The interactive open access journals are practicing an integrative multi-stage process of publication and peer review combined with interactive public discussion, which effectively resolves the dilemma between rapid scientific exchange and thorough quality assurance. Key features and achievements of this approach are: top quality and impact, efficient self-regulation and low rejection rates, high attractivity and rapid growth, low costs, and financial sustainability. In fact, ACP and the EGU interactive open access sister journals are by most if not all standards more successful than comparable scientific journals with traditional or alternative forms of peer review . The high efficiency and predictive validity of multi-stage open peer review have been confirmed in a series of dedicated studies by evaluation experts from the social sciences, and the same or similar concepts have recently also been adopted in other disciplines, including the life sciences and economics. Multi-stage open peer review can be flexibly adjusted to the needs and peculiarities of different scientific communities. Due to the flexibility and compatibility with traditional structures of scientific publishing and peer review, the multi-stage open peer review concept enables efficient evolution in scientific communication and quality assurance. It has the potential for swift replacement of hidden peer review as the standard of scientific quality assurance, and it provides a basis for open evaluation in science.The traditional forms of scientific publishing and peer review do not live up to all demands of efficient communication and quality assurance in today’s highly diverse and rapidly evolving world of science. They need to be advanced and complemented by interactive and transparent forms of review, publication, and discussion that are open to the scientific community and to the public. The advantages of open access, public peer review, and interactive discussion can be efficiently and flexibly combined with the strengths of traditional scientific peer review. Since 2001 the benefits and viability of this approach are clearly demonstrated by the highly successful interactive open access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP,  The traditional ways of scientific publishing and peer review do not live up to the needs of efficient communication and quality assurance in today’s highly diverse and rapidly developing world of science. Besides high profile cases of scientific fraud, science, and society are facing a flood of carelessly prepared scientific papers that are locked away behind subscription barriers, dilute rather than enhance scientific knowledge, lead to a waste of resources and impede scientific and societal progress. On the other hand, the spread of innovative ideas and concepts is often delayed by inertia and obstruction in the hidden review process of traditional mainstream scientific journals Pöschl, .Open access to scientific research publications is desirable for many educational, economic, and scientific reasons Open access is fully compatible with traditional peer review, and in addition it enables interactive and transparent forms of review and discussion open to all interested members of the scientific community and the public (open peer review).(2)Open access gives reviewers more information to work with, i.e., it provides unlimited access to relevant publications across different scientific disciplines and communities .(3)Open access facilitates the development and implementation of new metrics for the impact and quality of scientific publications Open access helps to overcome the obsolete monopoly/oligopoly structures of scientific publishing and statistical analysis of publication contents and citations/references, which are limiting the opportunities for innovation in scientific publishing and evaluation.As demonstrated below, the effects and advantages of open access, public review, and interactive discussion can be efficiently and flexibly combined with the strengths of traditional scientific publishing and peer review Pöschl, , 2010a,bSo far, the arguably most successful alternative to the closed peer review of traditional scientific journals is the multi-stage open peer review practiced by ACP and a growing number of interactive open access sister journals of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) and Copernicus Publications Pöschl, . As detaIn the first stage, manuscripts that pass a rapid pre-screening (access review) are immediately published as “discussion papers” in the journal’s discussion forum . They are then subject to interactive public discussion for a period of 8 weeks, during which the comments of designated referees, additional comments by other interested members of the scientific community, and the authors’ replies are also published alongside the discussion paper. While referees can choose to sign their comments or remain anonymous, comments by other scientists (registered readers) are automatically signed. In the second stage, manuscript revision and peer review are completed in the same way as in traditional journals (with further rounds of review and revision where required) and, if accepted, final papers are published in the main journal. To provide a lasting record of review and to secure the authors’ publication precedence, every discussion paper, and interactive comment remains permanently archived and individually citable.The multi-stage peer review and publication process of ACP effectively resolves the dilemma between rapid scientific exchange and thorough quality assurance, and it offers a win-win situation for all involved parties . The primary positive effects and advantages compared to the traditional forms of publication with closed peer review are:The discussion papers offer free speech and rapid dissemination of novel results and original opinions, without revisions that might delay or dilute innovation (authors’ and readers’ advantage).The interactive peer review and public discussion offer direct feedback and public recognition for high quality papers (authors’ advantage); they prevent or minimize the opportunity for hidden obstruction and plagiarism (authors’ advantage); they provide complete and citable documentation of critical comments, controversial arguments, scientific flaws, and complementary information (referees’ and readers’ advantage); they reveal deficiencies and deter submissions of carelessly prepared manuscripts, thus helping to avoid/minimize the waste of time and effort for deficient submissions .The final revised papers offer a maximum of scientific information density and quality assurance achieved by full peer review  and revisions based on the referees’ comments plus additional comments from other interested scientists (readers’ advantage).Readers who are primarily interested in the quintessence of manuscripts that have been fully peer reviewed and approved by referees and editors can simply focus on the final revised paper  published in the journal and neglect the preceding discussion papers and interactive comments published in the discussion forum. Thus the two-stage publication process does not inflate the amount of time required to maintain an overview of final revised papers. On the other hand, readers who want to see original scientific manuscripts and messages before they are influenced by peer review and revision, and who want to follow the scientific discussion between authors, referees, and other interested scientists, can browse the papers and interactive comments in the discussion forum.The possibility of comparing a final revised paper with the preceding discussion paper and following the interactive peer review and public discussion also facilitates the evaluation of individual publications for non-specialist readers and evaluators. The style and quality of interactive commenting and argumentation provide insights that go beyond, and complement, the information contained in the research article itself.The multi-stage process of review and publication stimulates scientists to prove their competence via individual high quality papers and their discussion, rather than just by pushing as many papers as possible through journals with closed peer review and no direct public feedback and recognition for their work. Authors have a much stronger incentive to maximize the quality of their manuscripts prior to submission for peer review and publication, since experimental weaknesses, erroneous interpretations, and relevant but unreferenced earlier studies are more likely to be detected and pointed out in the course of interactive peer review and discussion open to the public and all colleagues with related research interests.Moreover, the transparent review process prevents authors from abusing the peer review process by delegating some of their own tasks and responsibilities to the referees during review and revision behind the scenes. Referees often make substantial contributions to the quality of scientific papers, but in traditional closed peer review their input rarely receives public recognition. The full credit for the quality of a paper published in a traditional journal generally goes to the authors, even when they have submitted a carelessly prepared manuscript that has taken a lot of time and effort on the part of the referees, editors, and publishers to turn it into a good one. While peer review depends crucially on the availability and performance of referees, it has traditionally offered little reward for those providing careful and constructive reviews. In public review, however, referees’ arguments are publicly heard and, if comments are openly signed, referees can also claim authorship for their contribution.Note that most of the effects and advantages outlined above are not fully captured by alternative approaches where interactive commenting and public discussion occur only after formal peer review and final publication of scientific papers or where the discussion paper and interactive comments are removed after publication of the final revised paper see .Overall, the interactive open access publishing philosophy emphasizes the value of free speech and efficient public exchange and scrutiny of scientific results in line with the principles of critical rationalism and open societies. Accordingly, editors and referees are supposed to critically comment and evaluate manuscripts, to help authors improve their manuscripts, and to eliminate clearly deficient manuscripts. However, authors shall not be forced to adopt the editors’ or referees’ views and preferences. Instead, the readers shall be able to make up their own mind in view of the public review and discussion. In case of doubt, editorial decisions shall favor free speech of scientists, and in the end, scientific progress; history shall tell if – or to which degree – they were right. In scientific research, the line between fundamental flaws and major innovations can be fine, and the multi-stage process of interactive open access publishing and peer review enables efficient balancing and differentiation between potentially misleading hypotheses and innovative theories even in highly controversial cases Pöschl, , 2010b.The interactive open