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I would like to create an open access journal / a platform that is free of charge for authors and readers. Ideally, I would like it to get away from the current norms: offer the possibility to publish peer-reviewed articles, but also drafts, offer the possibility for reviewers to comment on drafts, offer spaces for videos and audios, and to share parts of our data in order to facilitate the replications of studies. Finally, one part would be devoted to a space where researchers can build knowledge together, like some kind of wiki.

My question is: do you know anything existing that sounds similar to this?

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  • Well, I know individuals services that offer each of the things you mention separately. The big platform that links all of these is called the internet.
    – user9646
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 15:21
  • @NajibIdrissi: Thanks for your honest answer :-) I would be interested in some examples of academic journals offering those separate services, if you have them in mind ? (especially journals offering the possibility to publish drafts and data).
    – Alice
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 15:33
  • I don't know journals providing these services.
    – user9646
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 15:34
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    @Alice some journals have their own pre-print servers and encourage post-publication peer-review, which is the closest thing to "offering the possibility to publish drafts". Examples of such journals include PeerJ and F1000. Several services also offer archival of datasets and assignment of a DOI, like figshare, dryad or zenodo.
    – Guillaume
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 16:09
  • @Guillaume Thank you! I will check it out. :-)
    – Alice
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 10:15

2 Answers 2

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As others have said, there is probably no single platform now that does everything you're thinking of, but there are many that offer a subset of them. One that comes close is F1000Research.

There are widely-accepted terms for most of what you're describing; you can use those (and Google) to find platforms that offer them.

an open access journal / a platform that is free of charge for authors and readers

This is widely referred to as diamond open access. Of course, the funding (to run the servers, if nothing else) has to come from somewhere, so you'll need a plan for that.

offer the possibility to publish peer-reviewed articles, but also drafts, offer the possibility for reviewers to comment on drafts

What you're talking about here is (if I understand you correctly) widely referred to as open peer review (although that term is also used to mean more limited things).

offer spaces for videos and audios, and to share parts of our data in order to facilitate the replications of studies

This is often referred to as supplementary material, and very many journals allow this (for instance, the SIAM journals in my field). In most cases I know, this service is not yet widely used by authors or readers. There are also platforms designed specifically for this, like Figshare.

Finally, one part would be devoted to a space where researchers can build knowledge together, like some kind of wiki.

This is vague enough that I'm confident there are dozens, if not hundreds of similar efforts out there -- starting with Wikipedia itself. Perhaps one of the oldest efforts in this vein that is focused specifically on scientific research is the nLab.

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  • Thank you for this detailed answer :-) Very helpful! It is going to be way easier to find what I am looking for with the right terminology. Thanks for the examples, I will look into it.
    – Alice
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 10:21
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The currently most complete solution is probably the Open Science Framework, which doesn't yet support peer review but is planning to - and it can be somewhat simulated by using Hypothes.is. Then there are quite a few projects working towards this goal to some extent. Thus, a relevant follow-up question would be: with what reason are you looking for existing projects? To compare, to contribute, or to build upon? That would be relevant to what platforms we could suggest.

(That said, if you want to do some research on your own, I wrote an overview of alternative platforms a while ago.)

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  • Thank you very much for this very helpful answer. I will look into it. My goal is to develop such a platform for research in Education in the French speaking parts of Europe (there is nothing like that to my knowledge). To do so, I want to check out what's already existing around the world. For some inspiration. That's the reason why I am looking for existing project.
    – Alice
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 10:18
  • Then my best guess would be that the OSF is indeed most relevant to you - they've also set up similar things for e.g. Africa and Indonesia. See "You build the community. We've built the infrastructure." at cos.io/our-products/osf-preprints
    – Vincent
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 11:56

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