LAWRENCE P. KANE, PH.D. DEPT OF IMMUNOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE PUBLISHING IN THE 21 ST CENTURY.

L A W R E N C E P. K A N E , P H . D .D E P T O F I M M U N O L O G Y

U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H S C H O O L O F M E D I C I N E

PUBLISHING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

DISCLOSURES

• Faculty of 1000 faculty member (Immunology)• However, I am not an official representative of F1000, LLC

• Section editor for The Journal of Immunology (AAI)

• We have published two papers in F1000 Research, both of which are indexed in PubMed

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

• How to balance a need for quality control with a need for timely dissemination of scientific findings?

• Why hasn’t this process become more timely in the internet age?

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

• … before peer review became widespread, decisions about what to publish were usually made by journal editors, often acting largely on their own. • These decisions were often made rapidly, with

papers appearing days or weeks after submission, after a cursory review by the editor.

Michael Nielsen

WHAT HAPPENED?

• Increasing specialization of science, making editors’ jobs much more technically difficult

• The enormous increase in the number of scientific papers being published

• The introduction of technologies for copying papers. It’s just plain editorially difficult to implement peer review if you can’t easily make copies of papers.• The internet has actually made this process easier…

Michael Nielsen

WHY HAVEN’T THINGS CHANGED?

• Now, the single biggest factor preserving the peer review system is probably social inertia…

• In addition, reviewers feel like they have the burden to ensure that an accepted ms. meets some ill-defined standards of the journal to which it is submitted (i.e. the journal’s “impact factor”)

Michael Nielsen

OTHER CHALLENGES

•Fear

•Promotions

•Funding!

IMPACT FACTOR

• This has led to the “tyranny of the impact factor.”

• “Regardless of peer review, the quality and/or impact of a paper is often not immediately apparent.”

Ian Durham

THE DOMINANT MODEL

F1000PRIME: POST-PUBLICATION “PEER REVIEW”

F1000Prime (http://f1000.com/prime) is an in-depth directory of top articles in biology and medicine, as recommended by a Faculty of over 5,000 expert scientists and clinical researchers, assisted by 5,000 associates.

• Covers over 40 disciplines and more than 3,500 journals.

• Articles are rated and expert commentaries explain their importance.

• Over 140,000 recommendations (as of June 2013)

• On average, 1,500 new recommendations are contributed by the Faculty each month.

• Subscription service (via institute or personal subscription)

F1000PRIME: POST-PUBLICATION “PEER REVIEW”

WHAT IS F1000-RESEARCH?

F1000Research is an original open access journal for life scientists, offering immediate publication, transparent peer review (post-publication) and full data deposition and sharing. All scientifically sound articles are accepted, including single findings, case reports, protocols, replications, null/negative results and more traditional articles.

F1000Research has a prestigious international Advisory Panel of more than 200 of the most eminent names in biology and medicine, and over 1,100 expert Editorial Board members.

KEY FEATURES OF F1000RESEARCH

•Publication within a week

•Post-publication peer review

•Transparent peer review

•All data included

•Accepts non-traditional article types

TRADITIONAL PUBLICATION PROCESS

- Most journals publish papers after they pass peer review. - The peer review process can take months – sometimes years.- After rejection, start over again with another journal. - This delays publication.

PUBLICATION DELAY IS A PROBLEM

• Can be scooped during review process

• No recent published work to show for funding applications

• Lab members leave during revision process, and paper may never be published if the project is abandoned.

• Slows down research progress

• Frustrating...

F1000-RESEARCH PUBLICATION PROCESS

• F1000Research articles are published online after an in-house pre-refereeing check, on average, within 6 working days.

• Peer review and revisions are carried out publicly.

• Articles with sufficient positive referee reports are indexed in PubMed.

REFEREE REPORTS ARE PUBLIC

All referee names are visible.

Referee reports and other comments are

visible to anyone.

VERSIONSDifferent versions of the

article are tracked

REFEREE SCORES

•Approved

•Approved with reservations

•Not approved

Once 2 “Approved” reviews (or 1 Approved plus 2 with reservations) are

received, the ms. is indexed in PubMed, Scopus etc.

CITING F1000RESEARCH PAPERS• Citations to F1000Research papers point to a particular version.

Example citation:

Spence J, Titov N, Johnston L et al. (2013) Internet-delivered eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (iEMDR): an open trial [v2; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/zr] F1000Research 2013, 2:79 (doi: 10.12688/f1000research.2-79.v2)

• If a paper has been updated since it was cited, and readers land on an outdated version of an article, a pop-up message on the article page makes readers aware that there is a newer version:

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

PROPOSED NEW RESEARCH PUBLISHING PLATFORM

Vitek Tracz & Rebecca Lawrence, F1000

“…despite the growth of Open Access mandates and incentives, the majority of articles are still published behind subscription barriers.”

“We believe that the funders of research can effect change through the provision of their own publishing platforms that enable their fundees to publish their research at speed, and efficiently and openly.”

“We believe that such platforms can make research available in ways that take us beyond the current problems, and can ultimately move the primary focus of conducting new research back to the discovery of new findings rather than as a means to publish a paper in a ‘high-impact’ journal.

“We believe publishers will adapt to provide and run such platforms on behalf of funders as a service, and that the evaluation of published findings can be better done post-publication through a variety of existing and new qualitative and quantitative article-level metrics.”

THANKS!

• Lawrence P. Kane, Ph.D.• Dept of immunology• University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine• [email protected]