Andrea C. Kepsel, MLIS, AHIP
Health Sciences Educational Technology Librarian
Michigan State University Libraries

This is an update of a review that appeared in the May 2018 issue of Doody’s Collection Development Monthly. Read the original review here: https://dcdm.doody.com/2018/05/a-review-of-f1000/.

Introduction

F1000, from the Science Navigation Group, is a suite of three tools designed to help users find, share, and use research: F1000Prime, F1000Workspace, and F1000Research. F1000Prime is a post publication peer-review service that provides recommendations from over 8,000 leading researchers in biology and medicine. F1000Workspace is an online reference manager, scholarly writing, and collaboration tool. F1000Research is an open research platform for publishing articles in the physical and life sciences, engineering, medicine, social sciences, and humanities.

New Content and Features

F1000 has updated the websites for all three of their products, modernizing and streamlining the user experience. There have also been a number of updates specific to each of the three products:

• F1000Prime: Article recommendations now include classifications such as “interesting hypothesis,” “good for teaching,” etc., and search results can be filtered by these classifications. Subject focus remains specific to biology and medicine, and new sections in epigenetics and epigenomics and cancer genomes and epigenomes have been added. Faculty members in psychology have been added, and detailed biographies on the redesigned faculty pages increase the transparency of reviews.

• F1000Workspace: The number of supported reference types and styles has been increased. The Google Docs add-on has been updated so that documents can be linked to, and are easier to access from, a user’s workspace. Detailed release notes documenting all F1000Workspace changes are available, and abundant technical support is available through help guides and a chat button at the bottom right of the workspaces.

• F1000Research: New gateways, or subject-specific portals, have been created for topics such as Disease Outbreaks, Science Policy Research, and Chemical Information Science. Posters and slides are now only published within gateways and collections, as part of collaborations with specific communities in these areas. Guidelines for submitting content have been updated, such as clarification about the post-publication, author-led peer review process and revised data guidelines for better alignment with the FAIR principles for data sharing. The platform was recently audited against the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) core practices and the Center for Open Science Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines. Overall, the platform fared well in audit results and areas needing improvement have begun to be addressed, such as the development of a new image manipulation detection policy. Moving forward, additional guidelines and policies will be updated to ensure compliance with COPE and TOP requirements.

Business Model

The F1000 business model has not changed. F1000Prime and F1000Workspace are available via subscription, with options for institutions and individuals. Special pricing is available for smaller groups such as academic departments and hospital laboratories, and students are eligible for a discounted rate on individual subscriptions.

F1000Research is open access and content is typically published under a CC BY license. Article processing charges are based on word counts, ranging from $150-$2,000. Data associated with articles published on F1000Research are made available under a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0) when possible.

Breakthrough

F1000 continues to offer tools that can improve how users create, evaluate, and interact with scientific information. For the cost of a subscription, users get F1000Prime, a unique platform for connecting readers to research they may not otherwise find, and F1000Workspace, an easy-to-use scholarly writing platform with powerful reference management and collaboration features. F1000Research continues to grow, and ongoing refinement of content policies and guidelines in accordance with ethical publication practices positions the platform as a leader in open scholarly publishing.