Alberto Pepe edited untitled.tex  almost 9 years ago

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Last June, a dedicated global team of Ebola researchers began an ambitious project to track the virus using large-scale genome sequencing. Their research, which was written on the research platform Authorea and  \href{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.06.007}{published June 18 in the journal Cell} \cite{26091036}, reveals critical information about how the virus traveled and evolved over seven months of the recent Ebola outbreak. 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 draft, data, workflows,  and full edit history of theCell  paper} are available to the public for free on Authorea. This unprecedented release empowers students and researchers to review – using Authorea’s “History” feature – every change and edit made by the authors during the writing of this landmark research paper.  “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 Danny 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 physicist Harvard Research Associate  Alberto Pepe. "We realized we were wasting time emailing around documents and data, and wrestling with "Track Changes" in Word. So we built aclean  website where everyone from our team could write and edit in the same place. That was the beginning of Authorea." 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; we want 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 can have unintended side effects.  “It’s well known that open access to research can help save lives,” said Professor Peter Suber from the Harvard Open Access Project, which was not involved with the Cell Ebola study. “For the same reason, closed or delayed access to research can put lives at risk, especially 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.