access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP and on tCurrently ACP publishes about 800 papers per year , which is similar to the volume of traditional major journals in the fields of chemistry and physics . On average, each paper receives four interactive comments, and about one in five papers receives a comment from the scientific community in addition to the comments from designated referees. In total, there are typically 0.5 pages of interactive comments per page of original discussion paper, i.e., the volume of interactive comments amount to as much as ∼50% of the volume of discussion papers. The interactive comments show the full spectrum of opinions in the scientific community, ranging from harsh criticism to open applause (sometimes for the same discussion paper), and they provide a wealth of additional information and evaluation that is available to everyone.About three out of four referee comments are posted without the referee’s name, showing that most referees in the scientific community of ACP prefer anonymity. There are, however, interesting differences between sub-disciplines: on average about 20% of theoreticians and computer modelers sign their referee comments, while only 10% of the laboratory and field experimentalists do so. It appears that modelers more often provide suggestions and ideas for which they like to claim authorship as a reward. The anonymous referee comments are generally also very constructive and substantial. The ACP editors do not actively moderate the public discussions but reserve the right to delete abusive or inappropriately worded comments. Out of the nearly 20,000 interactive comments that have been posted so far, only a handful were removed or replaced because of inappropriate wording, which demonstrates efficient self-regulation by transparency.Some colleagues have expressed concerns that referees may lose their independence by having access to the comments from fellow referees and from the public. Indeed, referees with limited capacities occasionally seem to duplicate or refer to earlier comments without making up their own mind, but this is fairly easy to recognize and to take into account by editors and readers. Much more often, however, referees constructively build on or contradict earlier comments, which enhances the efficiency of review and discussion substantially. In theory, the independence of referees could be maintained by keeping submitted referee comments non-public until all referees have submitted their comments and these are all together published at the same time. In practice, however, this would cause unnecessary delays (“waiting for the last referee”) and stifle rather than promote interactive discussion. Overall, experience shows that the advantages of enabling direct interaction between referees clearly outweigh the disadvantages.The average rate of public commenting in addition to the designated referees’ and authors’ comments specified above (∼20%) may appear low at first sight. It is, however, by an order of magnitude (factor ∼10) higher than in journals with post-peer review online commenting and in traditional journals without online commenting  it is notoriously difficult to assign a couple of competent referees to every manuscript submitted for publication. In fact, this is the main bottleneck of peer review and scientific quality assurance, and most journal editors have to apply lots of manpower and electronic tools  to obtain a couple of referee comments per manuscript. Accordingly, the initiators and editors of ACP are quite satisfied with the overall number and volume of interactive comments. Higher rates of commenting were not expected and are not required to stimulate self-regulation mechanisms of scientific quality assurance Pöschl, , 2010a,bThe editorial and citation statistics of ACP clearly demonstrate that multi-stage open peer review indeed facilitates and enhances scientific communication and quality assurance. The journal has relatively low rejection rates . The combination of top visibility with high volume and low rejection rate, i.e., high efficiency by self-regulation, is a fairly unique achievement in the world of scientific publishing, where the most visible journals traditionally had relatively small volumes and high rejection rates – Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT)– Biogeosciences (BG)– Climate of the Past (CP)– Drinking Water Engineering and Science (DWES)– Earth System Dynamics (ESD)– Earth System Science Data (ESSD)– Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems ,– Geoscientific Model Development (GMD)– Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS)– Ocean Science (OS)– Social Geography (SG)– Solid Earth (SE)– The Cryosphere (TC)Figure The multi-stage open peer review concept of ACP has also been adopted by the e-journal EconomicsAtmospheric Chemistry and Physics and its EGU/Copernicus sister journals prove not only the scientific but also the economic viability and sustainability of interactive open access publishing and peer review. The journals were launched and are operated by the independent scientific society EGU and by the small commercial enterprise Copernicus without public subsidies, private donations, or venture capital as involved in the start-up and operation of other successful open access publishers like PLoS and BioMed Central. After several years of operation, ACP and its sister journals have recovered the financial investments of EGU and Copernicus during the start-up phase, and they now deliver a surplus which supports the start-up of new journals by the scientific society as well as a healthy growth of the commercial publisher generating dozens of new jobs.By developing and applying efficient software tools for the handling of manuscripts , and because minimal time and effort is wasted on carelessly prepared papers , Copernicus is able to produce top quality publications at comparatively low cost. The publication service charges are of the order of one hundred Euros per page in final double column format, i.e., about one thousand Euros for an average paper with a length of about ten pages. The service charges cover the review support from the editorial office, free use of color figures and online supplementary materials , typesetting of both the discussion and the final version of the paper, archiving and distribution of papers, and interactive comments  and overheads. In agreement between the publisher (Copernicus) and the scientific society (EGU council and publications committee), the service charges are adjusted to cover the full costs of publishing, including all the tasks and services outlined above, and to generate a modest surplus for the scientific union: ∼10% of the annual financial turnover (currently about three million Euros). The surplus is re-invested in publication development  and it helps to run the membership and outreach activities of EGU, which is a non-profit organization. Like the other scientific officers of the union, editors do their work unpaid on a purely voluntary basis. Following up on the questions and suggestions of a reviewer of this manuscript, I would like to clarify that neither I nor any other editor of ACP and the other EGU interactive open access journals have had any income from the journals that we edit as a voluntary community service. In fact, we pay regular registration fees of up to 500 EUR to attend the annual general assembly and scientific conference of our union (EGU), where the editorial board meetings take place. The separation of financial and scientific interests seems important in the context of peer review, and the ACP/EGU experience demonstrates that a purely voluntary approach on the scientific editors’ side is sustainable and compatible with efficient operation of open access journals by a commercial publisher.For each paper published in ACP, the service charges are levied from the authors or paid by their scientific institution. Since 2008 the German Max Planck Society (MPG)The ACP open access publication service charges compare quite favorably with the charges levied by other comparable scientific journals and publications:Other major open access publishers such as BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science (PLoS) typically charge more than 1,000 EUR for traditional single-stage journal publications.Traditional publishing groups like Springer charge 2,000 EUR for making individual publications in traditional subscription journals freely available online (“open choice”), i.e., they levy 2,000 EUR per online open access paper in addition to charging libraries and other subscribers for access to the journal in which it appears.In the traditional scientific publishing business, where some journals do not only limit access to subscribers or sell articles on a pay-per-view basis but also request additional publication charges from authors , the total turnover, and public costs amount to several thousand US dollars per paper. The annual turnover of journal publishing in the sector of science, technology, and medicine (STM) amounts to around seven billion USD per year, and some of the traditional publishers – led by Elsevier with a market share of about 30% – make operating profits of up to 30% and more. Note that a large proportion of the turnover and profit in STM publishing comes from packaging and selling publicly funded research results that are peer reviewed by publicly funded scientists to publicly funded institutions of education and research  open access publishing and peer review can be realized and sustained by scientific societies and  commercial publishers with tightly limited budgets and without public subsidies, private donations or venture capital. Indeed, ACP, EGU, and Copernicus demonstrate how STM publishing at large can and will hopefully soon manage a swift transition from the past of print-based subscription barriers into the future of an internet-based open access environment.The following key features of the ACP multi-stage open peer review system help ensure maximum efficiency of scientific exchange and quality assurance, making it more successful than most other forms of closed or open peer review:Publication of discussion papers before full peer review and revision: free speech, rapid publication, and public accountability of authors for their original manuscript foster innovation and deter careless submissions.Integration of public peer review and interactive discussion prior to final publication: attract more comments than post-peer review commenting, enhance efficiency, and transparency of quality assurance, maximize information density of final papers.Optional anonymity for designated referees: enables critical comments and questions by referees who might be reluctant to risk appearing ignorant or disrespectful – especially when providing a voluntary community service in which they have little to gain for investing lots of effort and time.Archiving, public accessibility, and citability of every discussion paper and interactive comment: ensure documentation of controversial scientific innovations or flaws, public recognition of commentators’ contributions, and deterrence of careless submissions.Combining all of the above features and effects is the basis for the