Science Wins As PLoS Goes Hard On Open Access

Academic journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) has changed its policy so that authors are now required to make the data underlying their scientific findings available publicly, without restriction, immediately upon publication of the article.

PLoS's articles have always been released according to Open Access principles, with Creative Commons (CC BY) licences. PLoS has also always required authors to make their data available to other academic researchers who wish to replicate, reanalyse or build upon the findings published in PLoS's journals.

From 2 March, 2014, all authors who submit to a PLOS journal (including PLoS One, PLoS Biology, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics) will have to provide a "data availability statement" which describes where and how others can access each dataset that underlies the findings.