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30 March 2021

Partnering with PLOS:

Community Action Publishing (CAP) Q1 2021 update

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Today’s speakers

Sara Rouhi

Director, Strategic Partnerships

srouhi@plos.org

Tw: RouhiRoo

Nonia Pariente

Editor-in-Chief, PLOS Biology

npariente@plos.org

Tw: npariente

Georgie Field

Associate Publisher

gfield@plos.org

Tw: GeorgieTField

Raffaella Bosurgi

Executive Editor,

PLOS Medicine

rbosurgi@plos.org

Tw: raffi74

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Today’s focus

Brief reCAP

Intros to PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine

CAP progress to date and next steps

Q&A

Click to edit Master title style

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What and why again?

Recap on PLOS Community Action Publishing (CAP)

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ReCAP...

PLOS wants to cover the cost of selective publishing without high APCs.

PLOS CAP does that by:

  • Publicly sharing costs and margin we need to cover: https://plos.org/resources/community-action-publishing/
  • Equitably distributing it amongst institutions with a publishing history as affiliated with corresponding and contributing authors
  • Assigning tiers based on publishing history
  • Institutions pay their tier fee annually

Research 4 Life countries are automatic members!

When communities’ meet targets, additional revenue is redistributed to members

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Presentation Title

Presenter Name Name

Date

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Why selective open-access titles?

helping the community to keep track of the most significant developments in the life sciences

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It’s a crowded world

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A bit about PLOS Biology

  • PLOS flagship journal in the life sciences

Aims to give voice to significant advances that will be widely read, built upon and drive future discovery. In all life sciences.

  • Mission to act as a catalyst for open science and accelerate change in scientific communication

Promoting reproducibility, transparency, rigor & trust in science

  • Aim to make selective open access more inclusive, equitable and sustainable.

To shield authors from the rising costs of publishing OA in selective journals

  • Promote a kinder research culture, that reflects the discovery process and actively tries to counter publication bias

New selectivity (research Q), new article types

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Our magazine section: an advocacy platform

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Editorial policies

  • Selectivity: importance of the research question and robustness of approach, rather than the results obtained
  • Consideration of complementary research
  • Portable peer-review
  • Bidirectional integration with preprints, support for pre-registration
  • Open data, open code and protocol deposition

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Article types

Publish as you discover

A process that reflects and accompanies the research process rather than interrupting and hindering it

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PLOS journals require authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction at the time of publication.

When specific legal or ethical requirements prohibit public sharing of a dataset, authors must indicate how researchers may obtain access to the data.

March 2014�

PLOS data availability policy

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Transparent peer-review at PLOS Biology

in 2020

65% of eligible PLOS Biology authors

chose to publish their peer review history alongside their final article

Across PLOS, more than 10,000 articles

have featured published peer reviews

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The disruptive potential of preprints

data collection & analysis

draft manuscript

journal submission

peer review

publication

assessment

4mo – 1.5y

  • Early citation and credit
  • Author control of ‘publication’
  • Establish Priority
  • 41 % PLOS Biology submissions had posted a preprint
  • 24 % opted in to PLOS depositing on their behalf (> 17.7 % passed internal checks and were posted)

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CAP reception has been great

This is very exciting. I had no idea it was in the works and am thrilled to hear about it. I definitely think we want to make sure MIT colleagues know about it, both in Biology and other departments. I can check in with Chris Bourg and see if they have plans already to advertise it beyond the news article you linked to. - Mike Laub, MIT

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PLOS Medicine

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PLOS Medicine

PLOS Medicine selects and publishes research with the greatest potential impact on health and healthcare globally. We’ve made it our priority to ensure those studies meet every standard for quality, rigor, and relevance to an eager audience of global readers.

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Prioritizing a fair, ethical and rigorous peer review process

Surfacing emerging research of global importance

Creating trust through research transparency

Striving for global diversity among authors and readers

Advancing equity in Open Science

We make the highest quality medical research immediately available and equally accessible to clinicians, patients, policymakers and researchers alike.

