Product Overview of Authorea
Authorea is an advanced online collaborative writing and publishing platform designed specifically for researchers, scientists, and academics. Often described as “Google Docs for Scientists,” Authorea integrates a range of features that simplify the process of writing, collaborating, and publishing scholarly work.
Key Features
Collaboration
- Real-time Collaborative Editing: Multiple users can edit a document simultaneously, facilitating seamless teamwork.
- Commenting and Live Chat: Users can annotate document sections with public or private comments and engage in live chat discussions within the document.
- Change Tracking: Authorea uses Git for version control, allowing users to track changes, review individual edits, and revert unwanted modifications.
Formatting and Citations
- Automatic Citation Formatting: The platform supports over 40 publisher- and journal-specific style templates and automatically formats references for target publications upon export.
- Citation Search: Users can add full citations directly from PubMed, CrossRef, or by using a paper’s DOI.
Rich Content Support
- Figures, Data, and Code: Users can drag-and-drop figures, upload data files, and attach iPython notebooks. Interactive figures using D3.js and other technologies are also supported.
- Equations and Mathematical Notation: Authorea supports equations written in LaTeX markup, making it ideal for complex mathematical formulations.
Export and Import
- Multi-format Export: Documents can be exported in Word, PDF, and LaTeX formats.
- Import Capabilities: Users can import LaTeX or .docx files to create new Authorea documents.
Version Control and Reproducibility
- Git-based Infrastructure: Each document is a dedicated Git repository, ensuring transparent and trackable changes. This allows for the hosting of data, code, and other digital content, making documents more reproducible.
Publishing and Sharing
- Preprint Workflows: Authorea supports preprint submission directly to platforms like bioRxiv and integrates with PREreview for preprint reviews.
- Public and Private Documents: Users can make documents public for open access or keep them private, accessible only to co-authors. Public documents are freely available for anyone to read.
- DOI Minting: Users can mint a DOI for their documents, making them citeable and shareable.
Additional Functionality
- Interactive Figures and Dynamic Charts: Authorea allows the creation of interactive figures using technologies like d3.js and Plot.ly, enhancing the presentation of data and research findings.
- Community Portals: Users can create community portals to showcase research work from teams, organizations, or institutions, and customize the design and submission processes.
Technical Architecture
Authorea is built primarily with Ruby on Rails and utilizes Resque and Faye. It supports iPython notebooks and runs a live iPython notebook server, enabling users to attach, re-run, and reproduce scientific calculations and data analysis directly within the platform.
User Plans
Authorea offers various plans, including a free version with unlimited public documents, public storage, and an unlimited number of collaborators. Paid subscriptions provide additional features such as more private documents, increased data storage, and other premium functionalities.
In summary, Authorea is a comprehensive platform that streamlines the research writing and publishing process by offering robust collaboration tools, advanced formatting and citation support, rich content integration, and a strong focus on transparency, openness, and reproducibility.