The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) and Hypothesis are pleased to announce a new collaboration to add annotation to the society's content, beginning with The Plant Cell journal. With the addition of its own branded Hypothesis group, ASPB joins the growing list of publishers and societies bringing open annotation to researchers, authors, and readers. This partnership further expands Hypothesis' collaboration with HighWire.

Nancy Winchester, Publications Director, notes “ASPB is excited to partner with the innovative folks at Hypothesis to offer new ways to convey content, enable discussion, and foster collaboration across groups and around the world, in keeping with the Society’s mission to disseminate information about plant biology and expand the plant science community worldwide.”

ASPB editors are adding some of the first annotations in The Plant Cell to provide links to related scholarly materials, including peer review reports, “in brief” companion articles, and — as in the example pictured below —  author biographies. View a dynamic list of all annotations in ASBP’s open group. 

“We’re very excited to work with the team at ASPB to provide this essential tool to The Plant Cell.” says Heather Staines, Director of Partnerships for Hypothesis. “The integration of Hypothesis with this leading journal adds to our strong concentration in the Life Sciences, which includes our inaugural publisher eLife and our forthcoming integration with bioRxiv. We’re honored to be able to streamline workflow for researchers and publishers in this critical field of study.”

Hypothesis’ Publisher groups enable content creators to brand and moderate their own annotation layers on top of the version of record. Open groups allow anyone to participate in post-publication discussion. Restricted groups give publishers the ability to determine who can annotate, including journal staff, authors, or invited experts.

Publishers or societies who want to learn more about this powerful new capability should contact Heather Staines. 

About The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB)
ASPB is a professional scientific society, headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, devoted to the advancement of the plant sciences worldwide. With a membership of some 4,500 plant scientists from throughout the United States and more than 50 other nations, the Society publishes two of the most widely cited plant science journals: The Plant Cell and Plant Physiology. For more information about ASPB, please visit their website, and follow ASPB on Facebook and Twitter. 

About Hypothesis
Hypothesis is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development and spread of open, standards-based annotation technologies and practices, enabling anyone to annotate anywhere. Our mission is to help humans reason more effectively together through a shared, collaborative discussion layer over all knowledge. Hypothesis is based in San Francisco, CA, USA, with a worldwide team.

Hypothesis has developed its open source annotation software in collaboration with many partners and sponsors, including specific projects to augment groups and authentication capabilities with eLife, to enable annotation on EPUBs with NYU, the Readium Foundation, Evident Point, and EPUB.js, and many others. We thank our partners and community for working with us to advance standards-based, interoperable annotation for all.

Contacts
Media: Nate Angell <nate@hypothes.is>, Director of Marketing
Annotation in Publishing: Heather Staines <heather@hypothes.is>, Director of Partnerships
Web: hypothes.is
Twitter: @hypothes_is