS Currents.

PLoS Currents: Expert reviewers control posting of content, commenting and version control.

PubMed Central:Immediate transfer from PLoS Currents site; stable identifier and permanent archiving.

PLoS Currents – Workflow

www.plos.org

www.plos.org

• Quick prescreen by Editors

• Submission sent to Board of Reviewers.

• Is it legitimate science and does it contain any obvious methodological, ethical or legal violations?

• Editors review comments before decision sent to author.

www.plos.org

From submission to publication in a few days

www.plos.org

www.plos.org

PLoS Currents• Very fast• Cost-effective• Reviewed by experts • Citable• Version control• Archived at PubMed Central• Included in PubMed• Flexible and easy to replicate

www.plos.org

PLoS Currents – New sections

• Launched on Sept 2nd

– PLoS Currents: Huntington Disease (produced with support from CHDI Foundation)

– PLoS Currents: Evidence on Genomic Tests (in collaboration with the CDC)

• To be launched in a few weeks– PLoS Currents: Tree of Life (phylogeneticanalyses)

The life cycle of a research article

Journal name is keyPublication

Research

Submission

Peer review

Rejects

2-3 ExpertsIs it rigorous?Good enough?Right audience?Takes months/years

New models of scholarly communication

Focus on the articlePublication

Research

Submission

Peer reviewRejects

2-3 ExpertsIs it rigorous?Good enough?Right audience?Takes weeks/months

Enhanced article Article-level metricsIntegrated with dataOrganization in Hubs

PLoS Currents

www.plos.org

The landscape is changing

www.flickr.com/photos/keepitsurreal/1884615328/

Rethinking the Functions of a Journal - some case studies from PLoS by Mark Patterson

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