F1000Research Provides Researchers With Fast And Transparent Science Publishing Model

Online, April 23, 2013 (Newswire.com) - After analyzing its first few months, F1000Research shares that on average, articles go live within seven days of acceptance, with 35% of those published within four days or less.

"Science is more competitive than ever," said Dr. Sam Gandy, an Alzheimer's disease researcher in New York, "and I often take speed of publication into account when I choose where to submit my lab's papers," Gandy's group discovered that, in a mouse model, air pollution is linked to the development of Alzheimer's disease. "I opted to publish in F1000Research and it took only 32 hours from submission to publication."

F1000Research achieves such speedy publication as a consequence of its innovative and completely open post-publication peer review process. All accepted articles are published immediately and are then reviewed, openly, by named referees. This system puts science into the public domain without unnecessary delay. It encourages fair, honest and fast peer review, with most articles receiving two referee reports within two weeks.

This new publication model has received support from researchers who published in the journal. "After my article was published, the open post-publication peer review process was extremely quick," said Dr. Hajime Takizawa of the University of Tokyo. "My article received two reviews in the space of just five days, which is a refreshing change from the traditional reviewing system. I believe this type of review system will become a new standard for scientific publications in the near future."

F1000Research's first articles span topics from cell biology to public health and are freely accessible to all at F1000Research.com.

The journal further encourages transparency by requiring publication of complete data sets for all papers, where appropriate, and making them freely available for sharing and reuse. In addition, the journal encourages the submission of non-traditional article formats, such as data papers. Dr. Donald Cooper of the University of Colorado, Boulder, used F1000Research to publish a summary of data collected in a study that investigated the effect of ion channels on reward behavior in mice. In response to public referee comments he emphasized that he published his data set in F1000Research "to quickly share some of our ongoing behavioral data sets in order to encourage collaboration with others in the field."

Unlike most other journals, F1000Research will publish all research, regardless of potential impact. It is dedicated to encouraging scientists to publish null and negative studies, replications, and other results not normally accepted by standard journals, in the belief that all research should be communicated because doing so helps prevent redundant work and ultimately saves time and valuable funding. In addition, F1000Research will publish all article types, not only classic research papers, but also case studies, single findings, protocols, data-only papers, posters, commentaries, opinion pieces, reviews and other information that is valid and useful for other scientists.

"Open Access effectively addressed the issue of providing unrestricted access to published research for everyone, but it did not deal with the painful issues resulting from anonymous refereeing systems, significant delays to publication, missing data sets, and the limitation of what journals traditionally want to publish," said Vitek Tracz, CEO and founder of F1000. "The publishing approach we developed - we call it Open Science publishing - tries to address these issues. Its benefits to biomedical research will be enormous, and will enable us to make Open Science publishing the new reality."

For more information about F1000Research contact: Sara Preto or Michelle Suconick at Fusion Public Relations by phone at: 212-651-4214 or email at [email protected] or [email protected].

Read the full papers mentioned in this release:

Rapid doubling of Alzheimer's amyloid-β40 and 42 levels in brains of mice exposed to a nickel nanoparticle model of air pollution [v1; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/T5Rxeo]
Soong Ho Kim, Elysse M Knight, Eric L Saunders, Azita K Cuevas, Marusia Popovech, Lung-Chi Chen, Sam Gandy

Cocaine self-administration in mice with forebrain knock-down of trpc5 ion channels [v1; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/pb]
Matthew B Pomrenze, Michael V Baratta, Kristin C Rasmus, Brian A Cadle, Shinya Nakamura, Lutz Birnbaumer, Donald C Cooper

Anacardic acid, a histone acetyltransferase inhibitor, modulates LPS-induced IL-8 expression in a human alveolar epithelial cell line A549 [v1; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/o7]
Tetsuo Yasutake, Hiroo Wada, Manabu Higaki, Masuo Nakamura, Kojiro Honda, Masato Watanabe, Haruyuki Ishii, Shigeru Kamiya, Hajime Takizawa, Hajime Goto

About F1000Research

F1000Research is an original open access journal for life scientists that offers immediate publication, transparent peer review (post-publication) and full data deposition and sharing. The journal accepts all scientifically sound articles, including single findings, case reports, protocols, replications, null/negative results and more traditional articles. F1000Research is published by U.K.-based Faculty of 1000 (F1000) and has offices in London and New York.

About Faculty of 1000 (F1000)

Faculty of 1000 is the publisher of four unique services that support and inform the work of life scientists and clinicians. F1000Prime and F1000Trials provide a layer of expert opinion and guidance on published articles, and F1000Research and F1000Posters present original and useful work via open access websites that encourage transparency, sharing and debate. Members of the F1000's executive team have helped to create and launch many successful online scientific resources, including the world's first Open Access publisher--BioMed Central.

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