great success of ACP and its sister journals. Missing out on one or more of these features is the main reason why most if not all alternative forms of peer review practised in other initiatives for improving scientific communication and quality assurance have been less successful .For example, the release of a “pre-publication history” and/or the opportunity for “peer commentary” after completion of the actual peer review and publication of the final revised manuscript as practiced by the BMC medical journals of BioMed CentralFor several reasons also the “open peer review trial” of the Nature magazine in 2006 was not a good example and measure for the engagement of scientists in interactive commenting and public peer review on the internet. In that experiment, neither the authors of an article nor their colleagues and readers had much of an incentive to participate in the public discussion. The authors had to accept that their article was exposed in parallel to public scrutiny as well as to a closed peer review process where the referee comments remain non-public and where most of submitted manuscripts are rejected not because of a lack of scientific quality but because they are not deemed sufficiently exciting for the interdisciplinary audience of the magazine (ca. 93% rejection rate)Unfortunately, however, it seems that the paramount importance of archiving and citability of manuscripts and comments has not yet been fully recognized by scientific publishers and societies. Following up on the success and leadership of the EGU in interactive open access publishing and peer review, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) has recently also engaged in experiments with “open peer review.” Instead of building on the very positive experience and success of the European sister society, however, AGU seems to follow the tracks of the unsuccessful earlier trial of Nature. Specifically, AGU announced that the discussion paper and all interactive comments shall be deleted after completion of the peer review process and final acceptance or rejection of the revised manuscript The deletion of published materials is incompatible with the virtues of traceability and reliability that are central to science and scientific publishing in general, and to the interactive open access publishing approach of ACP/EGU in particular. Deleting published scientific information is against the very nature of science.(2)The deletion of discussion papers and comments would discourage potential commentators, and it would imply a disregard for the value of scientific discourse The use of digital object identifiers (DOI) entails legal obligations of ensure permanent archiving and accessibility.(4)Even if it were desirable, it would be practically impossible to “unpublish” a discussion paper published in ACPD. Upon online publication, the papers are copied into multiple electronic repositories. Moreover, referees, readers, and other internet users can and do download copies for storage at arbitrary locations that are beyond the control of any the publisher. Therefore, a published paper can be formally withdrawn/retracted by publication of a commentary analogous to stating the reasons like in traditional print journals. It can, however, not be “unpublished” by deletion from the web pages and archives of the journal.One of the central aims of interactive open access publishing is high efficiency in scientific communication and quality assurance. As detailed in the attached articles, the average quality and visibility of ACP, and its sister journals are higher than those of most comparable journals while the rejection rates are lower. The highly efficient mechanism of review, publication, and self-regulation would hardly work if authors could submit manuscripts at any rate and simply delete published discussion papers if the public peer review and editorial decision were not favorable (or for any other reason).Experience and rational thinking suggest that multi-stage open peer review should be applicable and beneficial for journal publications in most if not all disciplines of scientific research . For consistency and traceability, discussion papers, and interactive comments should generally remain archived and citable as published, and they should be regarded as proceedings-type publications. Due to the proceedings character of discussion papers, the authors of revised manuscripts that may not have been accepted for final publication in the interactive open access journal to which they had originally been submitted can still pursue review and publication in alternative journals. As indicated above, such aspects are particularly important with regard to highlight magazines or journals in which the review process is not only aimed at ensuring scientific quality but also at high selectivity with regard to interdisciplinary relevance and visibility, which entails low probability of acceptance even for manuscripts of high quality .In addition to the above general features, the following specific procedural aspects have turned out to be important for the practical implementation and effectiveness of interactive open access publishing and peer review:For the assignment of a newly submitted manuscript to a handling editor, the online editorial office automatically sends invitation letters to all editorial board members covering the relevant subject areas (based on index terms selected by authors). Depending on competence and availability, each editorial board member can then decide if s/he wants to take editorship . If no handling editor can be found via the automated assignment process, the authors and the executive editors are informed and asked to directly contact individual board members if they are ready to take editorship. This second line of editor assignment in ACP is similar to the regular editor assignment procedure in the open access journal Biology DirectPrior to publication in the discussion forum, the editor is asked to evaluate whether the submitted manuscript is within the scope of the journal and whether it meets basic quality criteria. If necessary, the editor may consult referees for a rapid and preliminary initial rating of the manuscriptIn the final response phase at the end of the interactive public discussion, the authors shall respond to all comments. The editor has the opportunity of adding comments and suggestions, but normally editorial decisions and recommendations should not be taken and expressed before the authors have responded to all comments . Instead, it shall be up to the authors to decide if they want to pursue final publication and how they shall revise their manuscript in view of the public review and discussion (self-regulation once again). Depending on the situation, they can but need not ask and wait for the editor to give advice on how to proceed and if a revised version is likely to be accepted for final publication. After receiving critical feedback, mature, and responsible scientists should normally know best how to revise their manuscript. Indeed, the improvements upon revision of a manuscript after public discussion often go far beyond the requests and suggestions expressed by the referees. Premature interference by the editor would likely reduce rather than enhance the authors’ motivation for improving the manuscript upon revision. Moreover, premature editorial recommendations published by the editor before seeing the authors’ final response and the revised manuscript could potentially bias the final decision about acceptance or rejection.After receiving the revised manuscript the editor has a complete picture, can check if all comments and suggestions have been properly taken into account, and can suggest or request further improvements. If required, the process of review and revision can be iterated with the help of referees. So far, such iterations of peer review as well as appeal procedures in case of controversial editorial decisions have not been handled in public to avoid unnecessary complications. In the end, however, the discussion forum can and shall be used to explain editorial decisions in a rational and transparent way as illustrated by the following example Pöschl, 38:Currently, the editorial guidelines of ACP encourage editors to publish scientifically useful referee-author exchanges from non-public part of peer review completion in similar ways as in the exemplary case cited above. In the future, intermediate manuscript versions and related comments from the access review or the review completion shall be automatically made available upon publication of a manuscript in ACPD or ACP, respectively . If, however, a newly submitted manuscript is not accepted for publication in ACPD or a revised manuscript is not accepted for publication in ACP, the manuscript, and related comments shall be kept confidential in order to avoid escalation of scientific disputes and to maintain the authors’ opportunity of pursuing publication in alternative publishing venues Defining different types of scientific publication Resolving doubts about the viability of open peer review Starting the flow of submissions and debate Maintaining coherence Computational and administrative infrastructure Maintaining liveliness of peer review discussion Open names policy Should some evaluation take place prior to publication or should all evaluation occur post-publication? Experience and rational consideration suggest that the main review process should take place before  publication of a manuscript. A fundamental disadvantage of pure post-publication review is that the reviewers cannot contribute to a revision and improvement of the published manuscript. Thus, both the authors and the reviewers are likely to consider critical comments as destructive rather than constructive. Moreover, the reviewer has less incentive to invest effort and time in suggesting additions and corrections, including but not limited to referencing relevant related publications. Last but not least, post-publication commenting does not enhance the information density of scientific communication. If the reviewer comments cannot be implemented in a revised manuscript, the readers have to consult all comments and extract the information from there, which is much less efficient than reading a revised manuscript that synthesizes the information exchanged in the review process. For the above reasons, most publishing platforms that offer only post-publication commenting attract rather small numbers and volumes of comments.(2)Should reviews and ratings be entirely transparent, or should some aspects be kept secret? Reviews and ratings pertaining to a published manuscript should be made entirely transparent. Reviews and ratings of manuscripts that do not achieve  publication, however, should be kept confidential to avoid public escalation of scientific disputes and to give authors a chance of pursuing publication of their (revised) manuscript in alternative publishing venues.