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This week we are very excited to announce our first publishing partnership with a prestigious academic society. From July, the International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB) will have its own dedicated channel on F1000Research for the ISCB Community Journal. [See press release].

F1000 has always had a fruitful relationship with the computational biology community, and in particular with the ISCB with whom we have collaborated for several years by supporting their conferences, workshops and close-knit communities. Our collaboration has been fostered by the ISCB’s commitment to finding new ways to improving how their research outputs can be shared publically. Last year it came to our attention that the ISCB sought an effective solution that would offer their conferences and Communities of Special Interest (COSIs) their own space to publish the research presented at their conferences. The ISCB already has two affiliated journals, but there was a vision from the ISCB executive committee to create an additional dedicated space that enabled them to disseminate not just articles, but all of the conference research in one centralised venue. It was perfect timing as in recent months we have been working hard behind the scenes on new major developments to the F1000Research platform and we were thrilled that our plans matched so closely with what the ISCB were looking for.

So what will this new channel on F1000Research offer the ISCB? Well, for the first time, we are enabling an academic society to create a platform that supports the publication of all of their research in a range of formats. Most societies have affiliated journals, however these are typically the only means available to communicate research and can be restrictive in terms of the types of research that can actually be published and made freely available. We will be providing the ISCB with the option to openly publish research articles, using our immediate publication and transparent peer-review model, which of course has no limitation on article size, type, or perceived impact. The channel will be as inclusive as possible and will publish articles of different sizes, method papers, software tools, data notes and any other piece of research that is written up to be peer-reviewed and ultimately indexed in PubMed and other major bibliographic databases.

We have devised a portable peer-review mechanism whereby full articles that have already been reviewed internally for acceptance at one of the ISCB conferences can be published without the need for lengthy re-review; in that case, the reports and names of the referees who already peer-reviewed for the conference will be posted alongside the article (with the reviewers agreement, of course), together with an approval status they will be asked to provide. If the reviews cannot be transferred at that point then articles can still be published but will undergo F1000Research’s usual open, post-publication peer-review process where authors suggest new reviewers (who must meet our standard criteria).

In addition to peer-reviewed articles the channel will enable attendees to share and publish all the academic posters and slides that are presented at the various ISCB conferences and host this shared research together with traditional articles in one searchable domain. By doing so, each conference, event and workshop related to the ISCB will be able to extend the visibility of everything that was presented at the meeting and therefore broadcast their research beyond the conference hall to the wider scientific community.

The ISCB will have full autonomy of their channel and will be appointing dedicated Editors and an Editorial Board to help build this space around their community. Any member of the ISCB who publishes an article in the ISCB Community Journal will receive a 20% discount on our article processing charges (APCs), while the sharing of academic posters and slides will be free of charge.

This announcement is a sneak preview of how the F1000Research platform will be developing in the near future. In the upcoming months we will be revealing more partnerships that we have secured and will be providing further information on what we will be offering the scientific community. Our ultimate goal is to provide researchers with an affordable and effective way to disseminate research beyond the traditional scholarly journal. We are strong believers that, in the digital age, there should be no barriers to sharing and publishing scientific research and it should be a quick and easy process, regardless of format or perceived impact.

We are constantly building the machinery to facilitate just that, so watch this space for further developments…