Today, June 12 2013, PeerJ claims to be one year old. I guess, in one way it is, but I would claim it is 4 months old. Just to ruin the birthday party. I have three children, and I do not celebrate their birthday on the day I made it official that we where going to have a child, but the day I first saw them. Anyway, lets pretend PeerJ is one year old, and celebrate.
When I first heard about PeerJ, I thought it was a brilliant idea; spend money on research, not publisher’s profit; make reviews open; fast publication; do not select articles based on expected impact, but quality; and make articles available to everyone. And they managed to do it: a life time membership costs $99 (one article a year); 40% of reviewers now providing their name and almost 80% of authors making their reviews public; median time for final decision (accepted articles) is 49 days; and for the last two, look at the first 87 articles, and judge for yourself.
My favourite article so far is “Significant changes in the skin microbiome mediated by the sport of roller derby“, simply because the research, setting, and methods are fun. I really hope more people will embrace PeerJ, and their thinking about open research, data, and publishing costs. Personally I think the Lancet, Nature, …, look like old grumpy men now, claiming the Earth is flat.
And the best of all; today you can win a monkey fridge magnet. All you have to do is typing: