Joho the Blog
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December 21, 2006
Public Library of Science has gone beta with PLos ONE, a peer-reviewed journal that publishes everything that passes the review, not just what it considers to be important. So, if it's good science about a nit, it'll find a home at PLoS ONE. And at that home, readers can discuss and annotate the articles. They can also read them and reuse for free since they're all published under a Creative Commons Attribution License. It does, however, cost a scientist (or her institution) $1,250 to be published by PLoS ONE. This is, alas, an improvement over what traditional journals charge scientists. PLoS ONE will waive the fee for authors who don't have the funds. Fees aside, if you were designing a society, wouldn't you want scientific research to be handled this way? If it's good science, make it available! (And if it's not clear if it's good science, make it available anyway, but that's not PLoS ONE's niche in the knowledge economy.) (Note on the beta: The site could use tagging. And more feeds.) [Tags: plos plos_one open_science science everything_is_miscellaneous taxonomy] Posted
by D. Weinberger at December 21, 2006 12:20 PM
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Comments
A correction on the business model, David - PLoS charges scientists to publish, whereas most journals don't charge the authors, but make the journal prohibitively expensive to subscribe to. By putting the publication cost on the author, the journal can be offered open access, freely downloadable by people in developing nations who would never be able to access a similar journal under a conventional licensing scheme.
Why charge the paper authors? Because the vast majority of them are publishing work that's been funded with grants from government bureaus or foundations. The idea is to shift the cost of publishing research results to the researcher's grantmaker, not to charge readers for knowledge that they've probably helped to fund via their tax dollars.
Posted by: EthanZ | December 21, 2006 06:24 PM
Two quick comments:
1. compare the $1250 for all-time, all-comers access in PLoS One with the page charges that nearly all journals charge authors of standard, toll-access-only papers, and I think you'll agree that PLoS is good value.
2. re: your note on the beta: tell them! PLoS are very responsive to feedback, and continually on the lookout for it.
Disclaimer: I'm a believer.
Posted by: Bill Hooker | December 25, 2006 06:03 PM