Publishing grant proposals, presubmission

There are a lot of really interesting works being published over at Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO).  If you aren’t already following the updates you can do so via RSS, Twitter, or via email (scroll to the bottom for sign-up).

In this post I’m going to discuss why Chad Hammond’s contribution is so remarkable and why it could represent an exciting model for a more transparent and more immediate future of scholarly communications.

Version1

 

 

 

So, what’s special?

Well, to state the obvious first: it’s a grant proposal, not a research article. RIO Journal has published quite a lot of research proposals now, it’s becoming a real strength of the journal. But that’s not the really interesting thing about it. The really cool thing is that Chad published this grant proposal with RIO before it was submitted it to the funder (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) for evaluation.

You’ll see the publication date of Version 1 of the work is 24th March 2016. Pleasingly, after publication in RIO Chad’s proposal was evaluated by CIHR and awarded research funding. Chad received news of this in late April:

…and the story gets even better from here because thanks to RIO’s unique technology called ARPHA, Chad was able to re-import his published article back into editing mode, to update the proposal to acknowledge that it had been funded:

This proposal was submitted to and received funding from the annual Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) competition for postdoctoral fellowships.

The updated proposal was then checked by the editorial team and republished as an updated version of the original proposal: Version 2, making-use of CrossMark technology to formally link the two versions and to make sure readers are always made aware if a newer version of the work exists. Chad’s updated proposal now has a little ‘Funded’ button appended to it (see below), to indicate that this proposal has been successfully funded. We hope to see many more such successfully funded proposals published at RIO.

Title and metadata

 

 

 

With permission given, Chad was also able to supply some of the reviewer comments passed to him from CIHR reviewers as supplementary data to the updated Version 2 proposal. These will undoubtedly provide invaluable insight into reviewing processes for many.

Finally, for funders and publishing-tech geeks: you should really take note of the lovely machine-readable XML-formatted version of Chad’s proposal. Pensoft has machine-readable XML output as standard, not just PDF and HTML. Funding agencies around the world would do well to think closely about the value of having XML-formatted machine-readable grant proposal submissions. There’s serious value to this and I think it’s something we’ll see more of in the future. Pensoft is actively looking to work with funders to develop further these ideas and approaches for genuinelyadding-value to scholarly communications.
RIO is truly an innovative journal don’t you think?

References

Version 1:
Hammond C (2016) Widening the circle of care: An arts-based, participatory dialogue with stakeholders on cancer care for First Nations, Inuit,and Métis peoples in Ontario, Canada. Research Ideas and Outcomes 2: e8615. doi: 10.3897/rio.2.e8615

Version 2:
Hammond C (2016) Widening the circle of care: An arts-based, participatory dialogue with stakeholders on cancer care for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in Ontario, Canada. Research Ideas and Outcomes 2: e9115. doi: 10.3897/rio.2.e9115

 

This blog post was originally published on Ross Mounce’s blog.

RIO pricing: affordable, flexible, sustainable

Today, we are happy to announce our initial pricing scheme and launch promotions.

Many people have asked us what we are going to charge for our novel services – we welcome such questions. In an age when some are charging in excess of $5000 for publishing a single open-access article, we are proud to keep our prices low, but sustainable.

You may notice the pricing structure is more complicated than usual. Don’t Panic. In this blog post, we’ll break it down into easy pieces. We think this flexibility of pricing is a positive feature: it reflects that some outputs are less costly to publish, and others are more expensive. We also offer à la carte pricing with respect to optional services such as linguistic editing, PR services and paper-printed copies.

Try RIO for free

RIO is already open for submissions. To encourage you to give it a try, we’re making idea-stage submissions completely free from now on until the end of April 2016. This promotional offer applies to the following output types if submitted through the ARPHA writing tool: Small Grant Proposals, Research Ideas, PhD Project Plans, PostDoc Project Plans, Data Management Plans and Software Management Plans.

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Very small outcomes have very small prices. We think producing a professional, machine-readable version of your work, assigning it a DOI, and enabling optional community peer review is something worth paying for. At € 50, single-figure publications (see Do and Mobley, 2015) are particularly appealingly priced, so as to encourage the community to explore this new format.  

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For those who like to compare rates between different open-access journals, you’ll find our research article price very competitive at only €550. Unlike many open access journals, we accept review articles, too, as well as a wide variety of other research outputs.

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Finally, you might be worried that charging for each and every single output could get quite expensive over time for an individual or an institution. We’ve got that covered with our package plans. For individuals, if you commit to buying a package upfront, we’re happy to reduce the overall price per output published to an average price between EUR 140 and 330 per article (see table below). For funders, institutions, conference organisers and others, we’re happy to make even more competitive deals; just contact us to discuss your needs at: rio@riojournal.com.

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For further details, please see the Article Processing Charges and Promotions entries on the RIO website.

 

PART 2: The ARPHA Writing Tool: Adding Value to RIO

Last week, we presented some basic features of the ARPHA Writing Tool (AWT), focusing on the collaborative authoring process. This post will add the novelties that ARPHA has adopted when it comes to submission and post-submission processes.

arpha-validation

   

Two-step VALIDATION:

Checks are a must whenever high-quality, professional writing is concerned. Shortly before submitting their manuscripts via ARPHA, the authors are free to initiate the first step of the validation process at any time. As a result, an automated technical check runs through the manuscript to verify its consistency and compliance with the JATS (Journal Article Tag Suite) standard as well as key elements of the journal’s policy.

After the automated checks, there is a second-layer of human checks made by RIO editorial assistants in order to bring the manuscript to a pre-publication level. They check compliance with further elements of the journal’s policy as well as linguistic consistency and work with the authors before finalising it altogether.

 

After SUBMISSION:

Even after submission, collaboration continues. With the peer-review stage being as transparent and open as the whole vision of RIO is, this step is no less straightforward and organised. All peer reviews are automatically consolidated into a single online file that makes the editorial process simple and pleasant. This is made possible by the XML-based workflow in the AWT.

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PEER-REVIEW evolution:

Last week, we mentioned that an author can invite reviewers during the authoring stage itself. Let us elaborate here by saying that the ARPHA Writing Tool provides a functionality for pre-submission peer review(s) performed during the authoring process. These peer reviews are submitted together with the manuscript, so that the editorial evaluation and publication can be significantly sped up.

Post-publication UPDATES:

Even after an article is brought to life, ARPHA continues to play a role in it. Because of the XML workflow, authors are able to publish updated versions of their articles at any time. Once they request such an update, their work is returned to the ARPHA Writing Tool, where authors and peers are to collaborate once again. Eventually, the two versions are linked via CrossMark, so that nothing is lost.   

As you might have already noticed, just like RIO, the new ARPHA Writing Tool is constructed entirely around the needs of its authors. Why not find out yourself by giving ARPHA & RIO a try when they open for submission early next month?