[Eeglablist] [Eeglabnews] Special research topic: From raw MEG/EEG to publication

Arnaud Delorme arno at ucsd.edu
Tue Oct 25 18:23:08 PDT 2016


This is the answer that was given by Vladimir Litvak on a separate thread:

Dear Pandelis,

Thanks you for your passionate comments which I read with great interest. I completely agree with your arguments and I truly hope that these open community-managed platforms will be the future of scientific publication. The only unfortunate fact is that we still live in the present. With all the known problems of Frontiers it did gain reputation for publishing decent research and many people in the field are still involved in Frontiers journals in different capacities including Arno and myself. More importantly, the papers will be listed on pubmed, citeable in future publications and will add something to the authors' CV which for the young people who put a lot of effort in preparing some of these papers is important. Finally persistence is also quite important for these papers and while for Frontiers we can be quite sure that they'll exist in some form for another decade, the open platforms starting now will undergo a stage of competition and most of them will suffer the fate of classmates.com <http://classmates.com/>, myspace and altavista. 

To sum up, I hope in a few years, all those things will be possible to achieve with an open platform when it gains sufficient prominence and reputation, but for now this is not the case.  One could argue that without initiatives such as ours using those platforms, this will never happen, but I think the answer as always in life is bootstrapping. From our side I would by all means encourage the authors of papers submitted to our special issue to make them available prior to submission on bioarxiv  and other resources such as the ones you listed. I would also encourage people who are averse to Frontiers or cannot afford their fees to prepare similar papers and publish them via other platforms. If these external papers are brought to our attention and they comply with all our requirements we might be able to publisize them together with the special issue papers (e.g. list them on our websites) and invite the authors to any workshops/events we'll organise in the future as we'll invite people who submit to Frontiers. I hope this sounds like a good compromise for the transition times we live in.

