Public Library of Science has gone beta with PLos ONE, a peer-reviewed journal that publishes everything that passes the review, not just what it considers to be important. So, if it’s good science about a nit, it’ll find a home at PLoS ONE.

And at that home, readers can discuss and annotate the articles. They can also read them and reuse for free since they’re all published under a Creative Commons Attribution License. It does, however, cost a scientist (or her institution) $1,250 to be published by PLoS ONE. This is, alas, an improvement over what traditional journals charge scientists. PLoS ONE will waive the fee for authors who don’t have the funds.

Fees aside, if you were designing a society, wouldn’t you want scientific research to be handled this way? If it’s good science, make it available! (And if it’s not clear if it’s good science, make it available anyway, but that’s not PLoS ONE’s niche in the knowledge economy.)

(Note on the beta: The site could use tagging. And more feeds.) [Tags: plos plos_one open_science science everything_is_miscellaneous taxonomy]

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