(3)Should alternative metrics, such as paper downloads be included in the evaluation? Paper download statistics are among the many possible forms of post-publication evaluation and should certainly be considered for comprehensive evaluation of scientific publications, but not without precautions against manipulation and misinterpretation of this relatively primitive usage metric. Many scientific journals, including traditional subscription journals with hidden peer review, are already providing download data and highlighting most downloaded papers. This approach certainly facilitates the detection of “hot papers,” but compared to long-term citation statistics and other usage metrics it seems less robust and should not be overrated.(4)How can scientific objectivity be strengthened and political motivations weakened in the future system? Like in all branches of human society and politics, transparency, and free speech appear to be the best if not the only sustainable way of pursuing objectivity in a balance of powers and interests.(5)Should the system use signed and authenticated reviews and ratings or anonymous ones, or both? An entirely open and traceable exchange of scientific arguments in the form of signed and authenticated comments is certainly desirable and shall be encouraged. For practical reasons, however, it seems appropriate and beneficial to allow also for anonymous reviews. Optional anonymity enables critical comments and questions by referees who might be reluctant to risk appearing ignorant or disrespectful – especially when providing a voluntary community service in which they have little to gain for investing lots of effort and time.(6)Should the evaluation be an ongoing process, such that promising papers are more deeply evaluated? The evaluation of scientific publications has to be and generally is an ongoing process – with regard to citation counting as well as commenting and other forms of evaluation that are and have long been in use. Note that also traditional journals with hidden peer review also allow for commentaries referring to earlier papers. In practice, however, relatively few papers seem to attract comments after  publication. Moreover, most authors seem to prefer finalizing a publication at some point, and following up with new studies rather than continuously revising and updating old papers. For certain types of publications such as review articles, continuous extension, and revision may be a good and attractive approach as exemplified by the Living Reviews project and journal family(7)How can we bring science and statistics to the evaluation process ? Scientific reviews and ratings are necessarily subject to the same uncertainties and progress as the studies that undergo rating and review. Thus, it seems natural to assess also the reliability of reviews and ratings. One of the many advantages of open peer review is the public availability of reviews and ratings, which makes them accessibly for statistical analysis. Thus open access and open peer review inherently promote the development of new and improved evaluation metrics – in analogy to traditional indexing services like the ISI Web of Science and Elsevier’s SCOPUS, but much more efficiently and comprehensively because of unrestricted access and free competition for optimal solutions.(8)How should the evaluative information about each paper  be combined to prioritize the literature? The combination and balancing of different types of evaluative information  will necessarily depend on the aims and perspectives of different types of evaluation or prioritization. For example, the criteria of an evaluation exercise will likely differ for individuals and institutions, scientific researchers and teachers, innovation, and reliability, short-term and long-term impact, etc. In any case, it should be kept in mind statistical indicators are sometimes useful but always also prone to misinterpretation .(9)Should different individuals and organizations be able to define their own evaluation formulae ? Obviously, different individuals and institutions may pursue different goals and should thus be able to apply different criteria and weighting schemes. Moreover, evaluators and service providers should compete in developing the best possible metrics and indicators. This is already the case with ISI Web of Science and Elsevier SCOPUS, and through open access and open peer review many more parties can participate, contribute, and help to overcome the obsolete monopoly/oligopoly structures of scientific indexing.(10)How can we efficiently transition toward the future system? An efficient transition to open evaluation in science can be achieved by combining the strengths of traditional peer review with the opportunities of interactive and transparent community assessment on the internet. The concept of multi-stage open peer review has been designed and successfully applied to induce this transition in the geosciences and is spreading into other disciplines. It can be flexibly adjusted to the needs and peculiarities of different scientific communities, and it has the potential of replacing hidden peer review as the standard of scientific quality assurance and forming the basis of an open evaluation system.ACP and its sister journals very clearly demonstrate that interactive open access publishing with a multi-stage peer review process effectively resolves the dilemma between rapid scientific exchange and thorough quality assurance. They have proven that multi-stage open peer review indeed fosters scientific discussion, deters submission of sub-standard manuscripts, saves refereeing capacities, and enhances information density in final papers. Moreover, ACP, EGU and Copernicus prove the financial sustainability of open access publishing, and they may serve as a role model for how STM publishing at large can manage the transition from the past of print-based subscription barriers into the future of internet-based open access. The key for a successful, smooth, and efficient transition is to utilize the opportunities of modern technology and interactivity while maintaining the strengths of traditional structures and procedures.arXiv.org – simply by adding an interactive discussion forum. Equipped with appropriate interactive commenting tools, a large repository such as arXiv.org could not only serve as an archive for “preprints” or “e-prints,” but also as a platform for efficient review and discussion, where authors could post their discussion papers and different journals could send their referees for public review. Similarly, individual publishers could set up central discussion forums to serve different journals or journal sections :– free speech (for authors and scientific community)– original opinions– immediate publication and disseminationTopical journal :– thorough quality assurance (collaborative peer review)– comprehensive, complete and validated informationHighlight magazine (abstracts):– highly condensed information– interdisciplinary relevance and public interest– three-stage selection process (distillation).The interactive open access highlight magazine shall be dedicated to the selection and presentation of the abstracts of highlight papers, which outline the forefront of research and are of high interdisciplinary relevance and public interest. The editorial board of the magazine shall select highlight papers that have undergone public peer review and discussion in topical open access journals, and the abstracts of the highlight papers shall be commented and compiled with direct references and links to the original papers and journals, respectively. By building on rather than competing with topical scientific journals, the highlight selection process and magazine shall provide high efficiency, conciseness and interdisciplinarity without compromising scientific completeness and quality assurance. This might also be a way forward for traditional highlight magazines like Nature or Science covering the full width of scientific disciplines.The basic concepts of interactive open access publishing and peer review can be easily adjusted to the different needs and capacities of different scientific communities by maintaining or abandoning referee anonymity, shortening, or prolonging the public discussion phase, adding post-peer review commenting and rating tools for readers, making all steps/iterations of peer-review and revision transparent, adding further stages of publication for re-revised manuscripts, establishing feedback loops for editorial quality assurance, etc.Figure Besides communication and evaluation of scientific results, multi-stage open peer review might also be applicable for efficient evaluation of scientific research proposals in the form of citable discussion papers. Again all involved parties could profit from public documentation, scrutiny, and citability. At first sight, it might appear that the authors of a proposal would run a high risk of “losing” innovative project ideas to the public. In practice, however, they might be better protected from (hidden) plagiarism and obstruction by competitors, and the citable publication might actually help them to claim authorship, precedence, and recognition for their ideas. At the same time, the scientific community and society at large might profit from rapid dissemination of innovative ideas.Overall, interactive open access publishing and peer review can strongly enhance scientific exchange and quality assurance. The concept has been very successfully applied and extended over the past decade, demonstrating both the scientific benefits and the financial sustainability of open access. It will likely emerge as a best practice model for the future of scientific publishing, and it provides a solid basis for efficient use and augmentation of scientific knowledge in the global information commons  could be produced and made freely available on the internet at the same or lower cost in a proper publishing market rather than the current subscription scheme with oligopoly character.In order to accelerate the improvement of scientific communication and evaluation in a global information commons, I would like to renew the following propositions and recommendations to scientists and scientific publishers, librarians, institutions, and funding agencies Pöschl, , 2010b:,Promote open access to publicly funded research publications by appropriate guidelines and by moving funds from subscription budgets to publication budgets – preferably at high rates (20% per year or more). Obviously, traditional publishers are reluctant to undermine their profits as long as they can rely on rigid subscription schemes, but the ones who are ready to serve science will swiftly adapt to new financing schemes as illustrated by the open choice model and acquisition of BioMedCentral by SpringerPromote multi-stage open peer review in new and existing journals, repositories, and other publication platforms. Public review and interactive discussion are technically straightforward and can be flexibly adjusted to different scientific communities, but care should be taken when dealing with key features of peer review and scientific discourse .Promote the development and implementation of new and improved metrics for the impact and quality of scientific publications . Note that open access is urgently needed to stimulate innovation by competition in this field, which has long been hampered by monopoly structures. The working capacities of librarians and related information professionals that may be liberated by the end of the subscription business are urgently needed for the structuring, processing, quality assurance, and digital preservation of scientific contents, bibliometric data, and statistical analyses both at scientific institutions and at commercial service providers.The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