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What we publish: PLOS Medicine article types

  • Editorials
  • Research articles
  • Perspectives
  • Policy forum
  • News report
  • Profiles

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PLOS CAP progress so far

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ReCAP...

PLOS wants to cover the cost of selective publishing without high APCs.

PLOS CAP does that by:

  • Publicly sharing costs and margin we need to cover: https://plos.org/resources/community-action-publishing/
  • Equitably distributing it amongst institutions with a publishing history as affiliated with corresponding and contributing authors
  • Assigning tiers based on publishing history
  • Institutions pay their tier fee annually

Research 4 Life countries are automatic members!

When communities’ meet targets, additional revenue is redistributed to members

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Targets (including new title)

Transparent cost recovery targets, based on journal costs from 2019 and anticipated costs for new title...

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Pricing

Transparency

Based on 2019 pricing and cost base.

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Targets

Meeting these targets will take time, we hope to have made significant progress by

the end of the pilot period in 2023

What were we hoping for in the first year of the pilot?

11% of Biology target

13% of Medicine target

Achieved ~17% of both

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Community Membership

Total PLOS Biology CAP members

72

Total PLOS Medicine CAP members

71

Total Unique members

76

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Community Membership

Distribution of members across the tiers

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Portland State University

The Francis Crick Institute

The Pirbright Institute

University of Arizona

University of Salford

Brandeis University

Brock University

Imperial College London

Indiana University

John Hopkins University

Liverpool John Moores University

McMaster University

Michigan State University

MIT

Mount Allison University

Mount Saint Vincent University

North Carolina State University

Northumbria University

Northwestern University

Ohio State University

Pennsylvania State University

Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine

Purdue University

Queen's University

Queen's University Belfast

Rowan University

Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Simon Fraser University

The Open University

UNC Chapel Hill

Universite Laval

University College London

University at Buffalo

Imperial College

University of Alberta

University of Birmingham

University of Cambridge

University of Canterbury

University of Chicago

University of Guelph

University of Hertfordshire

University of Illinois

University of Iowa

University of Kansas

University of Leeds

University of Liverpool

University of Manchester

University of Manitoba

University of Maryland

University of Michigan

University of Minnesota Twin Cities

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

University of New Brunswick

University of Ottawa

University of Regensburg

University of Saskatchewan

University of Sheffield

University of Southampton

University of St. Andrews

University of Stirling

University of Texas-Austin

University of Toronto

University of Waterloo

University of Western Ontario

University of Wisconsin-Madison

University of York

Uppsala Universitet

Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar

Wilfrid Laurier University

William & Mary Library

Yale University

York University

Christian Medical College Vellore

Georgetown University Medical Center

Newcastle University

University of Ontario Institute of Technology

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Lessons learned,

iteration,

and what comes next

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Lessons learned so far!

⛔ One and done agreements

🚀 Supporting lift off

✎ Adjusting to consortial needs

⚙ It’s all about infrastructure/data

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How we’re iterating

Partner collaboration data quality is essential

  • institutional disambiguation, parent/child relationships

Infrastructure

  • supporting contributing author affiliation for billing, discounts, etc is not easy, $$

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Challenges...adjusting to a new model and mindset

This model if fundamentally different from other collective action and “uncapped” publishing offerings.

  • predicated on cost recovery
  • requires mass participation
  • works on slim margins

The usual negotiating tactics need not apply.

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Challenges...adjusting to a new model and mindset

The usual negotiating tactics cannot apply.

  • Transactional discounts
  • No price increases
  • “Sweeteners”

In exchange for transparency, simplicity, and sustainability, consortia and institutions must treat this model differently.

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So what’s next?

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Chase 2022 targets

Expand to broader geographies

Support other orgs considering the model

Consider iterations of the model for other PLOS journals

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Thank you!

Questions?