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> Even without getting into the result that not interacting with Elsevier has on careers in the biomedical sciences... The author of the article addresses this

> Even without getting into the result that not interacting with Elsevier has on careers in the biomedical sciences... The author of the article addresses this concern in the "What you can do" section. He says he's noticed no ill effects from avoiding Elsevier journals and that most people are likely to have the same experience. As for PLOS ONE's business model, it's possible that it sets up some perverse incentives, but fortunately there are choices other than PLOS ONE if this model bothers you. If it really is impossible for you to avoid publishing in an Elsevier journal, that's fine, but anybody who can avoid it should for the reasons presented in this article.

rspeer 10y ago
What are the other choices? PLOS ONE is the only open-access journal I know of that has a good reputation, isn't limited to a narrow field, and isn't just a trash-heap of unpublishable nonsense. This reputation, at least, is an incentive for them to do good peer review.
- sndean 10y ago
  Scientific Reports (http://www.nature.com/srep/ http://www.nature.com/srep/) is pretty broad and is open-access. Some really good articles have been published there over the past few years.
  - grigjd3 10y ago
    Broad is part of the problem. It's very difficult to get qualified reviewers when you haven't narrowed the scope. One of the primary problems with PLOS ONE is that it exasperates problems already seen in other journals that cover too much. Why would you expect a specialist in awake single neuron experiments to be able to review and MRI study? Sure, there are some really good people out there, but for the most part, such reviews are going to be arbitrary.
- grigjd3 10y ago
  Again, journals run by professional groups are a terrific way to avoid both the bad behaviour of Elsevier and the apparent pay to play that shows up with PLOS ONE.
grigjd3 10y ago
Well, I explicitly endorse the APS model, so there you go.

rspeer 10y ago

What are the other choices? PLOS ONE is the only open-access journal I know of that has a good reputation, isn't limited to a narrow field, and isn't just a trash-heap of unpublishable nonsense. This reputation, at least, is an incentive for them to do good peer review.

sndean 10y ago
Scientific Reports (http://www.nature.com/srep/ http://www.nature.com/srep/) is pretty broad and is open-access. Some really good articles have been published there over the past few years.
- grigjd3 10y ago
  Broad is part of the problem. It's very difficult to get qualified reviewers when you haven't narrowed the scope. One of the primary problems with PLOS ONE is that it exasperates problems already seen in other journals that cover too much. Why would you expect a specialist in awake single neuron experiments to be able to review and MRI study? Sure, there are some really good people out there, but for the most part, such reviews are going to be arbitrary.
grigjd3 10y ago
Again, journals run by professional groups are a terrific way to avoid both the bad behaviour of Elsevier and the apparent pay to play that shows up with PLOS ONE.

grigjd3 10y ago

Well, I explicitly endorse the APS model, so there you go.