Converting Access Microbiology to an open research platform: community survey results

Abstract

Following the Microbiology Society's successful bid for a Learned Society Curation Award from the Wellcome Trust and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Society is converting our sound science, open access journal, Access Microbiology, to an open research platform. As part of this, we conducted a survey of our community to gauge current attitudes towards the platform and here we present some of these results. The majority of respondents (57 %) said they would always or sometimes want to remain anonymous on their peer review report, whilst 75 % of respondents said that as an author they would be happy to make the data underlying their research open. There was a clear desire for a range of research types that are often seen with sound science publications and rigorous research. An encouraging 94 % of respondents stated that the platform is somewhere they would consider publishing, demonstrating the enthusiasm in these respondents for a new publishing platform for their community. Given this data and that from our previous focus group research, the platform will launch as outlined in the original project proposal and adopt a transparent peer review model with an open data policy.

Keywords: Wellcome Trust; open research platform; open science; preprints; publishing; society publisher.

Fig. 1.

Willingness of respondents to include their name to their review. Answers shown were given in response to the question, ‘To increase transparency during the peer review process, the platform will publish peer review reports for each version of an article, preferably with the reviewer name(s) alongside. Knowing this, how would you feel about providing your name to your review?’ Total responses are indicated above each bar.

Fig. 2.

Willingness of respondents to provide their name to their review by career stage. Comparing responses to the questions ‘To increase transparency during the peer review process, the platform will publish peer review reports for each version of an article, preferably with the reviewer name(s) alongside. Knowing this, how would you feel about providing your name to your review?’ and ‘What career stage are you currently at?’. Total responses are indicated above each bar.

Fig. 3.

Willingness of respondents to make their underlying data open. Answers shown were given in response to the question ‘The open research platform aims to ensure that, where possible, all raw data underlying the results is deposited and made available, so that others can analyse, replicate and reuse your work. As an author, how would you feel about being asked to make all of the data associated with your article open? This would include, as examples, all sequencing data and/or software source code.’ Total responses are indicated above each bar.

Fig. 4.

Types of research that respondents would like the open research platform to publish. Answers shown were given in response to the question, ‘What type of research would you like the open research platform to publish? (Please select all that apply)’. Total responses are indicated above each bar.

Fig. 5.

Submission history to Access Microbiology. (a) Answers shown were given in response to the question, ‘Have you previously submitted to Access Microbiology?’. (b) For those who answered ‘Yes’ to ‘Have you previously submitted to Access Microbiology?’, ranswers shown were given in response to the follow-up question, ‘What type of article did you submit your work as?’. Total responses are indicated above each bar.

Fig. 6.

Previous submission to open research platforms and the likelihood of submitting to the Access Microbiology open research platform. Total responses are indicated above each bar.

Fig. 7.

Career stage of respondents. Answers shown were given in response to the question, ‘What career stage are you currently at?’. Total responses are indicated above each bar.

Fig. 8.

Area of work. Answers shown were given in response to the question, ‘What area of work do you work in?’. Total responses are indicated above each bar.