everyONE – the PLoS ONE community blog

Click here if you are looking for the PLoS ONE journal website.

Click here if you are looking for information about how to submit to PLoS ONE.

Click here if you are looking for the manuscript submission and peer review site.

And read on if you want to know about this site!

Why a blog and why now? As of March 2009,  PLoS ONE, the peer-reviewed open-access journal for all scientific and medical research, has published over 5,000 articles, representing the work of over 30,000 authors and co-authors, and receives over 160,000 unique visitors per month. That’s a good sized online community and we thought it was about time that you had a blog to call your own. This blog is for authors who have published with us and for users who haven’t and it contains something for everyone.

Why did you call the blog everyONE? For three main reasons that encapsulate the mission of the journal. Firstly, because PLoS ONE is for every rigorous research article that passes our rigorous peer-review process. Secondly, because PLoS ONE is a forum for research in every scientific discipline (with a current emphasis on life and health sciences because of PLoS’s history). Thirdly, because PLoS ONE is a source of information for every inquisitive reader with an interest in high-quality scientific research.

What does the blog feature?

The best blog from Researchblogging.org – We pride ourselves on our relationship with the blogging community and are pleased to be one of the only publishers we know of to offer full press release rights to trusted bloggers. Partnering up with our friends at researchblogging.org, our Online Discussion Expert and trusted blogger, Bora Zivkovic, makes a monthly selection of the best blog of a PLoS ONE scientific paper. We’ll feature the blog and the paper on this site and award a prize to the blogger (and the author/s of the original PLoS ONE paper).

Commenting – All blogs offer the ability for users to correspond directly with those running them. This one is no different. The blog platform allows us to approve the comments before we post them and naturally we won’t be posting anything inappropriate (rude, insulting, personal, etc.). If you need clarity on anything, feel free to write a polite comment and we will try to reply transparently and quickly.

Feedback – Every journal has its good days and its not so good ones. We’ll try to give you the latest updates on any new developments:  from (for example) technology improvements and difficulties to new editorial policies and changes/additions to PLoS staff. We also want your feedback: if you think we need to know about any problems, or you have recently had a particularly good experience as an author or user, you can post a comment on this page to let us know.

Interviews – This blog is all about you. We want to share your work and your experiences of working with us and using our sites with others who might be curious about what it’s really like to publish here.

Media Coverage – PLoS ONE papers are in the world’s media on a daily basis. For example, we once had a 6 week streak where PLoS ONE content was featured in the New York Times for six weeks in a row! On this page you can find out more about the ways in which we promote and disseminate your research.

ONE World – Discover how you can become a “Roving Ambassador” for PLoS ONE when you attend a conference.

Polls - This blog features poll technology and we’re looking forward to finding out your opinions on a variety of scientific and publishing topics.

Resources – Generally, PLoS ONE likes to spread the word using downloads; after all, we’re an online-only journal and a non-profit so we need to keep our costs down and have our supporters help us out.

Why ONE? – If you have already published with us, you will have experienced our values and service levels for yourself. If you haven’t, this page gives you an informal guide to what it’s really like to work with us. The more detailed version is available on the journal site itself.

Videos – We made the videos on the home page for Open Access Day 2008. You’ll need Flash to be able to view them, so download a recent version if you don’t already have it.