WormBook in Genetics: access and choices

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Dear All,

I would like to address some questions that have come up regarding the partnership with the GSA and access to WormBook in the journal GENETICS.

As I said in a quote to the GSA blog, “WormBook in GENETICS will continue a great community tradition and will strengthen our longstanding association with GENETICS, which began with the publication in 1974 of Sydney Brenner’s landmark paper.   That association has grown, which is apparent in the many papers that appear every year in GENETICS and G3, as well as in the GSA’s sponsorship of the C. elegans meetings.”

GSA provides a sustainable platform for publishing WormBook, as well as the editorial and production resources of GENETICS.  However, because the GSA will be fully funding publication of new WormBook content, WormBook chapters will adhere to the journal’s current access policies, unless authors or institutions choose to subsidize immediate open access, including a Creative Commons license.

In practice, the journal’s access policy will not make much difference for most members of the community, who will continue to have immediate access to GENETICS content through their libraries and GSA memberships–which includes very low cost membership categories.  Furthermore, anyone who cannot pay may request individual article PDFs from the GENETICS Editorial Office.

The access issue was the subject of much discussion before we finalized the relationship.  But it is important to understand that there are costs to publishing, even on the web, and full open-access of WormBook at Caltech was possible only while they had sufficient funds to support it.  However, available funding, including some from WormBase, has been reduced to the point that WormBook was no longer sustainable.  Thus, the choice was to freeze WormBook in its current form altogether or find another way forward.

Several options were considered, and this association with the GSA emerged as the best option to finance and produce WormBook going forward.  Whether this arrangement should continue can be evaluated in 4-5 years.  For now, we have a fantastic opportunity, and the Section Editors are already commissioning great chapters.

It is too complicated to respond to questions about the economics of open access versus subscription publishing here–and I’m not an expert, though I know from having served as an editor of Development during the rise of the web and now, as an editor of PNAS and member of the PNAS Publications Committee, that it is very expensive to publish papers.*  Different journals have different business models, but the current access model used by GENETICS (and PNAS) is one way to keep costs down for authors, readers, and libraries.

So, thank you for your interest in, and continued support for, WormBook.

Best regards,

Iva

* It may interest some of you to see this report about the true cost of publishing a paper, where they calculate the cost in eLife as $14,000, and Nature itself estimates the cost of publishing in its own journal of $10,000!  (See http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2014/08/18/how-much-does-it-cost-elife-to-publish-an-article/)

Announcement of WormBook in GENETICS

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WormBook is excited to announce that we have partnered with The Genetics Society of America to publish new WormBook content in GENETICS. GENETICS will publish about 50 new chapters over the course of four years. Existing chapters will remain available at http://www.wormbook.org/, and several new and updated chapters will appear there over the next six months. Letters describing these changes from Marty Chalfie and Iva Greenwald, who succeeds Marty as WormBook Editor-in-Chief, can be found in the blog posts below.

–Jane Mendel

Announcement of WormBook in GENETICS

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From Martin Chalfie:

Dear Members of the C. elegans Community,

A little over twelve years ago several of us starting talking about the possibility of having an online review of C. elegans that would replace the outdated Cold Spring Harbor monographs (The Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and C.elegans II).  These discussions led to the establishment of WormBook, and I became its Editor-in-Chief.  Now after shepherding over 150 articles into WormBook and reestablishing The Worm Breeders Gazette I feel that we have created a wonderful resource.  But I have found that my time has been taken up by so many other commitments recently that I no longer feel able to put the effort into WormBook that I believe it deserves (also 12 years is more than enough time for one person to be in charge).

For these reasons I have decided to step down as Editor-in-Chief.  Fortunately, Iva Greenwald, who has served as a spectacular section editor, has agreed to become the next Editor-in-Chief and oversee the changes that are necessary to keep WormBook a strong and essential resource for our community.  I know she will do a terrific job.

Before ending this letter, I want to thank the people that really made WormBook possible.  These people include Paul Sternberg as the publisher of WormBook through WormBase, whose support and enthusiasm have been essential; our two hard working editors Lisa Gerard and Jane Mendel, who made WormBook a reality; Oliver Hobert, who officially is the editor of WormMethods, but has really served as an assistant Editor-in-Chief; Lincoln Stein, Tristan Fiedler, Todd Harris, and Qinghua (Daniel) Wang, who brought WormBook to life on the web; and you the members of the Editorial Board [for the Gazette: and the past and present members of the Editorial Board], whose involvement and support made WormBook the model for all the other organism “Books.”  We have made something wonderful, and I thank all of you for showing once again the strength and dedication of the C. elegans community.

All the best,

Marty

Announcement of WormBook in GENETICS

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From: Iva Greenwald, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Columbia University.

As Marty Chalfie announced in his WBG article, I have succeeded him as Editor-in-Chief of WormBook. I want to express my gratitude to everyone that Marty mentioned in his article who made WormBook possible and I want to add, on behalf of the entire worm community, our thanks to Marty for his vision and leadership in making WormBook an invaluable resource for all of us.

My first task as Editor-in-Chief designate was to follow up on Marty’s initiative to partner with the Genetics Society of America to publish new content for WormBook in GENETICS.

I am pleased to announce that this partnership has now been established. GENETICS will publish about 50 new reviews spanning the breadth of C. elegans research over the course of about four years.  The chapters will be comprehensive summaries that will introduce novices to the key tenets and methodologies of the field and also serve as authoritative references for experts. The GENETICS content will complement and extend existing WormBook chapters that will be kept available at Caltech via WormBase.

I want to thank Paul Sternberg and Oliver Hobert for many contributions to the discussions with GENETICS and for continuing to serve in an advisory capacity as we proceed. I also want to thank Marty for initiating the relationship and for sharing his unique perspective on going forward.

Because of reductions in funds to WormBase, additional new chapters or “updates” will not be solicited for the Caltech site, although over the course of the next year you will see several new/updated chapters published there that had been previously commissioned.  I am indebted to Jane Mendel, the current Section Editors, and the production team at Caltech for continuing to oversee these ongoing chapters to completion.

I am especially grateful to the many colleagues who advised in the planning of WormBook in GENETICS or are serving as Section Editors to make it happen.  We look forward to the contributions of many more colleagues as authors and reviewers, and trust that together, we will all ensure that this project both represents and serves the needs of our entire community.

Here is the masthead.

Editor-in–Chief:  Iva Greenwald

Advisory Board:  Monica Driscoll, Pierre Gonczy, Oliver Hobert, Tim Schedl, Paul Sternberg.

Sections and Section Editors:

1. Gene and Genome Regulatory Mechanisms: John Kim and Susan Strome

2. Cell Fate, Signaling and Development: Meera Sundaram and Geraldine Seydoux

3. Metabolism, Physiology and Aging: Monica Driscoll and Adam Antebi

4. Cell and Organelle Biology: Michel Labouesse and Barth Grant

5. Neurobiology and Behavior: Piali Sengupta and Yuichi Iino

6. Evolution and Ecology: Marie-Anne Felix and Asher Cutter

7. WormMethods:  Oliver Hobert and Hannes Bülow

Gene Ontology (GO) Survey

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Attention GO users!!  The Gene Ontology Consortium would love to hear your feedback about GO.  Please assist the GO project by completing a short survey. The results will help us learn more about how you use GO, how GO can serve your research needs better, and will aid in preparation for the upcoming GO grant renewal. Surveys completed by November 15th 2015 will be eligible for a prize drawing for a $400 Apple Store voucher.  Thanks in advance for your time!