Environmental Health respond to an unusual initiative taken by editors of 14 toxicology journals to influence pending decisions by the European Commission to establish a framework for regulating chemicals that pose a hazard to normal function of the endocrine system. This initiative is also the subject of this Commentary in this journal by authors who recently reviewed the subject and who point out inaccuracies in the toxicology editors’ critique. The dispute is about potential public policy development, rather than on science translation and research opportunities and priorities. The toxicology journal editors recommend that chemicals be examined in depth one by one, ignoring modern achievements in biomedical research that would allow new understanding of the effects of classes of toxic substances in complex biological systems. Concerns about policy positions framed as scientific ones are especially important in a time with shrinking public support for biomedical research affects priorities. In such a setting, conflict of interest declarations are important, especially in research publications that address issues of public concern and where financial and other interests may play a role. Science relies on trust, and reasonable disclosure of financial or other potential conflicts is therefore essential. This need has been emphasized by recent discoveries of hidden financial conflicts in publications in toxicology journals, thus misleading readers and the public about the safety of particular industrial products. The transparency provided by Environmental Health includes open access and open peer review, with reader access to reviews, including the identity of reviewers and their statements on possible conflicts of interest. However, the editors of the 14 toxicology journals did not provide any information on potential conflicts of interest, an oversight that needs to be corrected.The co-Editors-in-Chief of  In a Commentary published in this journal, Bergman et al.  respond The essence of the position of the toxicology journal editors is that there is insufficient evidence to justify any new regulation regarding effects of chemicals on the endocrine system. They further endorse the general strategy that risk assessments of the tens of thousands of untested chemicals be conducted separately for each, one at a time. This conclusion reminds us of the unfortunate advice another group of toxicology experts gave more than 20 years ago in regard to developmental toxicology: “Differences in sensitivity between children and adults are chemical specific and must be studied and evaluated on a case-by-case basis” . The relth century whole organism assay  that was the mainstay of a much older generation of toxicologists. This view was prevalent before the discovery and deciphering of the genetic code and before the first hormone protien was sequenced (1953) or radioimmunoassay (1960) ushered in a new era in endocrinology. At about the same time, compartment analysis and mathematical modeling of systems with feedback loops became possible, but the more complicated biological systems remained relatively intractable until methods for qualitative analysis of systems of coupled non-linear differential equations and chaotic systems became prevalent starting in the 1980s. Recently these analytical methods have been linked with modern genomics, epigenetics, and microanalysis of biological compounds, thereby revealing a New World of effects and consequences unforeseen by classical toxicology.Dietrich et al. assert (without supporting citation) that the proposed legal framework deliberately ignores or is ignorant of time-tested principles of the science of toxicology that have been universally accepted for centuries . They ofModern endocrinology has therefore seen a paradigm change prompted by modern methods of science. However, the view of the editors of the journals represented by Dietrich et al.  appears Thus, the methods and teachings that underlie the editorial by Dietrich et al. , while nBut the editorial by Dietrich et al.  is not rApart from these differences in perspectives, there are some important links to science policy that should not be left uncommented upon. The demand that chemicals be considered one at a time comes in a context where public funding for research is contracting. In the EU, the plans for Horizon 2020 suggest that the funding for biomedical research will fall while it becomes even more focused, and the US biomedical research budget is shrinking for the first time in its history. Private corporations are at the same time voicing concerns about the burden of having to test their chemical products. In this context, the arduous and time-consuming task of chemical-by-chemical evaluation by classical standards of toxicology is not just a delay in providing vital information about the safety of our environment but, practically speaking, a denial of such testing as a matter of policy. The view of Dietrich et al. [Whatever the course of action, there will be trade-offs. Policy decisions are not just about a simple balancing of risks and benefits. Usually the risks fall disproportionately on those who do not accrue the most benefits. In such a setting, conflicting goals are to be expected and it is in just such a setting that transparency about conflicts of interest becomes paramount. Editors of science journals should be beyond such conflicts, and their decisions on their colleagues’ manuscripts should be neutral and impartial. We realize that this is not necessarily always the case , but anyIn July of this year, a court case revealed that the four independent laboratories who contributed to a peer-reviewed article in one of the toxicology journals may not have been as independent as the publication suggested . The papUnfortunately, since the information is withheld it is especially difficult to find out how often this occurs. Some insight into hidden conflicts of interest stems from documents obtained at trials, particularly those involving tobacco companies or drug companies . In someThe portfolio of the publisher of the journal in question also includes another toxicology journal where one of us (PG) served for many years on the editorial board. Last year, the journal published several articles timed to coincide with regulatory initiatives regarding endocrine disruptors and other human health hazards with a clear bias toward industry interests, thus provoking a discussion on conflicts of interest. The publisher offered to conduct a thorough review of all manuscript authors and reviewers to determine whether a bias was present. However, the publisher failed to act on the promise, resulting in an end to a long-term collaboration.In general terms, a conflict of interest exists when an author “has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) his or her actions”. Although remedies exist to close a widespread credibility gap with industry-sponsored research, they are meaningful only in connection with transparency. The problem of hidden agendas has magnified as the power of science to legitimate regulation of pollutants has become more obvious and academic research increasingly dependent on industry support . Thus, sEnvironmental Health had a potential undeclared conflict. In that instance, an immediate correction was published. We believe that open peer review and open access provide additional safeguard, as readers have access to the peer reviews and information on possible conflicts of interest among both authors and peer reviewers. But it is no guarantee and we will continue to be on the alert.We emphasized in our recent Editorial  that truTrust is also a necessary condition, upon which the links between scientists, journal editors, reviewers, publishers, and, ultimately, the public rely. Perhaps it was an oversight, or perhaps Dietrich et al. believe that editors do not need to provide statements on conflicts of interest. Their editorial  did not Environmental Health but have no other interests to declare.PG and DO are founding editors-in-chief of PG drafted the first version of the manuscript, and DO and PG both contributed to and approved the final version.


Clinical Proteomics, I have exciting news to share with you.As the Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Proteomics is entering a new and exciting era of open access publishing. The journal has now been transferred to BioMed Central, an online only open access publisher, which is part of Springer Science and Business Media. Becoming open access and online will result in immediate and free access to all articles, and faster review and publication times. High visibility will result from all content being made accessible via web search engines, as well as indexing with PubMed and PubMed Central.As you know, personalized medicine is expected to revolutionize health care delivery in the next decade. I believe that targeted proteomic diagnostics and therapeutics will be the basis of personalized molecular medicine. Recent advances in proteomic and bioinformatic technologies, such as mass spectrometry and protein microarrays, have been used successfully to detect disease-associated biomarkers in complex biological specimens such as tissues, cell lysates, serum, plasma, and other body fluids. Extensive validation will be needed to translate these biomarkers into targeted clinical use.Clinical Proteomics is in the position to take advantage of these opportunities by providing a scholarly forum for novel scientific research in the field of translational proteomics, with special emphasis on the application of proteomic technology to all aspects of clinical investigations including academic, clinical laboratory, pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries.Clinical Proteomics will be a truly international journal providing an authoritative forum for this field. I hope that you would consider submitting your work to this exciting journal in its new format - Clinical Proteomics.We have assembled a strong editorial team of leading scientists in the field of clinical proteomics including Associate Editors Mark Baker, PhD , Robert J. Cotter, PhD , Dennis Hochstrasser, MD , Gil Omenn, MD, Ph.D  and Hui Zhang, PhD  as well as Editorial Board Members who are outstanding scientists and clinicians in the field of clinical proteomics. I fully expect that


Publishing research in open access (OA) journals ensures free and permanent unrestricted online access to peer-reviewed articles , and incHaving had success in biomedical and physics publishing, support continues to grow for open access in chemistry, in particular amongst the cheminformatics community. The range of benefits for authors and institutions makes open access a viable and effective publishing model for chemistry research.This poster provides an overview of the benefits of open access, and compares the OA model to traditional subscription journal publishing.


