This is the powerpoint and audio of the Keynote Presentation to the University of British Columbia "UBC Open" event 10/22/2013.
See the original streaming video at: http://mediasitemob1.mediagroup.ubc.ca/Mediasite/Play/2cdc95b2d56a4c56a6606a6c116a58b01d
Download the excel dataset at: http://figshare.com/articles/MegaJournal_Publication_Data/833828
Read the Blog Post at: http://creativecommons.org.nz/2013/10/open-access-megajournals-have-they-changed-everything/
"The Open Access ‘Megajournal’ (a class of journal defined by the success of PLOS ONE) is a reasonably recent phenomenon, but one that some observers believe is poised to change the publishing world very rapidly.
A megajournal is typically understood to be an online-only journal; covering a very broad subject area; selecting content based only on scientific and methodological soundness; and with a business model which allows each article to cover its own costs. With these attributes, megajournals are not limited in potential output and as such are able to grow commensurate with any growth in submissions. PLOS ONE pioneered this category of journal and is currently expected to publish in excess of 30,000 articles in 2013 alone – possibly approaching 3% of all STM articles published that year. Recognizing the success of this model, many other publishers (such as Nature, Springer, SAGE, BioONE, PeerJ, , BMJ, F1000 and so on) have launched similar journals and each of these publishers is seeing their megajournal grow in volume, month on month. In many ways, the growth of the megajournal has been one of the most visible successes of the open access movement."
Open Access MegaJournals - Have They Changed Everything
1. Open Access MegaJournals
Have They Changed Everything?
Pete Binfield
Co-Founder and Publisher
PeerJ
@p_binfield
pete@peerj.com
@ThePeerJ
https://peerj.com
UBC Open - 10/22/2013
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
3. „MegaJournals‟
• An online-only, peer-reviewed, open access
journal
• covering a very broad subject area
• selecting content based only on „technical
soundness‟ (or similar)
• with a business model which allows each article to
cover its own costs
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
4. The MegaJournal ‘Editorial Model’
• Objective Editorial criteria
– Scientifically rigorous ; Ethical ; Properly reported ; Conclusions supported by
the data etc
– Accept negative results, accept replication studies, accept protocols etc
• Editors and reviewers do not ask subjective
questions such as:
– How important is the work?
– Which is the relevant audience?
• Everything that deserves to be published, will be
published
– Therefore the journal is not artificially limited in size
• Online tools are used to evaluate, sort & filter the
content after publication, not before
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
10. PLOS ONE Quarterly Output
8000
Year
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Pubs
1,200
2,800
4,400
6,750
13,800
23,500
Notes
Larger than ~ 95% of all journals
Largest OA journal in world
3rd largest journal in world
Largest journal in world
~1.4% of PubMed output in that year
~2.4% of PubMed output in that year
2013
~31,000
>3% of the literature
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
17. Mega?
Mega = 106 (one million)
Kilo = 103 (one thousand)
But „MegaJournal‟ = ?
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
18. It‟s About the Editorial Criteria
• “Reviewing only for scientific and methodological
soundness” (PLOS ONE)
• “rigorous but inclusive review“ (BioONE)
• "impact neutral" (Hindawi)
• “publishing all sound science - separating the question of
level of interest from the decision about publishability”
(BMC)
• “technically sound” (Scientific Reports)
• “properly conducted medical research” (BMJ Open)
• “objective determination of scientific and methodological
soundness, not subjective determinations of 'impact,'
'novelty' or 'interest„” (PeerJ).
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
19. The MegaJournal Editorial Model
• Objective Editorial criteria
– Scientifically rigorous ; Ethical ; Properly reported ; Conclusions supported by
the data etc
– Accept negative results, accept replication studies, sometimes accept protocols
etc
• Editors and reviewers do not ask subjective
questions such as:
– How important is the work?
– Which is the relevant audience?
• Everything that deserves to be published, will be
published
– Therefore the journal is not artificially limited in size
• Online tools are used to evaluate, sort & filter the
content after publication, not before
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
20. The MegaJournal Editorial Model
• Objective Editorial criteria
– Scientifically rigorous ; Ethical ; Properly reported ; Conclusions supported by
the data etc
– Accept negative results, accept replication studies, sometimes accept protocols
etc
• Editors and reviewers do not ask subjective
questions such as:
– How important is the work?
– Which is the relevant audience?
• Everything that deserves to be published, will be
published
– Therefore the journal is not artificially limited in size
• Online tools are used to evaluate, sort & filter the
content after publication, not before
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
21. If we define using
the same Editorial Criteria
but allow for „niche‟ journals…
Then we should include:
•All of the “Frontiers in…” Series (part of Nature)
•All of the “BMC Series” (~ half of BMC)
•~ 1/3 of Hindawi‟s current output
And if we do that….
