Choose How You Open Science
In addition to making your next Research Article Open Access, practicing Open Science can lead to new collaborations, public visibility, and more opportunities to get credit for the work you already do.
Post a preprint
Share your results when you’re ready with a preprint. Citing and linking to your preprint on your CV can help demonstrate your current work while you’re applying for grant funding or making a career change, even before you publish your final article.
Preprints increase the visibility of your work. Comments from other researchers in your field (and editors at your target journals!) can lead to early feedback that helps shape your work for publication, or connect you with potential collaborations.
Preregister your study
Preregistering your research question and study design makes the intent of your scientific enquiry transparent before you even begin your investigation. This increases the credibility of your results – including negative outcomes – when your work is published. Preregistering your study also facilitates reproducibility further down the line. Plus it’s an easy way to establish priority for a new study!
Share additional products of your research
There’s a lot that goes into your research. Find out if your journal offers additional published outputs so that you can get credit for each piece.
Study design, protocols, data, and code add context to your research and increase the likelihood your work will remain replicable. Use Open repositories and tools that inform your research like protocols.io and Code Ocean when you submit.
Sign reviews and publish your peer review history
Research relies on the volunteer experts working behind the scenes to evaluate and improve research for publication. When the entire review process becomes more transparent, readers get a better understanding of your work and the research process while reviewers get more opportunities to receive academic credit for their contributions.
As an author, you can choose to reveal the expert assessment that has shaped your final work by publishing the peer review history. As a reviewer, you can choose to sign your review and take credit for your comments.
Check out the Peer Review Toolbox for more ways to practice Open Science as a reviewer and get reviewing tips sent straight to your inbox.
Join the research conversation
Participating in online forums brings new ideas, fresh perspectives and constructive critiques to the discussion of scientific research.
Engage in the dialogue by commenting or asking questions on preprints– your thoughts can help authors prepare their work for submission and give editors more perspectives to consider during their review. You can also join the post-publication discussion by commenting on any PLOS article. (Just sign in to your PLOS account to get started.)
You can also share your voice on PLOS blogs, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Facebook.
Collaborate with your community
Connect with other researchers and find out more about topics that interest you by joining (or forming!) an Open Science community. Journal clubs, for example, are a great way to meet more of your peers and start sharing your ideas.
Events like International Open Access Week in October are a great time to take part in something new and get to know a wider community of Open Access supporters around the world. Look for events happening near you on their website.
You can also discover more Open Access content, news and events in your field online through our research community hubs.
Promote your work
The best thing about Open Access is that everyone can discover, read, and share your research. Let others know about it by posting your article on your laboratory homepage or personal blog, Tweet about it on social media, and talk about it at conferences.
Register for an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) identifier to easily track your publications and reviewer activity so that your academic profile is always up-to-date and linked from your CV, email signature, and online profiles.
Add relevant Article-Level Metrics (ALMs) on your resume or CV along with citation information so that your institution and potential funders can see the impact of your research rather than a generalized journal metric.