Publishing your poster in a DOI repository like Zenodo extends the lifespan of your poster beyond the conference, reaching audiences who would not have seen your poster otherwise and providing a verifiable, citable record of your scholarly output.
Open science in Providence
This week finds me in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, attending the 19th Congress of IS-MPMI — the International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions. This society has been my scientific home throughout my career, and its Congress is renowned for announcements of groundbreaking research in our fast-paced and diverse field.
This year, the program is more inclusive than ever, featuring increased representation from the international community and a wide variety of workshops and sessions aimed at career advancement. Among these, a Concurrent Session deserves highlighting. The brainchild of Toulouse-based PhD student Karima El Mahboubi, who is a passionate advocate of open science and a proponent of reforming the publishing system, this session boasts an inspiring array of talks. Notably, Karima managed to secure Jessica Polka, the Executive Director of ASAPbio and a leading voice in the open science movement, as a speaker.
I’m writing these words before the session, and you can follow what happenned using the Twitter hashtag #OpenMPMI coined by one of the speakers Ksenia Krasileva.
Debunking myths about open science
There are several misconceptions about open science that persist. One widespread myth suggests that sharing preprints, datasets, and posters could hinder your chances of publishing in academic journals. Another is the belief that open science is fundamentally opposed to peer-review. Both of these notions are false.
Many journals have no issue with preprints, as evidenced by this comprehensive list of publishers’ preprint policies on Wikipedia. Moreover, the notion that publishing preprints equates to ‘double dipping’ couldn’t be further from the truth. Publishing your work is about communicating with fellow scientists, not merely keeping score. So, go ahead and double dip, triple dip if you want — think of it in the spirit of Garfield’s laid-back cool.
I am a fervent advocate for peer-review. Feedback and constructive criticism are fundamental for science to progress. However, I am equally passionate about the idea that non-transparent, pre-publication peer-review conducted behind closed doors is detrimental to the scientific process. I firmly believe that peer-review should be reserved for work that has already entered the public sphere.
The old and tried mantra is “publish and filter, not filter and publish”. Just take a look at panels H and I below from a particularly intricate yet poorly controlled figure in a recent high-profile paper. Panel H’s 2-lane co-immunoprecipitation experiment is lacking enough controls for such a sensitive experiment. And yet, the authors topped it off with a one-lane blue-native PAGE in panel I — in this case a clear disregard for any sort of controls.
This is an example of experiments that, in my view, should not have passed peer-review. The reasons why this prestigious journal let this work through (they do not publish their peer-reviews, by the way) are open to speculation. However, one thing is clear: if your experiments yield these types of results and you insist on publishing them, then you’re unlikely to preprint your paper. You’re less concerned with advancing science on solid ground and more interested in simply adding another paper to your publication list. In this scenario, the primary goal shifts from communicating science to publishing by any means necessary. But let me tell you, this strategy comes at a price because it is truly embarrassing to publish a one-lane gel.
I’m confident that peer-review of the preprint would have flagged this issue. Stay tuned for more on this from Jessica Polka, who is spearheading a movement to formally recognize preprint review and feedback.
In the meantime, why not join Mauricio Contreras and his crew of reviewers in transforming your journal club into a preprint review exercise? ¡Viva la Revolución!
Why should you publish your posters
Publishing posters in a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) repository like Zenodo offers several advantages, particularly for early-career researchers.
Here are some reasons:
Accessibility: Publishing your poster in a repository makes it accessible to researchers around the world. This broad accessibility can facilitate collaboration and help to promote your research to a wider audience.
Citation: A DOI is a unique and persistent identifier for a digital object, including research posters. This means that your poster can be cited in other scholarly works, increasing its visibility and impact.
Permanent Record: A DOI provides a stable, long-term record of your work. This can be important for establishing precedence or for providing evidence of your research contributions.
Recognition: Early-career researchers often need to demonstrate their research activity and impact. Publishing a poster with a DOI can help to build a track record of scholarly communication.
Open Science: Publishing posters contributes to the Open Science movement by making more research outputs openly available. This aligns with the push toward transparency and accessibility in research.
Enhances CV: Having a DOI for your poster allows you to include it in your CV under publications. This can add weight to your CV, especially for early-career researchers trying to build their academic portfolio.
Track Engagement: With a DOI, researchers can track where and how often their posters are downloaded or cited, helping to demonstrate engagement with their work.
In a nutshell, publishing your poster in a DOI repository like Zenodo extends the lifespan of your poster beyond the conference, reaching audiences who would not have seen your poster otherwise and providing a verifiable, citable record of your scholarly output.
#OpenMPMIPosters
Just like at the 2019 MPMI Congress, we published our 2023 MPMI Congress posters on Zenodo. Here is the list. Please read, use and cite.
Probing the oligomeric state of activated NLR immune receptors by blue native-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (BN-PAGE). Hsuan Pai; Mauricio P. Contreras; Clémence Marchal; Jiorgos Kourelis; Andrés Posbeyikian; Sophien Kamoun
https://zenodo.org/record/8146428
Biochemical basis of activation and inhibition of an NLR/PRR immune receptor network. Contreras, Mauricio P.; Pai, Hsuan; Selvaraj, Muniyandi; Toghani, AmirAli; Tumtas, Yasin; Yuen, Enoch L. H.; Duggan, Cian; Ahn, Hee-Kyung; Kourelis, Jiorgos; Harant, Adeline; Wu, Chih-Hang; Bozkurt, Tolga O.; Derevnina, Lida; Kamoun, Sophien
https://zenodo.org/record/8146518
An effector from the potato late blight pathogen hijacks the host ESCRT pathway to suppress an NLR/PRR immune receptor network. Jogi Madhuprakash; Adeline Harant; Samuel Shepherd; Hsuan Pai; David M. Lawson; Chih-Hang Wu; Tolga O. Bozkurt; Lida Derevnina; Sophien Kamoun; Mauricio P. Contreras
https://zenodo.org/record/8146559
The NLR immune receptor Pik-1 evolved to respond to fungal effectors of the AVR-Mgk family early in the evolution of Oryza and prior to rice domestication. Yu Sugihara; Aleksandra Białas; Thorsten Langner; A. Cristina Barragan; Jiorgos Kourelis; Yoshiko Abe; Koki Fujisaki; Mark J. Banfield; Ryohei Terauchi; Sophien Kamoun
https://zenodo.org/record/8147460
Pikobodies: What does it take to bioengineer NLR immune receptor-nanobody fusions. Jiorgos Kourelis; Clemence Marchal; Andres Posbeyikian; Adeline Harant; Sophien Kamoun
https://zenodo.org/record/8146575
NLR Bioengineering: Pikobodies confer systemic resistance to Potato virus X. Andres Posbeyikian; Clemence Marchal; Jiorgos Kourelis; Adeline Harant; Sophien Kamoun
https://zenodo.org/record/8146482
The Making of a Story — Communicate Your Research Effectively with Graphics. Hsuan Pai; Amelia H. Lovelace; Sophien Kamoun
https://zenodo.org/record/8146440
After thought on co-immunoprecipitations
Acknowledgements
This post was written with assistance from ChatGPT.
To keep up with our lab posters you can simply follow this link.
This article is available on a CC-BY license via Zenodo. Cite as: Kamoun, S. (2023) Why you should publish your posters. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8154941