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
22.
23.
24.
25. Why is it better to operate the
‘full’ MegaJournal model?
– Improves the author experience – single review and decision
– Improves the „global reviewer‟ experience – only review any given
paper once
– „subjective filtering‟ pre-publication is an outdated approach to
determining quality
– In an Author Pays OA model, there is no economic reason for
artificially limiting the size of a journal
– The journal only needs to be indexed once (e.g. MedLine, WoS)
– A large journal attracts high usage / high visibility
– Many aspects of the journal can be „consolidated‟ (e.g. one blog, one
twitter stream, one marketing plan)
– Economies of scale naturally develop, making the journal more
efficient
– The journal has the opportunity to set consistent standards which
may become de facto standards in it‟s field
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
26. Regardless of Name,
Have They „Changed Everything‟?
• Rapidly Approaching ~10% of all published content,
spurring new developments
• Require (and have stimulated) Article-Level Metrics
• Publish Negative Results, Replication Studies,
Incremental Articles
• Dramatic Improvement to the Speed of the Ecosystem
• Dramatic Improvement to the Efficiency of the
Ecosystem
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
27. Regardless of Name,
Have They „Changed Everything‟?
• Rapidly Approaching ~10% of all published content,
spurring new developments
• Require (and have stimulated) Article-Level Metrics
• Publish Negative Results, Replication Studies,
Incremental Articles
• Dramatic Improvement to the Speed of the Ecosystem
• Dramatic Improvement to the Efficiency of the
Ecosystem
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
28. An OA future containing MegaJournals
PLoS
ONE
ALL
OTHER
OA
SAGE
Open
JOURNALS
PeerJ
etc.
etc.
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
30. Regardless of Name,
Have They „Changed Everything‟?
• Rapidly Approaching ~10% of all published content,
spurring new developments
• Require and have stimulated Article-Level Metrics
• Publish Negative Results, Replication Studies,
Incremental Articles
• Dramatic Improvement to the Speed of the Ecosystem
• Dramatic Improvement to the Efficiency of the
Ecosystem
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
31. Screenshot from ~ Nov 2009 but Way Back Machine has examples from April 2008
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
34. Regardless of Name,
Have They „Changed Everything‟?
• Rapidly Approaching ~10% of all published content,
spurring new developments
• Require (and have stimulated) Article-Level Metrics
• Publish Negative Results, Replication Studies,
Incremental Articles
• Dramatic Improvement to the Speed of the Ecosystem
• Dramatic Improvement to the Efficiency of the
Ecosystem
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
36. Regardless of Name,
Have They „Changed Everything‟?
• Rapidly Approaching ~10% of all published content,
spurring new developments
• Require (and have stimulated) Article-Level Metrics
• Publish Negative Results, Replication Studies,
Incremental Articles
• Dramatic Improvement to the Speed of the Ecosystem
• Dramatic Improvement to the Efficiency of the
Ecosystem
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
38. “rejected from at least six journals (including Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature
Methods, Science) and took a year to publish before going on to be my most cited
research paper (150 last time I looked)” – Cameron Neylon
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
40. Regardless of Name,
Have They „Changed Everything‟?
• Rapidly Approaching ~10% of all published content,
spurring new developments
• Require (and have stimulated) Article-Level Metrics
• Publish Negative Results, Replication Studies,
Incremental Articles
• Dramatic Improvement to the Speed of the Ecosystem
• Dramatic Improvement to the Efficiency of the
Ecosystem
Academic Publishing is Evolving…
41.
42. Stacked area graph of the contribution of
major „APC‟ OA publishers (articles per year)
http://figshare.com/articles/Scale_of_OA_Publishing/650794
43. Predicted „Disruption Timeframe‟ of OA vs Subscription model
Source: “The Inevitability of Open Access”, David Lewis
http://crl.acrl.org/content/73/5/493.full.pdf+html (College and Research Libraries, Sep 2012
44. The Net Result
• New business models, new innovations and new thinking can
flourish in a new ecosystem
• „Mistakes‟ or „non-results‟ are actually reported – future
researchers save time, energy, resources
• Previously „uninteresting‟ results are actually reported – the
potential to incrementally build on these „micro findings‟ is
enabled
• Reporting standards are raised and standardized
• The process of publication is made more transparent and „fair‟ for
the author
• Less time is wasted by multiple reviewers on the same content
• Better methods of filtering, evaluating and sorting publications
will evolve
• Science is published more rapidly, saving author time and
improving the overall speed of discovery
Academic Publishing is Evolving…