Jace Harker edited untitled.tex  almost 9 years ago

Commit id: 49b47b97d46f0b114820a07e288c565ffecd3fd2

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Today Authorea is pleased to announce that the \href{https://www.authorea.com/19957-ebola-virus-epidemiology-transmission-and-evolution-in-sierra-leone}{working draft, data, workflows, and full edit history of the paper} are available to the public for free on Authorea.  This unprecedented is the first time that such complete details have ever been released for a scientific paper. This  release empowers provides unprecedented transparency and detail, empowering  students and researchers to review– using Authorea’s “History” feature –  every change and edit made by the authors to every word  during the writing of this landmark research paper. paper, using Authorea’s “History” feature.  “When we planned this study, our team decided to make our work as open and transparent as possible, and writing the paper on Authorea is part of that,” said co-lead author Daniel Park of the Broad Institute. “We felt a moral imperative to put everything out there, especially in this kind of emergency situation.”  Authorea was founded to make researchers' day-to-day tasks easier, says Authorea co-founder and Harvard Research Associate Alberto Pepe. "We realized we were wasting time emailing around documents and data. So we built a website where everyone could write and edit in the same place."  But Authorea also supports a bigger goal: making science more open. The platform is free to use for open research. "We encourage scientists to publish their entire research process: writing, data, and discussion," said Dr. Pepe. "The default stance is often to be closed; closed, and  wewant to  encourage more openness and transparency." Researchers in \href{http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16436573}{life sciences} and \href{http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/1/69.abstract}{other fields} often withhold their raw data for months before and even after publishing, according to recent surveys. This practice has questionable utility, as it slows the pace of research, makes it less reproducible, and erodes public trust in science.   “Open access saves lives,” said Professor Peter Suber from the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication and the Harvard Open Access Project, which were not involved with the Cell Ebola study. “Research saves lives, and when access is unaffordable or delayed, the access barriers put lives at risk. This is especially true in a crisis like Ebola where time is of the essence.”  The Ebola genome research team found that open science carried other benefits too. “One of the most rewarding aspects of working in this outbreak response is the connections we have made with so many extraordinary individuals through open data sharing,” said senior author Pardis Sabeti. The paper's working draft on Authorea eventually grew to over 21 researchers from four continents.