From bench to website

Mol Syst Biol. 6: 410As the foundation of its guidelines on ‘Sharing Publication‐Related Data and Materials’, the National Research Council of the National Academies formulated a lucid definition of the scientific publishing process: ‘the fundamental purpose of publication of scientific information is to move science forward. More specifically, the act of publishing is a quid pro quo in which authors receive credit and acknowledgment in exchange for disclosure of their scientific findings’ (The National Academies Press, 2003). This definition is appealing as it entails the fundamental principles of scientific publishing: the quality of the published research; the full disclosure of the reported findings; and the attribution of appropriate credits to authors. There has recently been an increasing demand for a more traceable publishing process. At Molecular Systems Biology , we envision this process as the path—‘from bench to website’—leading from the individual data collected in the lab to the final formal report published online. As such, we are determined to provide a more transparent account of how a published work has been evaluated, of what …