These are exciting times for translational medicine as the convergence between fundamental and clinical research comes of age. The new EMBO Press publishing platform reinforces the standing of EMBO Molecular Medicine as the journal that matches high quality, novel research with rigorous editorial and ethical standards. It will also cement the journal's global reach and relevance - whether in highly active fields or explorative forays into emerging areas. The ever shifting scientific publishing landscape poses new challenges and requires the freedom and flexibility to continuously adapt and evolve. EMBO is therefore launching its own publishing platform, EMBO Press, in collaboration with Wiley and HighWire Press. EMBO Press is uniquely positioned to build on the reputation our journals have built by publishing great science, and turn this to the advantage of the global life sciences community. As a prestigious independent publisher, free from ‘for-profit’ commercial objectives, EMBO Press can and will ensure that the interests of science are put at the heart of the publishing process – while promoting and applying, in our best tradition, high ethical and editorial standards and innovation to enhance the communication of research. All the income benefits from publishing will continue to support EMBO – and, as a consequence, the scientific community – through its many activities and initiatives.EMBO Molecular Medicine has been published by Wiley since 2009. Wiley will now support editorial production and marketing of all four EMBO scientific journals. HighWire Press is at the forefront of digital scholarly publishing and will provide a consistent, reliable and innovative online platform for the journals. Many leading journals in the life sciences rely on HighWire Press and we look forward to cooperating with these journals on technology and policy developments. EMBO Molecular Medicine will be an integral part of this venture in applying and further developing the EMBO Press editorial policies — including transparent peer-review, scooping protection, referee cross-commenting and the source data initiative.EMBO reports, The EMBO Journal and Molecular Systems Biology, EMBO Press will serve as a platform for our joint policies and initiatives, guided by our international advisory boards of leading researchers and the scientific community. A single, strong voice pushing for greater fairness, transparency and innovation in the interests of life scientists will contribute to improving the way that science is communicated and used and researchers are assessed.As a shared identity with the other three EMBO journals — EMBO Molecular Medicine? EMBO Molecular Medicine will continue to be a highly selective open access journal dedicated to research at the interface between clinical research and basic science. The most obvious and immediate change is the launch of the new journal website, alongside the EMBO Press website. Over the next few months, we will make significant enhancements to help scientists present their data, making it more accessible and reusable, while improving the experience for both authors and readers. We are clearly moving forward into an exceptional time for translational medicine as the convergence between fundamental and clinical research comes of age. EMBO press will help establish EMBO Molecular Medicine as a medium for high quality research whether in highly active areas or new, explorative forays into emerging research areas.What does this mean in particular for We hope that our authors and readers will agree and support us on this journey and help move us forward.Find out more at embopress.org. As always, we welcome your comments as they will inform future enhancements.The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.


There is no need of pageantry to celebrate this ultimate success of The Journal of Headache and Pain (TJHP), reporting an increase in Impact Factor (IF) values, rising up to 2.779 for 2012, with an increase of 14,5% versus its own 2011 IF and a superb 35,5% versus 2010 IF.This growth is physiologically sane, rooted on citations widely distributed on the majority of the published papers. We did not benefit from citation peaks given to innovative RCTs or inescapable classifications.Beyond doubts in few years we turned an ailing journal into today’s global cultural platform . “We” meThe authors who chose to publish here have gained a complete absence of political varnish on editorial decisions, a pit-stop speed on the various phases of publication process and, as an added value and only in case of missed publication for low priority, their immediate resubmission towards other open access related journals without loosing the peer-reviewing phases already taken. This is the SpringerOpen standard.A particular warm thank goes to the many reviewers who daily accept revisions with particularly strict deadlines. They are the spine of TJHP. Thanks to them, in less than two months the editorial process is usually complete, from the submission to the eventual appearance on PubMed. Many have appreciated this.ante litteram APC?Still many confuse open access and Article Processing Charge (APC). TJHP is open access since 2011 and has introduced the APC since 2013. Neither of these two factors has had a preponderant impact on TJHP evolution. The courage to precociously undertake the difficult open access choice, strategy today widely accepted and much used, has allowed a sowing of TJHP contents. APC, from many considered as an obstacle in the beginning, has not been lived as such in the end. APC guarantees the completeness in the budgeting process of a structured research project. Many of us remember that, more than some years ago, the budget of a research project must include an economic coverage for reprints. What was it if not an Moreover, submission flow has not been affected from this new procedure. It has rather produced a useful waste of low-quality remains resulting in an evident fall of immediate rejection for unsound submissions.The cultural liberalism promoted by TJHP in headache research, connected with its strong educational vocation, allowed new research groups to appear in the headache disorders area. TJHP has always had as cornerstone the removal of the barriers which impoverish both basic and clinical research, highlighting the necessity to open this parterre to many more actors in order to reach effective results, being evident the imbalance between the headache disorders epidemiological vastness and the correlated scientific production.ad hoc partnerships. This might be rewarding for everybody, scientists and clinical experts, readers and patients.It is however essential to notice that, from an accurate analysis of the headache disorders editorial scenario, all area journals were rewarded and this witnesses that there is still room to further grow. The new frontiers strategy, in terms of sharing borderline headache disorders with other disciplines than those usual ones, must be favored and encouraged with The race “we” have in the offing is not over.


Science students and active researchers are evaluated and assessed many times during theircareer as they progress from high school to university to graduate school to one or morepostdoc positions to eventually—most of us hope—a secure job. As high school students, wewere judged by exam results, grade-point averages or standardized test scores. Later, fromgraduate school onwards, we are mostly evaluated according to the quality of our research.Performing well in such evaluations is essential for anyone who wants to advance in aresearch environment, so it is crucial that these assessments are performed in a way thatis fair and transparent.The system of evaluation and assessment places substantial pressure on early careerresearchers, especially when looking for a fellowship or a tenure-track position in auniversity or research institute. It is not uncommon for job or fellowship announcements toattract hundreds of applications. Many scientists, especially those in the early stages oftheir career, believe that their chances of succeeding (or even getting an interview)depend primarily on the impact factors of the journals in which they have published. Thisis more true in some institutions and countries than in others . AlthougAnd the pressure does not go away after you have landed a tenure-track position, becausethe next challenges are to secure grant money and to convince your new colleagues that youdeserve tenure. (Plus you have to show that you are a good colleague). Again, despite whatsenior investigators tell them and what the grant-awarding agencies say, many pre-tenureresearchers believe that the number of papers in top-tier journals is the key toprofessional success and happiness. It is worth repeating here that the journal impactfactor was never intended to be a measure of the quality of individual research papers: itwas designed as a tool for comparing journals (and even then it has certain limitations),and scientists themselves are largely to blame for allowing it to influence decisions abouthiring and promotion to the extent that it does .eLife, we recognize these pressures and have introduced a number ofmeasures for the benefit of our colleagues who are in the early stages of their careers.First, we encourage corresponding authors who do not have tenure to mention this in theircover letter. The Senior Editor who handles the manuscript will take this into account whendeciding whether or not it merits in-depth peer review by a Reviewing Editor and one ormore external referees . And if the Senior Editor decides that a manuscript from an early careerresearcher should not be sent for in-depth peer review, the authors will in general receivemore than just a standard rejection letter.At referees : asa reeLife have agreed to write a letter of recommendation on behalf of thefirst author in support of job or fellowship applications, and many authors have requestedand received such letters.Second, we recognize that graduate students and postdocs require letters of recommendationwhen they are applying for jobs and fellowships. Therefore, the Senior Editors ofeLife have agreed to write a letter ofrecommendation on behalf of the first author in support of job or fellowshipapplications.The Senior Editors of eLife Research Articles by early career researchers and inviting thefirst or corresponding author on each article to give a presentation at a meeting organizedby one of the three agencies that sponsor the journal . Since most eLife authorsare not funded by these agencies, this initiative gives these early career researchers avaluable opportunity to publicize and discuss their work with audiences that will includemany leading researchers in their field. The names of the first four authors to be invitedto give such presentations have just been announced  scientific criteria, our commitment to open access, ourpolicy of making the most of digital media by not restricting the number of words, figuresor references in a Research Article, our ability to integrate data and video into articles,our sharing of referee reports for rejected articles with a number of other journals, ourcommitment to extending the reach and impact of articles through plain-language summaries,Insight articles and podcasts, and our progressive media policy, which allows authors toshare their results with others ahead of publication if they wish .We also promise that the initial decision on submissions will be quick—the average ispresently 3 days—and that manuscripts will not be subjected to needless cycles of revisionand re-review before they are eventually accepted or rejected. Those near the start oftheir career may have time on their side, but when you have an exciting story to tell, andthe competition on the career ladder is intense, the last thing you can afford to happen isfor your work to languish in a seemingly endless editorial process.


