Public Library of Science announces open access clinical trials journal

Public Library of Science announces open access clinical trials journal

In October the Public Library of Science announced a new web site that will serve as an open access e-journal to publish all ethically and scientifically sound clinical trials that have been entered into an internationally accepted registry. Named PLoS Clinical Trials, the journal intends to publish peer-reviewed clinical trial reports regardless of trial size and whether results are positive or negative.

As the website will accept all eligible papers, PLoS Clinical Trials peer reviewers will focus on ways of improving the quality and transparency of trial reporting rather than on rejections. Each trial report will have an editorial summary of its strengths and weaknesses.

Each article also will be cross-linked with trial registry records from sites such as ClinicalTrials.gov and the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number Register. In addition, PLoS is collaborating with the Global Trial Bank, being developed by the American Medical Informatics Association, to ensure that trial data is archived in a format that can be used for scientific analysis across trials.

According to the PLoS editors, a major aim is to counteract "publication bias, whereby published research differs systematically from unpublished data in its direction and strength of findings." The journal is now accepting results of human clinical trials in all disciplines. The web site is available at http://clinicaltrials.plosjournals.org/