(Extracted and republished 01/10 From "We The Thin Skinned, The Media and the Public)
The Science Publishing We Knew
Science moves slowly. Experiments are painstaking. People think "science", and they think "technology" -- change, change, change. Misconception. Much of science moves slowly. With its gels and agar plates, long experiments, models to be tested, precision and publication, doesn't always make for exciting press. Any one event could bore readers to tears because progress is so incremental. It doesn't lend itself to advertising.
By comparison, the media follows politicians changing opinions on important policies day to day and the public is riveted by politics, back and forth, like an epic tennis match. People want science to fall into the news cycle though, so you get the whole misleading "breakthrough" headline churn. This confuses outside observers -- "why can't scientists make up their minds?". But science will always be science and will always move slowly.
Science publishing with peer review has been the standard for decades, but the internet presents a challenge. Everyone in media, from radio and TV to scientific journals is rethinking publishing. Some news outlets have simply done away with science news. Others are trying to adapt science to the internet.
Open Access
In 2003 the online open access science journal group Public Library of Science PLoS broke the science publishing model by launching one of the first open access journals. PLoS caused a bit of a stir. Publishing reflects the staid deliberation of labwork. There's the lengthy peer-review process, the need to do new experiments sometimes, and rewriting. Publications have been staid. Nature has published since the 1860's under only seven editors.
PLoS was a great experiment in open access publishing. Scientists applauded the PLoS concept but no one knew how it would work, accustomed as we were to the way things were. Open-access gives everyone the right to view the research free of charge. This is great, when the average study can cost $25-60 to view. Teachers, students and citizens have total freedom to view original science publications at PLoS, which is great, since many interested and effected groups are not be able to afford expensive journal subscriptions. Open-access journals get huge support from science, education, and journalism audiences, including Acronym Required, here, and here, and here, and here.
We learned more of the history of PLoS when we happened upon a group of companies presenting their Web 2.0 business strategies at a Creative Commons gathering back in 2006. A hip, non-sciencey crowd convened in an informal setting under unfortunate harsh lighting and silver spinning disco balls. The PLoS bizdev team talked about their open-access publishing model which, although revolutionary in the science publishing world, was a bit of a yawn to the Web 2.0 crowd.
PLoS was at end of their "roadshow", but game to present to the informal crowd at the L-shaped bar. While they were describing the open-access model, an eager employee of an online music company waved her hand and interrupted her gum chewing to suggest that PLoS should update their strategy and leave peer-review to the online community. The online community expertly recognizes value, she explained, pointing out their success as an on-line song start-up.
The PLoS team politely suggested that science research papers might be different than songs. While happy to distinguish themselves from the 'entrenched publishing model of science journals established back in the 1800's', the PLoS presenters knew that embracing "community peer-review", as in the "web-community", would be a big step for science. But PLoS also had a surprise for those gathered there at the bar that night, an "experiment", an up and coming PLoS journal where research articles would actually be reviewed by the audience.
PLoS closed their talk with stories of dwindling capital and start-up woes more familiar to the youthful start-up denizens, and exited in a hurry, leaving behind a perplexed Web 2.0 ensconced audience trying to wrap their heads around the fact that the only business model they know -- online-community peer-review, could actually be, for scientists, a radical publishing venture.
And as if this were some great new experiment, we scientists gathered around the PLoS bench to see the result with our own eyes.
Peer-Review
The new journal that PLoS launched later that year, not without caution, was PLoS One, one of the first science journals to be both open-access and "community" peer reviewed (after publishing, rather than before.)
Peer review, though flawed, is a the cornerstone of science publishing and progress. Editors or referees solicit experts in the field to review submitted research and to help assess which of the many submitter articles warrant publication. Research is based on the articles' probable impact, importance and relevance to that field of science, the methods the researchers used to answer their questions, and other factors. Peer-review is unquestionably an imperfect process in that it can be biased by cronyism and ends up from the authors' point of view, causing publication delays because of lengthy revisions and additional research. Nevertheless, peer-review underpins much of science progress. It assures that research methods and conclusions presented by the authors are reviewed by other researchers doing similar study.
What this all means to readers of PLoS One, especially when they're not familiar with the science in a particular article, need to also read the on-line ratings and comments to try and get a sense of value of the research. Although PLoS One does vet papers, it provides a very streamlined referee review process which helps research get published more quickly.
On launch, the journal advertised that for a fee of $1250 ($750 before launch) PLoS One would "publish anything scientifically legitimate". PLoS One promised "a 'hassle-free' process that gets your work online within weeks" -- in fact -- "10-14 days". This turnaround time defies the months long process that is typical in science publishing.
