Publishing Terms & Definitions

Glossary

Advisory Board

The Advisory Board of F1000Research comprises a large group of leading experts (over 1,000 members) across biology and medicine. They do not act as ‘Editors’ in the traditional sense (i.e. they do not handle manuscripts nor make decisions to accept or reject a paper), but they provide strategic input on the direction we should take with F1000Research. They occasionally advise us on issues arising with specific articles, and many members of the board also review for us.

API

F1000Research's API allows anyone to download the XML and PDF of specific articles as well as to download links to the XML of the entire corpus of articles. The content is indexed using Apache Solr, which is open-source software that allows simple queries to be built to search and retrieve the content required.

Approval Status: Approved

An Approved rating means that the reviewer has asked either for no changes to the article or only a few small changes. For original research, this means that the experimental design, including controls and methods, is adequate; results are presented accurately and the conclusions are justified and supported by the data. An article with two Approved ratings, or one Approved and two Approved with Reservations ratings, will be considered to have passed peer review.

Approval Status: Approved with Reservations

An Approved with Reservations rating means that the reviewer believes the paper has academic merit, but has asked for a number of small changes to the article, or specific, sometimes more significant revisions. An article with two Approved ratings, or one Approved and two Approved with Reservations ratings, will be considered to have passed peer review.

Approval Status: Not Approved

A Not Approved rating means that a reviewer considers the research in the article to have fundamental flaws and the work overall to be of poor quality. The article is still published and the authors are encouraged to revise their article to respond to the concerns raised by the reviewer.

Article Processing Charge (APC)

Article Processing Charge (APC) is the standard term for the author publication fee in Open Access journals. F1000Research also charges APCs. Only authors whose submissions are published in F1000Research will be charged an APC. A full list of charges and discounts is available here.

Awaiting Peer Review

Peer review takes place after publication and articles that have not yet received any peer review reports are labelled as “Awaiting peer review”. Articles awaiting peer review are officially published and can be cited (for example in manuscripts, CVs, or grant applications), because the citation includes details of the reviewer status, making it clear to everyone what stage of peer review the article has reached. Readers who later follow the citation link to view the paper will be able to see its current peer review status.

CC-0 (Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication license)

Where possible, data associated with articles published in F1000Research should be made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC-0 license) to facilitate and encourage data re-use. Use of a CC-0 license also helps prevent ‘attribution stacking’, which occurs when combining separate datasets produced by different authors that are held under multiple different licenses. Use of CC-0 is also recommended, but not enforced, for data associated with posters, slides and documents published on F1000Research.

CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution license)

Most F1000Research articles, posters and slides are published under a CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and leaves the copyright of the article, poster or slide with the current copyright holder (usually the author or his/her institution).

Crossmark

Crossmark is a version management tool from Crossref that enables users to check and see if an article has been updated. It is of particular benefit in the case of PDF files where, regardless of when the file was downloaded and where it has been stored, readers who are online can click on the Crossmark icon, and see if a new peer review report or a new version of the article is available. If one is available, Crossmark will link the user directly to the updated version.

Data note

F1000Research publishes Data Notes as an article type in its own right. Data Notes describe datasets and their associated protocols only, without any interpretation or conclusion. With respect to prior publication: most journals have confirmed that they will accept submissions of full-length research articles that are based on datasets with a DOI and associated protocol information previously published in F1000Research. See the article guidelines for a full list of article types, and see our data policies to see which journals accept work based on published F1000Research data notes.

Documents

Documents are research outputs such as policies, guidelines, workflows etc. These are included in specific gateways and are of particular relevance to that gateway's readership and community. Only some gateways include documents and they are usually included only on invitation by the Gateway Advisers. Documents are not peer reviewed and their formats vary and often differ from traditional scholarly research publications. Each document has a unique DOI and citation.

DOI

Each version of an article and each peer review report, as well as some datasets within articles, have their own unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Posters and slides published after June 2015 also have their own DOIs. Every object with a DOI can be cited, so it is possible to reference a specific version of an article, a specific peer review report or a dataset within an article, as well as each poster and slide.

Gateways

Gateways provide personalized portals for institutions or organizations with links to featured content and other resources.

Open data

F1000Research requires full data deposition for all published articles. Data are usually made available under a CC-0 license in data repositories that meet certain criteria. In the case of clinical trials or other research where patient privacy is a concern, if data cannot be adequately anonymised, we work with authors to establish appropriate levels of access control, while ensuring that researchers who do meet required standards can get access to the data quickly and easily.

Open peer review

The phrase “open peer review” is used to describe our formal, invited article review process and means that all reviewer names and peer review reports are publicly accessible.

Peer review report

Peer reviewer reports are written by invited reviewers, and are open for all to read. They consist of an approval status (Approved, Approved with Reservations, or Not Approved) and comments that explain the status and present any suggestions for improvements. All peer review reports are assigned a DOI. Authors and other registered users can publicly comment on peer review reports.

Published

At F1000Research, an article is published online before peer review starts (and it cannot then be removed or withdrawn at a later stage, regardless of the outcome of the peer review). Published articles have passed our internal editorial check and are formatted and then put live - published - before peer review begins. As peer review progresses and peer review reports are received, they will appear alongside the published paper. Once an article receives sufficient positive peer review reports, it will be considered to have passed peer review.

Registered user

Registered users must supply both their name and affiliation on registering to create an account. A user must have an account and be a scientist in order to comment on F1000Research articles, to submit an article, poster or slide, or to subscribe to our table of contents emails. Registration is free.

Reviewer

F1000Research reviewers are checked for suitability and any conflicts of interest. They are experts in the field of the article they have been invited to review, and their reports and approval statuses (Approved, Approved with Reservations, or Not Approved) ultimately determine whether or not a paper will pass peer review. Names of all reviewers (with their peer review reports) are openly published on F1000Research.

RevisedRevised 

The 'Revised' badge is used to denote an article that has been revised by the authors, usually following reviewer and/or reader feedback. These revisions are published as new versions of the article, and are individually citable. (This badge replaces the black 'Updated' badge, which had the same purpose on articles published before October 2013.) The Revised badge contrasts with the 'Update' badge, which denotes a new version (often after the article has passed peer review and/or the peer review is considered complete), in which authors can add small developments relevant to research discussed in that article.

UpdateUpdate 

The ‘Update’ badge is used for new article versions following small developments. These Updates are published as new versions of the article (often after the article has passed peer review and/or the peer review is considered complete), and are individually citable. The Update badge contrasts with the ‘Revised’ badge, which indicates when the article has been revised, usually following reviewer and/or reader feedback. (The black ‘Updated’ badge has been replaced by the ‘Revised’ badge and is no longer being used.)

User comments

Registered users can leave comments on articles and the accompanying peer review reports, documents, posters and slides. Registered users must provide their full name and affiliation, which will be published alongside their comment. User comments on articles do not affect whether the article passes peer review or not, but they can help to provide additional perspectives on the article or on the reviewer's comments.

Versions

F1000Research authors can upload new versions of their articles, either to address comments made in peer review reports, or to update the paper for other reasons. Versions are linked and are individually citable, and older versions will display a clear notification that a new version has been uploaded. Posters and slides cannot currently be versioned.