PLOS Medicine Editors reflect on recent advances in Open Access to medical research and identify challenges to be addressed in 2014.In their editorial for December 2013, the Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary PLOS Medicine editorial on its publication day, it will be New Year's Eve, that traditional boundary between past and future. Perhaps this holiday is itself a precursor of medical research, being an example of how careful observation of nature shapes human activity; it comes on a day when ancient empiricists  might have felt relief at good evidence that winter days were indeed going to get lighter.For our readers who find their way to this It's been a busy season for extending the light of scientific understanding through access to its reports. Broadly conceived, scientific research can explore the universe from its greatest expanses to it minutest components, but medical research, if it is to be worthy of the name, has to find its way back to the human body in its dignities and privacies, the mind's motivation towards meaningful activity, and the intricate social institutions that shape our responses to illness. Looking forward, we see great opportunities for Open Access publications to advance human health, provided the medical research and publishing communities can rise to the challenges that come with them.Whatever journal editors may prefer, it is simply a fact that post-publication peer review can take place in any number of locations, most of which are remote from the journal-based article. The biggest holiday event on this theme has to have been the launch of PubMed Commons, which permits authors with certain qualifications to comment on PubMed abstracts. As the initial “closed beta pilot commenting system” transitions to more general availability, stakeholders will continually encounter the challenge of how to ensure that commentary raises the standard of discourse . It is also unclear how comments will address full publications rather than abstracts alone, particularly when the full article is not openly available. Journals will be able to import comments into their own article display, but will need to address technical challenges in order to do so. Since commenting itself is a social process, it seems natural that reactions to the launch of PubMed Commons were “storified” PLOS Medicine by Dechartres and colleagues, who searched trial registrations in the ClinicalTrials.gov database and found that, among trial registrations with results posted in the database, only half also had trial results published in a peer-reviewed journal The importance of looking beyond a single journal article is also suggested by a study published earlier this month in PLOS Medicine in 2014.Among our research articles this month is a “systematic review of systematic reviews” by Bes-Rastrollo and colleagues AllTrials initiative, and PLOS Medicine has taken steps to help bring that goal to fruition, through the RIAT initiative  PLOS Medicine, they must also meet the requirements of the PLOS data sharing policy PLOS Medicine's change in editorial policy, suggests that journal editors should not accept for publication trials  that have not been prospectively registered, adhering to the letter of such a requirement would ensure that some trials, even those conducted ethically and appropriately but with some misunderstanding, lack of knowledge, or administrative glitch that resulted in retrospective registration, would never see the light of day in a peer-reviewed journal. We believe that PLOS Medicine's policy supports the goal of the Declaration of Helsinki—ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects, including the Declaration's statement that “Researchers have a duty to make publicly available the results of their research on human subjects and are accountable for the completeness and accuracy of their reports”—even more effectively by, under specific conditions, considering retrospectively registered clinical trials for possible publication, and at the same time encouraging registration of all types of clinical research and public posting of study results.Publication bias also remains a problem, as many clinical studies are never published, for reasons ranging from intent to suppress “undesirable” results to loss of interest in writing and submitting the manuscript. Not publishing ethically conducted research is an ethical breach in itself: patients participate with the understanding that study results will be shared. Publishing all ethically conducted trials regardless of results is the goal of the PLOS Medicine Policy Forum this month, Karunakara and colleagues report on their experience sharing data from projects conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) In a Open Access Button project aims to provide real-time, worldwide, interactive insight into this problem. The project is based on a simple browser plug-in, which will record when a paywall is encountered, the reader's location and profession, and the reason for wanting to access the article. The plugin will also search for any freely accessible version of the article. A beta version of the tool was released in November and will provide fresh data on the impact of further expanding Open Access.Even as PLOS celebrates 10 years as an Open Access publisher, and mandates by government and funding agencies establish Open Access as the norm for publishing research PLOS Medicine Editors are glad of the progress that has taken place in 2013 and look forward to the support of our authors, academic editors, peer reviewers, and readers in addressing the challenges of the New Year. Good health!The


Editorial independence is crucial for the intellectual life of a scientific journal. A journal exists only as an idea created by authors and readers, with some editorial orchestration. Editorial independence can be compromised by pressure put on editors by their owners–whether commercial publishers or professional organizations. Both types of owners rely heavily on income from paid advertising in their print journals. Yet, the massive expansion of journal readership that has resulted due to the development of the Web has effected a marked shift in the readership of the journal, both geographically and intellectually, producing a new community of users who see only electronic versions of the journal. Commercial pressures on owners to satisfy the interests of the  print readership conflict with the editorial independence needed to respond to the vast Web constituency. This is a major source for compromise of editorial independence. Reduction of commercial pressures by transferring editorial costs to authors and by other cost-reducing models are discussed in this article. Editorial independence is the indispensable principle governing the intellectual environment that nourishes the soul of a scientific journal. A journal is an idea or set of ideas created by readers and authors, orchestrated to some extent by editors. For this community to function with a high level of efficacy, editors must insist upon the principle of intellectual integrity and defend the rights of authors and readers to speak openly and honestly.th anniversary of the printing of John Milton's Areopagitica, particularly noted Milton's arguments that there are two enemies of intellectual freedom: those that are theoretical – essentially various forms of totalitarianism – and those that are practical – monopolies and bureaucracies . Scientific journals  face these enemies today, particularly the practical ones.George Orwell, writing in 1945 on the 300CMAJ  statement on editorial freedom, developed by Robert Fletcher for the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and later adopted by the ICMJE, says:www.icmje.org; “…editors-in-chief should have full authority over the editorial content of their journal. Journal owners should not interfere in the evaluation, selection, or editing of individual articles either directly or by creating an environment that strongly influences decisions. Editors should base decisions on the validity of the work and its importance to the journal's readers, not on the commercial success of the journal. Editors should be free to express critical but responsible views about all aspects of medicine without fear of retribution, even if these views might conflict with the commercial goals of the publisher.” From ICMJE statement on editorial freedom  decisions.” There is no provision for common ground on which to hold a discussion about editorial direction and even less about particular manuscripts. When the American Medical Association (AMA) fired George Lundberg, then editor of The theoretical infringements of editorial independence, at least some of the most spectacular flameouts of editors and owners, including probably my own , are repThe Lancet has a long history of tackling the broader social determinants of human health, a tradition that has been maintained from founding editor Thomas Wakley's editorials condemning polluting factories in Dickensian London (1855) to current editor Richard Horton's editorial plea to the publisher, Elsevier, to divest itself of its arms-trade business  through the lens of theoretic censorship.But in the day-to-day work of editing and publishing there is a more subtle infringement of editorial independence, which has nothing to do with political or moral perspectives; it comes from the commercial interests of the owners, the second of Orwell's enemies. The ICMJE/WAME statement could not have put it with greater clarity:“Editors should base decisions on the validity of the work and its importance to the journal's readers, not on the commercial success of the journal.”Annals of Internal Medicine should not be influenced in their decisions about a manuscript that describes a patent-protected drug by the knowledge that if they accept it, the publisher (the American College of Physicians) would pocket very large sums from the pharmaceutical company for article reprints. Nor should the owners seek advertisements from commercial companies and charge extra fees to have them placed adjacent to favourable articles about their products. Nor, indeed, should paid advertising in a journal be accepted when it is dressed up as peer-reviewed content .I suspect this ICMJE admonition or guidance is included to define a clear boundary in a narrow area – that pharmaceutical company support of a medical or health sciences journal should come with no strings attached. For example, the editors of, say, the There is, however, a more insidious “practical” censorship that revolves around the commercial success of the journal. Editors are profoundly interested – or they should be – in the profitability of their publication. It costs money to run a journal. At a minimum, the editor's interest must extend to achieving the break-even point between revenue and expenses. For owners, any profit from their journal is not only desirable but essential . And many association-owned journals generate profits for their owners – profits that the owners expect, and use, to further their lobbying interests.Practical censorship of editors will grow in importance as the costs of running a journal increase and, I will argue, because of the shifting readership resulting from the Web. Because the practical commercial forces are so different, it will be useful to distinguish between journals with high impact factors  and those with modest or low impact.The Lancet, for example, under the current editorial team has rather successfully, it appears, shifted its reader and author community into a global enterprise, presumably maintaining its subscriber bases and we hope expanding them. Those with high impact have multiple revenue streams, including substantial individual and library subscriptions, reprint sales, and commercial and classified advertising. They are exclusively closed-access journals in that much of their content  is limited to paying subscribers.  