PLoS One: good news for chemists who depend on research funding

From Open Access News: PLoS One is Making a Splash.

PLoS ONE has had more submissions (70) in its first three weeks than any other PLoS journal in the same period.

PS: Congrats to PLoS and congrats to authors for seeing the value here and supporting something new.

Heather's Comment:

PLoS, the Public Library of Science, is an open access publisher competing for the top quality market. PLoS One, a new journal providing quality peer review for articles from any discipline, is receiving lots of submissions - already 70 since it was first announced 3 weeks ago. Why is this important for chemists without borders?. While this is good news for all researchers, PLoS One is particularly important for chemists, who currently have much fewer open access options than other disciplines. Physicists, for example, have been self-archiving virtually all their work, from the preprint stage, in arXiv for many years. In most other disciplines, the majority of journals allow authors to self-archive preprints and the author's own peer-reviewed postprint. In some areas, such as medicine, the full open access publishing options are substantial and growing rapidly. Up to this point, however, chemists have been at a disadvantage, with fewer open access publishers and self-archiving options. With funders beginning to require open access, and greatly preferring immediate open access, chemists were at a disadvantage until PLoS One.

I wonder how many of those first 70 submissions were from chemists?

Chemistry Central: new open access website

BioMedCentral (BMC), the world's largest open access publisher - today launched Chemistry Central, a new open access website currently featuring chemistry article from BMC journals, with plans to offer new open access chemistry journals, beginning with Chemistry Central Journal.

For CWB members from the research community, this is a wonderful opportunity to publish open access with a publisher who has already established impressive impact factors in the area of biomedicine, and ensuring that your research results are readily available to colleagues around the globe.

Would it make sense for CWB to consider creating its own peer-reviewed journal, perhaps?

More information, commentary and reactions can be found on today's Open Access News.

Chemists Without Borders Conference Call 8-17-2006 notes

Chemists Without Borders Conference Call, 8-17-2006

1. Agenda

1.1 Introductions
1.2 Open Access
1.3 Legal
1.4 Funding
1.5 Education
1.6 Conference Presentations
1.7 Arsenic Project
1.8 Communications
1.9 Vaccines & Medicines
1.10 Personnel & Roles
1.11 Unfinished Business
1.12 Feedback

2. Introductions

2.1 Steve Chambreau
2.2 William Doria
2.3 Bego Gerber
2.4 Rolande Hodel - in absentia
Steve, Bego, amazing confference... Jonson&Jonson just blew my mind - in a positive way - I'll give you a summary - maybe for the newsletter when I am back - can you bring up the topic that AIDSfreeAFRICA is looking for volunteers with technical and accounting expertise to join us in Cameroon Jan-Feb 2007? Sorry I will have to miss the call. Cheerfully, Rolande "The humanity of our world will be measured against the fate of Africa," said Horst Koehler, German President and former managing director of the Washington, DC-based International Monetary Fund, in his inauguration address in 2004. Dr. Rolande R. Hodel, Ph.D. 125 South Highland Ave. #3-B1 Ossining, NY 10562 914-923-2073 AIDSfreeAFRICA, Inc. http://www.AIDSfreeAFRICA.org Community Partnerships Against AIDS Programs Bamenda/Cameroon http://www.copaapcam.org


2.5 Heather Morrison
» See document: http://chemistswithoutborders.blogspot.com/2006/07/draft-open-access-position-statement.html
2.6 Meghann Mouyianis
2.7 Brian Wagner

3. Legal Issues

3.1 Perry on vacation
3.1.1 Will move our 501(c)3 to top of his pile on his return
3.2 Steve has large list of things to work on

4. Open Access

4.1 Feedback@chemistswithoutborders.org email ready
4.2 Newsletter attachment public statement
4.3 Bill Doria: New issue for him
4.4 Schools moving towards making their work accessible
4.5 Support Open Source science a al Jean-Claude Bradley
4.5.1 Doing things in new ways
4.5.2 E.g., Human Genome Project
4.6 Chemistry slowest to implement owing to being major publisher with vulnerable budgets
4.7 Peer reviewed articles published as open access
4.8 Some journals charge publishing fees, others do not
4.9 NIH prefers open access
4.10 Wellcome Trust (UK) insists on open access to results
4.11 Research Councils (UK) 4/8 requiring open access to the work they fund
4.12 Make existing work open before applying for new funds

5. Funding

5.1 Colin Scholes - fundraising

6. Personnel & Roles

6.1 Director of Development
6.2 Director of Public Relations
6.3 Director of Information Technology
6.4 Director of Communications Technology
6.5 Director of Education
6.6 Director of Vaccines and Medicines
6.7 Director of Water Purification or Remediation
6.8 Director of Legal Affairs
6.9 Director of Human Resources
6.10 Project Leaders and Organizers
6.11 Graphic designer
6.12 Web designer
6.13 Other key players and roles

7. Education Project

7.1 Bill Doria will connect with Gary DeBoer re pharmaceutical testing
7.1.1 Bill may be able to start testing this coming semester
7.2 Arsenic Project
7.2.1 Will need hands in November
7.3 Meghann is teacher with teacher contacts

8. Conference Presentations

8.1 PowerPoint
8.2 Quicktime
8.3 Approvals
8.4 Nov 10 deadline for Chicago ACS Conference

9. Arsenic Project

9.1 Have protocol and equipment list from State of CA
9.2 Attempt to tag along with their crews instead of doing it ourselves
9.3 Sign a liability waver
9.4 What will we do with it when we get it?
9.5 How much will we need for first project?
9.6 Ask foreign members what resources local communities might have

10. Other Business

10.1 Next conference call
10.1.1 7 AM GMT, 8-24-2006
10.1.2 6 PM PST, 9-7-2006

11. Topics not dicussed this time

11.1 Communications
11.2 Vaccines & Medicines
11.3 Unfinished Business

12. Feedback

12.1 Plus
12.1.1 Very informative
12.1.2 Better idea of what group stands for
12.1.3 Better feel for what we're trying to do and what the possibilities are
12.1.4 Easier to identify goals
12.1.5 Sense that things are coming together
12.1.6 Seems like we are getting close to practical implementations
12.2 Minus
12.2.1 Didn't review conference call ground rules