To Wikipedia and beyond – Topic Pages from PLOS Computational Biology

One of the many benefits of publishing Open Access using the CC BY copyright license is the ease of content re-use. This has led to some exciting initiatives such as Topic Pages which were launched by PLOS Computational Biology to fill gaps in Wikipedia’s coverage of this rapidly expanding discipline.

Today, the journal is pleased to publish its fourth Topic Page, entitled “Viral Phylodynamics”, by Erik Volz, Katia Koelle and Trevor Bedford. This article is also featured in Wikipedia where it will provide a solid introduction to this emerging field and be available for wider community discussion between researchers and the general public.

The following Topic Pages have also been published and appear on Wikipedia as living documents available for editing and updating:

• Evolving Digital Ecological Networks by Miguel A. Fortuna and colleagues
• Approximate Bayesian Computation by Mikael Sunnåker, Christophe Dessimoz and colleagues
• Circular Permutation in Proteins by Spencer Bliven and Andreas Prlić

Since the launch of Topic Pages almost a year ago, they have received an enthusiastic response:

“Scientists organized and actively curating wiki content. Cool.”  Charlie Schick, PhD (twitter)

“This synthesis of peer-reviewed writing of topics and Wikipedia entries is a fantastic effort, spreading knowledge.”  Murray Robertson (twitter)

Topic Pages are just one of many ways that PLOS fulfills its mission to lead a transformation in research communication. More Topic Pages are in the pipeline and we’re open to suggestions that will interest this audience and have previously only been covered in limited depth on Wikipedia or do not yet appear there at all. Additional guidelines are available; please email us your ideas.