{"id":5420,"date":"2025-10-07T19:36:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T19:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/?p=5420"},"modified":"2025-10-07T20:12:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T20:12:31","slug":"asapbio-september-2025-community-call-experiments-in-publishing-with-pubpub-octopus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/asapbio-september-2025-community-call-experiments-in-publishing-with-pubpub-octopus\/","title":{"rendered":"ASAPbio September 2025 Community\u00a0 Call: Experiments in publishing with PubPub & Octopus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During the September Community Call, we heard from Alex Freeman from Octopus<\/a> and Gabe Stein from PubPub<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meeting started with Alex Freeman, who first introduced the Octopus platform. Alex discussed how academic problems all reflect how things are published. She discussed how slow and expensive it is to produce a paper, the importance of publishing in academia, the focus on findings, and how it influences how everything is done in academia. She believes that the Octopus addresses all those issues simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea behind the Octopus is to create a new \u2018primary research record.\u2019 This new primary research record would be digital, free to publish and read, and optimized for language translations. It is not based on books and monograms, but it is a new, flexible structure focused on smaller units. Authors can publish, e.g., research questions, rationale, data, and analyses separately. Each is a single publication, which can be linked to the others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new design stems from how research is performed in reality, which differs from how researchers are taught to describe it. The current model of publication forces researchers to write in the same linear narrative  (which is most likely not the order in which it happened), but in Octopus, the researchers can publish their research the way it was performed, one unit at a time, as they progress with their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The website also allows users to write a review of the publication or express a concern by raising a red flag, which will be visible to other readers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex showed the example of the research process on the Octopus page. She also discussed the advantages of this system, such as being instant and free, that there is no need for a complete \u2018narrative\u2019, you can see which author from the group did which work (highlighting the specialization of each author), and that it includes open post-publication peer review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Alex\u2019s talk, Gabe Stein discussed PubPub, a free and open platform for publishing. He started with a live presentation of PubPub Legacy and how it is organized. He then discussed where the platform is heading since the current version is undergoing significant changes. Those changes are based on feedback from users who expressed what features are missing from the platform and how to change its organization to serve users better. Gabe gave a live presentation showing behind the scenes of PubPub and the improvements they have created to respond to users’ needs. He walked the listeners through several examples of organization systems under development, each depending on the kind of data and research question the user has. He concluded that new features should be available to users in a few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Q&A session followed the talks. During the Q&A, the speakers discussed several topics. One of the questions pertained to achieving sustainable funding for those kinds of projects, which the speakers admit is not easy; however, they discussed several opportunities and different approaches to ensure financial sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The speakers also discussed how Octopus and PubPub fit within the current publishing system and where things might be headed. Another critical question discussed how research should be assessed. The speakers discussed peer review and how we can move beyond it. Alex elaborated on how we should move away from valuing only results, but also value ideas, analysis, and other parts of the research process that do not require so many resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the entire discussion, view the video below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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