Committed to making the world’s
scientific and medical literature
a public resource
Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing
OASPA Webinar: Oct 20, 2009

Outline
• PLoS background
• Open-Access publishing at PLoS
• Future perspectives

PLoS Founded October, 2000
Harold Varmus
PLoS Co-founder and Chairman of the Board
President and CEO of
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Patrick O. Brown
PLoS Co-founder and Board Member
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
& Stanford University School of Medicine
Michael B. Eisen
PLoS Co-founder and Board Member
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
& University of California at Berkeley

PLoS in 2009
• Largest non-profit, open-access
publisher
• Based in San Francisco and
Cambridge, UK (~80 staff)
• Publish seven journals
• Use publication fee business model

PLoS Biology PLoS Medicine
October, 2003 October, 2004
• Professional editors
• Highly selective
• $2900 publication fee

PLoS Community Journals
June-September, 2005 October, 2007
• Community-run, by leading
researchers
• Focus on specific topic
• Scalable financial model
($2250 publication fee)

PLoS ONE
December, 2006
• Peer review judges scientific rigour
– peer reviewers do not ask how important the
work is
• Assessment after publication
– article-level metrics
• Inclusive scope
– all science and medicine
• Cost-effective
– $1350 publication fee covers all costs

PLoS Progress Report, June 2009

PLoS Progress Report, June 2009

Innovation at PLoS
• Open source publishing platform
– addition of web2.0 features
• Article-level metrics
– improved research assessment
• New publication channels
– PLoS Currents Influenza (www.ploscurrents.org)

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Challenges and opportunities for
OA publishing
• Build on success of publication fee model
– Funders and Institutions are getting involved
• Most OA journals are new
– face the challenges of any new journal
• Transition from subscription-based
publishing to OA
– more success stories needed
• New approaches for scholarly
communication
– PLoS ONE, PLoS Currents