With best wishes,

Vladimir

> On Oct 22, 2016, at 2:18 AM, Pandelis Perakakis <peraka at ugr.es> wrote:
> 
> Dear Arnaud, dear all,
> 
> While I salute your initiative to create a collection of manuscripts to facilitate the use of free software for EMG/EEG analysis, I am very surprised by your choice of journal to host this collective effort. Asking colleagues to pay a private company a hefty price for close to zero added value seems contradictory to the philosophy of your project. As people who have dedicated precious time and energy to build open source, free tools for the benefit of the community, I am sure you understand that there are many colleagues fighting a similar battle in the area of scholarly communication, which is equally, if not more, important for the unrestricted advancement of science.
> 
> But apart from ethical reasons, it seems to me that there are far better, community-managed platforms to host this valuable initiative. As an example, I would recommend using the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io <https://osf.io/>) to create a common project with a dedicated "component" for each participating group. Apart from uploading manuscripts, this framework allows the integration of external tools (github, dropbox, google drive, zotero, etc) so that you can include not only manuscripts, but also software code, raw and processed data, references and whatever other resources are necessary for a more complete understanding of the tools and processes. Each project has its own wiki for quick access to definitions with code examples and allows online collaboration between public or private groups. At any stage of the process, a component can become registered which provides a persistent identifier to signify a permanent, citable, open access contribution to the community. As an excellent example of how this platform can be used you can have a look at the famous Psychology Reproducibility Project: https://osf.io/ezcuj/ <https://osf.io/ezcuj/>
> 
> For a more traditional handling of manuscripts and their review from peers, openly or after suggestions from an editorial committee I would recommend using SJS (http://www.sjscience.org <http://www.sjscience.org/>), which is an open access multidisciplinary repository offering an overlay peer review service that is far more efficient and intuitive than traditional, journal-handled peer review.
> 
> Both of these platforms are open, free and community-managed. They, and others, are the eeglabs of scholarly communication. You have proven that when communities get together they can work miracles that money can't buy. I think this is a remarkable opportunity to show that you are also conscious about other problems in science and support the efforts of colleagues with whom you share a similar philosophy. Being a large and important community in your area, I am sure that your project will receive the attention and dissemination it deserves independently of where it is hosted. Realistically, the only thing you buy with the Frontiers publication fee is an impact factor. But I don't think you are the kind of people who would drive the community towards this choice having so many other free and more efficient options available.
> 
> My warmest wishes,
> 
> Pandelis
> --
> Pandelis Perakakis, PhD
> Mind, Brain and Behaviour Research Centre (CIMCYC)
> University of Granada
> Campus Cartuja, 12071
> Granada
> Spain
> 
> e-mail: peraka at ugr.es <mailto:peraka at ugr.es>
> url: pandelisperakakis.wordpress.com <http://pandelisperakakis.wordpress.com/>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 19 Oct 2016, at 19:12, Arnaud Delorme <arno at ucsd.edu <mailto:arno at ucsd.edu>> wrote:
> 
>> Dear colleagues,
>> 
>> We would like to invite you to contribute to Frontiers in Neuroscience Special Research Topic "From raw MEG/EEG to publication: how to perform MEG/EEG group analysis with free academic software". The idea is to create a collection of well-described group analyses of EEG and MEG data that can be fully reproduced by anyone and ported by researchers to their own data. Furthermore, as the analyses will be endorsed by peer review, any analysis choices will be citeable in future publications. This will hopefully contribute to wider adoption of good practices by the MEG/EEG research community.
>> 
>> For you this is an opportunity to create the ultimate reference for those exciting analyses in your papers that everyone keeps asking you about and increase the impact of the methods you developed on the work of others. Furthermore, by investing some time and effort now into preparing your paper, you can save yourself much more time and efforts in the future by using this resource to train junior researchers in your group and those of your collaborators.
>> 
>> We are sorry for the long list of requirements for prospective submissions but these are necessary to ensure that your papers are really useful for other researchers and will remain useful for at least the next decade. The requirements should be straightforward to comply with.
>> 
>> Finally, we know that the 'Frontiers' brand has attracted some criticism due to their controversial promotion and marketing techniques. However, at present Frontiers and particularly the section on Brain Imaging Methods  seems to be the most convenient platform for this project and they are able to provide adequate technical and administrative support for all its stages. As the topic editors we will do everything possible to ensure professional and transparent review for all submissions.
>> 
>> We are looking forward to receiving your contributions.
>> 
>> With best wishes,
>> 
>> The topic editors:
>> 
>> Arnaud Delorme
>> Alexandre Gramfort
>> Vladimir Litvak
>> Sri Nagarajan
>> Robert Oostenveld
>> Francois Tadel
>> 
>> Please find more information about Research Topics below, including the publishing fees that apply. You can also visit the homepage we have created on the Frontiers website, which defines the focus of the topic, and where all published articles will appear.
>> 
>> http://frontiersin.org/Brain_Imaging_Methods/researchtopics/From_raw_MEG_EEG_to_publication_how_to_perform_MEG_EEG_group_analysis_with_free_academic_software_/5158 <http://frontiersin.org/Brain_Imaging_Methods/researchtopics/From_raw_MEG_EEG_to_publication_how_to_perform_MEG_EEG_group_analysis_with_free_academic_software_/5158>
>> 
>> Please note the submission deadline for this Research Topic: Oct 01, 2017
>> 
>> ABOUT FRONTIERS RESEARCH TOPICS
>> 
>> Founded by scientists in 2007, Frontiers is a community-rooted open-access publisher, driving innovations in peer review, article-level metrics and research networking. The "Frontiers in" journal series hosts 54 journals covering more than 350 academic specialties, with a network of over 200,000 leading researchers worldwide. Frontiers is a registered member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (http://www.oaspa.org/member/Frontiers <http://www.oaspa.org/member/Frontiers>) and was recognized by the ALPSP Award for Innovation in Publishing in 2014.
>> 
>> The idea behind a Frontiers Research Topic is to create a comprehensive collection of peer-reviewed articles that address a specific theme of research, as well as a forum for discussion and debate. Contributions can be articles describing original research, methods, hypothesis & theory, opinions, and more. Please see the relevant journal for a full list of accepted article types.
>> 
>> Frontiers will also compile an e-book, as soon as all contributing articles are published, that can be used as educational material, be sent to foundations that fund your research, to journalists and press agencies, or to your professional network. E-books are free to read and download.
>> 
>> Once published, your articles will be free to access for all readers, indexed in relevant repositories, and as an author in Frontiers, you retain the copyright to your own papers and figures.
>> 
>> FRONTIERS PUBLISHING FEES
>> 
>> Manuscripts accepted for publication are subject to publishing fees, which vary depending on the article type. Research Topic A type articles receive a discount on publishing fees; please see here for a full fee table, and further relevant FAQs: http://www.frontiersin.org/about/PublishingFees <http://www.frontiersin.org/about/PublishingFees>.
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