GigaByte - A new workflow for rapid dissemination of datasets & tools- bringing papers to life

In the era of data-intensive research and the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of open, and rapid dissemination of research has drawn greater attention. With this comes challenges, such as balancing speed with the quality of peer review, and the requirements of archiving a traditionally static “version of record” being difficult to balance with the advantages of web-based interactivity. Aiming to tackle these challenges and to speed up the publishing process using data infrastructure from a non-profit research organisation in Hong Kong, GigaScience Press has been helping develop a new custom-built platform and workflow using end-to-end publishing technology that enables accepted manuscripts to be converted to an online and PDFready article within a day.

GigaByte is a new journal that speeds up the publishing process by using new custom-built, end-to-end publishing technology. A streamlined editorial effort enhances speed by focusing on publishing short-format data and software-centric articles, which greatly reduces researcher writing time. And in addition, a questionnaire-style peer review process ensures rapid review with a focus on reuse potential over narrative value. The publication process integrates with the open GigaScience Database (GigaDB) that serves as a broad-spectrum repository to display data and tools associated with these publications with the added benefit of curators being on hand to help the submitter rapidly curate metadata and host data files. Papers are brought to life by embedding numerous "widgets" in the manuscript and dataset pages. This custom-built infrastructure and workflow has enabled GigaScience Press to move beyond the traditional static, descriptive journal article by including embedded content.

Nicole Nogoy is the Executive Editor at GigaScience Press currently based in Wellington, NZ. A research scientist by training with a degree in Biochemistry and Physiology from Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), and a PhD in Natural Sciences from the University of Goettingen (Germany), Nicole moved into publishing and was the launch and Managing Editor at Genome Medicine (BioMed Central). Having seen the light of open access and open science, Nicole is an open data and open science advocate with over 10 years of open access and STEM Publishing experience.