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A couple of weeks ago, we interviewed F1000Research author Joel Huberman about his experiences with our journal. He published an article about the control of timing of telomere replication in fission yeast. In this study, he set out to investigate whether fission yeast telomere replication is similar to that of budding yeast, where replication timing depends on physical ends, and linear plasmids (with ends) replicate later than circular plasmids. What Huberman’s lab found was that telomere replication in fission yeast does not depend on physical ends, but on the presence telomere flanking sequences. He describes this in the video below.

Huberman’s main reason to submit this work to F1000Research was speed. He’s moving to a new field – global warming, very different! —  and wanted to rapidly publish the remainder of his DNA replication research. He certainly managed that, getting three positive reports from world-class referees in two weeks.

In the video below he also mentions Open Access as a big incentive for choosing F1000Research, and says he’s frustrated with the pay-to-view model of traditional journals.

The third reason he brings up for submitting to F1000Research is our transparent peer review model. He mentions that he’s seen examples of referees abusing their anonymity by taking too long, submitting hasty and sloppy reviews, or even intentionally delaying publication of others’ work.

“F1000Research is the first reputable journal that I know of to wholeheartedly accept the concept of signed reviews, and I wanted to support this innovation”