The streamlined process also means that only one PLoS "Academic Editor" needs to read the submission to assure its "legitimacy".
Its all Fun and Games Until You Lose an Eye
When scientists do experiments, they're supposed to be unbiased. You set up your positive and negative controls, and more than 50% of the time the test doesn't match your hypothesis. Because it's an experiment.
But when a Nature News article a couple of years ago by Declan Butler pointed out that PLoS was dependent on outside funding ("Open-access journal hits rocky times", June, 2006), commenters who supported the open-access ideal, and therefore PLoS, became very angry. People saw Butler's piece as a grave indiscretion, one person said it made them "see red".
Despite the outrage, the gist of the article was correct. PLoS was dependent on outside funding, from the Moore Foundation. Phillip E. Bourne, Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Computational Biology acknowledged Butler's point in comments on Nature, saying: "Clearly financial realities...must be dealt with", and adding that the journal "may yet balance the books" with software tools and PLoS One -- a "high throughput publishing option". PLoS's words.
PLoS One aimed for a "high-throughput" model. Now, two years later PLoS One publishes about 50 papers a week at an author cost of $1250 per paper.
So when Declan Butler wrote about PLoS again last month, this time he focused on PLoS One ("PLoS Stays Afloat With Bulk Publishing", 22 June 2008). Along with some optimistic views (yes), Butler quoted John Hawley, Executive Director of the free access Journal of Clinical Investigation, who said:
"There's so much in PLoS One that it is difficult to judge the overall quality and, simply because of this volume, it's going to be considered a dumping ground, justified or not... But nonetheless, it introduces a sub-standard journal to their mix."
Butler has acknowledged what PLoS Computational Biology's own Editor-in-Chief had said. And quoted the Executive Director of journal with a related business model to much of PLoS's.
But PLoS supporters called the 2008 article an "attack piece", "nasty", and "mean in spirit". They labeled Nature authors "in-house rottweilers" and launched discussions about whether science journal authors were stupider than bench scientists. Some irate PLoS One protectors flooded the blogosphere with graphs and charts on journal impact factors they thought proved their points.
When the Public Judges
Although the PLoS business model has necessarily evolved since 2006, PLoS's volatile support base of blogging scientists paired their commentary about Nature with images of guns aimed at kittens. Guns!!! Kittens!!! PLoS is not-for-profit, they wrote angrily, therefore the for profit journal Nature has no right to criticize.
OK true, PloS is not for profit. We love PLoS. But some of the "volunteer" editors have been entrepreneurs in the for-profit world. And the journals are funded by foundations whose owners were entrepreneurs in for-profit business. It's not a simple demarcation, profit vs. non-profit, it's a way of organizing your business for the your most beneficial tax and funding preferences. But Nature has interest in open-access and has long supported the model. OK, the article was critical? Maybe? But c'mon, are you joking? A gun aimed at a kitten?
No one thought to say how ironic it was that PLoS loyalists were trying to smother OPEN DISCUSSION of the open access model -- "criticism" as they saw it? Here's how the PLoS management envisioned PLoS One back in 2006:
"Each article will generate a thread for comment and review. Great papers will be recognized by the discussion they generate, and bad ones will fade away."[accessed July, 2008]
What happened? PLoS is all about discussion right? Community? You'd think anyone interested in open access, interested in science, or wanting to see PLoS thrive would appreciate Hawley's questions, even if channeled through Nature. Butler spoke of a classic and interesting business dilemma very much worth consideration.
Butler's points are interesting for both profits and non-profits. Can a company (PLoS) brand for a different market (PLoS One) without cannibalizing their main brand (the other peer-reviewed journals)? The hundreds of mergers in the past decade made corporations and consumers much more flexible about this than ten years ago, but it's still an important business consideration. What is PLoS's brand? Is it Medicine and Biology? Or is it PLoS One? Argue you may, but PLoS One is not like other PLoS journals.
Many people don't understand the differences between em>PLoS's different journals. Sure, as people point out, Nature also grapples with a diverse stable of publications. But its history is very different than PLoS's and its reputation much more established. It doesn't have a PLoS One.
Another question: will dependence on PLoS One income force the journal to accept papers using looser standards, as Hawley wondered? Again PLoS has company in the science publishing arena. At the open access physics publication ArXiv, readers pick through various quality papers to find the good ones. But will depending on readers' assessments work for PLoS? How will journalists assess PLoS papers? If PLoS is out to change science publishing, what will the changes look like once they finish accommodating their business needs? Shall we turn judgment over to the public? The "science community"?
Good questions that many people are thinking about. Too bad scientists couldn't have the discussion.
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(Acronym Required covered some of the open access news here and here and here, and here.)