Editors of these publications must keep their subscribers in sharp focus and respond to their needs with regard to the journal's contents. If they are successful then the practical constraints on editorial independence disappear into the intellectual community of authors and readers, which can grow and adapt as the interests of this community change over time and space. CMAJ is a good example] where the “subscribers” are in fact receiving the journal at no or little cost because they are members of their professional association. Because these journals rarely publish top-tier research, the income from reprint sales is low or absent. Journal revenue is almost entirely dependent on commercial and classified employment advertising.Those with lower impact have subscription bases that are usually limited to sponsoring society members [CMAJ for example competed for media buyers’ attention with travel, humour and pseudo-CME  journals. Further, the reader eyeballs, even of the captive membership of professional associations, are drifting to the Web and e-versions of their own and others’ journals, away from revenue-generating print versions.Advertisers are willing to pay for “reader eyeballs,” hoping that their advertisements will be seen and prescriptions written or jobs filled. This business model works well if costs are held in check and the print readership maintained. However costs cannot be restrained, especially in a very competitive editorial environment, with increasing numbers of journals vying for the same authors. In addition, the captive association membership is stagnant at best and competition for reader eyeballs is increasing. Medline collection on the Web (as PubMed) and made access entirely free to users. A year later, Richard Smith, then editor of BMJ, boldly put the entire contents of the BMJ on the Web with the result that in 2007, even after the BMJ closed its site to non-subscribing visitors, it had at its most recent survey 1,216,000 unique users, while the print version circulation was not much over 125,000. Seeing this success almost all other journals followed the BMJ's example.Secondly, and of much greater importance, the readership and authorship of even low-impact journals has been profoundly influenced by the Web. The Web was commercially born about a decade ago. In 1997, the US Library of Medicine put its entire These were heady times, and merry too. Manuscript submissions, even to lower-impact journals available on the Web, increased dramatically. So did letters to the editor. The community of users (readers and authors) of all journals became larger and much more diverse than the former national or specialty-society readerships, extending to the public as well as to the media, who were able to more easily access content.This inevitably led to conflict between editors and owners. Because pharmaceutical and classified advertising revenue is virtually nonexistent for Web versions of a journal , owners of these journals are primarily and necessarily interested in satisfying the readers of their print journals.Thus, owners want more drive-through tidbits that need less science, less editing, more bullet points, charts and graphs, and if possible travel advice and cartoons, that will deliver national prescribing-physician eyeballs to the attention of media buyers; at the same time, editors are pursuing the more sophisticated, and generally younger, new readership that is interested in more global problems . Editors with large costs to cover just to break even or to deliver the profits that owners have grown accustomed to getting , must curtail their own editorial independence in the chase for money.and their growing international constituency of readers and authors. For low-impact journals it is unlikely that revenue from the Web will keep pace with costs. Thus, journals will die or editors, in the chase for advertising revenue from print readerships, will have their independence severely curtailed. But perhaps there are other options to intellectual bankruptcy?This influence on, and curtailment of, editorial scope is subtle but of great import. Journals must grow, they must change, they must follow both the clinical science of medicine as it extends far beyond the hospital or clinic CMAJ created Open Medicine (www.openmedicine.ca), they used the free journal publishing software of the Public Knowledge Project led by John Willinsky (http://pkp.sfu.ca/). Their Open Journal Systems now house over 900 journals in 10 different languages. This model immediately avoids about half of the standard journal costs, mainly those of paper, printing, and mailing of the journal. And, by way of the operating grants of the Open Knowledge Project, eliminates most of the electronic and server storage costs.The Web, while paradoxically crippling low-impact journals, creates opportunities for journals with different diffusion models. When former editors and board members of There remain, however, even for many low-impact journals, substantial editorial costs , copyeditors, technical editors, and so on). There are three, and possibly four, approaches to the need for unbiased sources of revenue for Web-only journals. I will ignore access fees which, for very high-impact factor journals, may provide a sufficient subscription revenue stream. For almost all other web-only journals, however, few readers appear willing to buy subscriptions for online access or to pay the very high fees currently charged for a single article download. Access fees also are inversely correlated to online readership volume and thus will curtail both editorial reach and any commercial advertising revenue that might one day be derived by the combination of huge readerships and miniscule download charges.PLoS Medicine, charges to authors for an accepted paper are USD $2,750. But even if all authors paid this fee (and they do not) the fee is too low to cover costs. The costs of editing just one paper at the Annals of Internal Medicine, a top medical journal, are USD $13,000  journals are examples of revenue generation through author fees. Expenses incurred are mainly to pay the editorial team, the technical editors, and support staff and to cover the costs of online publishing (avoiding entirely the costs of paper and postage because there is no print version). Nonetheless, author fees are substantial. At  $13,000 . The dowPLoSONE, the newest journal incubated by the PLoS, is designed to publish high-quality research, opinion, and commentary at a low cost, entirely paid for by smaller author levies for accepted articles, which is currently set at USD $1,250. This model uses a large number of volunteer editors who receive submitted articles and can decide to peer review them or not, to request revised manuscripts, and to make a decision on publication. The accepted article is then returned to the authors. PLoSONE does not copyedit articles but rather urges authors to have them professionally copyedited .A second alternative to alleviate financial pressure on editorial freedom is to reduce editorial costs. Here there are two journals worth examining. PLoSONE is a serious attempt to facilitate postpublication peer review through reader comments that are inserted directly into the published article; discussion groups that can be generated by readers; and a reader rating system across several categories, each with Lickert stars (similar to video ratings on YouTube). Thus, over time, articles should emerge that have considered rankings by readers. Further, one can examine article citations – a measure of the importance of the article – with Google Scholar's free citation database.Backing up this abbreviated prepublication peer and editorial review at PLoSONE editors and the large volunteer stable of contributing or corresponding editors thus escape – except for the almost modest author charges – the economic limitations of their editorial freedom. They can publish anything they like as long as authors are willing to submit and can make (collectively) the payments. (Charges are based on ability to pay.)The Open Medicine might be an example. Open Medicine is anchored on two principles: 1) That because pharmaceutical advertising places severe limits on editorial freedom, it must not be used to finance journal operations; and 2) that medical journals of high quality must be open and free to all end users, whatever their economic resources – that science and medicine are part of the commons  and economic  infringements of their editorial independence by the CMA, sought a platform for editorial independence that was ideologically and economically democratic – similar to Jim Wales’ Wikipedia. (www.wikipedia.org). The founding editors and board members – mostly former members of Open Medicine is a volunteer organization of editors, copyeditors, technical support persons, media advisors, and a wide range of other talent that aims to publish high-quality research, commentary, and opinion on any area of health and health care, the scope of which will be determined by contributors, readers, and in fact anyone who wants to participate. The scope of editorial freedom of this new journal will thus be determined by the broader constituency, one that my colleagues and I once described as a “constituent assembly”  high-quality and quantity editors to do the work of choosing what is worth reading and editing it so that it is readable. Other journals, labouring under the increasingly expensive economics of their publishing models will be obliged to chase an increasingly narrow readership that will remain country specific in a world that has become country nonspecific in everything; except, unfortunately, in nationalism.JAMA by the AMA over the publication of a particular article or my own sacking by the CMA. These are examples of differences in outlook or worldview between owners (publishers) and editors. A much more common infringement of editorial independence, affecting almost all editors, is editorial interference from commercial pressures to make money to cover journal costs and/or generate profits for the publishers. As most revenue for medical journals comes from paid advertising in print subscriptions, the commercial interference with an editor's freedom is increasing as print readership stagnates or declines and electronic readership, which does not generate revenue, explodes.There are spectacular infringements of editorial independence such as the firing of the editor of What are the main threats to editorial independence of general medical journals?Is editorial integrity compromised by the need for the journal to make money?Could these commercial pressures on editorial independence be lessened by reducing editorial costs and oversight?Could editors reduce their editorial and production costs and thus lessen commercial pressures to chase a progressively smaller and smaller print readership?John Hoey, an internist and public health physician, was editor of CMAJ from 1996 to 2006. He is currently on the faculty at Queen's University, Canada where he is involved in developing public health resources and teaching. His current research interests include a study of conflicts of interest in contract research grants between the private sector and universities in Canada (at the University of Toronto), research reporting guidelines, and the development of guidelines for reporting of research  and, most recently, in the area of the use of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) for chemotherapy of advanced malignancies (with colleagues at NIH and at McGill).