PeerJ - More than just a publisher

Abstract

PeerJ Inc (the open access publisher of both PeerJ and PeerJ PrePrints) announced itself in mid-2012, and started publishing articles in February 2013. Although to the casual observer, PeerJ might be thought of as 'just another open access (OA) publisher', in fact (as evidenced by several industry awards) it is building an environment which has publishing at its core, but which also addresses the needs of the academic community in several additional ways. In this article, one of the co-founders of PeerJ describes innovations such as their 'individual-centric' business model; their 'optional open peer-review' system; the PeerJ contribution points; the visual design; and several important aspects of their philosophy which together are creating a publishing system suitable for the needs of the 21st-century academic.