From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2016 13:53:27 -0500

One measure of how well PLOS is doing in terms of the quality of its
articles is its impact factor. Now, we all know that there is great
controversy about IF and I am not about to step into that dispute, but
if PLOS's IF remains steady or improves, then this megajournal is
doing something right. I am less certain about what it means if the IF
declines.

Joe Esposito

On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 6:46 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Michael Magoulias <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2016 16:31:52 +0000
>
> Readers of this list will be interested in the recent case of a Chicago biology professor who was asked by PLoS One to review his own paper.
>
> This professor also highlighted the following sentence in an abstract to a separate, published PLoS One article entitled “Biomechanical Characteristics of Hand Coordination in Grasping Activities of Daily Living.”http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0146193
>
> “The explicit functional link indicates that the biomechanical characteristic of tendinous connective architecture between muscles and articulations is the proper design by the Creator to perform a multitude of daily tasks in a comfortable way.”
>
>
> Can I get an amen?
>
> This is simply the most recent example of what many researchers view as the standard m.o. of these megajournals. I was on a panel a few weeks ago with another biologist who had previously been a PLoS editor. He left on the grounds that the site was, and I quote, “a dumping ground for crappy articles.”
>
> If this is increasingly becoming the view of members of the academic community – and granted, the key word here is “if” – then there is a widening gap between researchers and those who believe that OA on an even more massive scale will be not only the solution to the problem of library budgets, but a boon to the future welfare of humanity.
>
> Looking at the timeline of this article, it is also worth noting that the period from acceptance to publication was 13 months, which is hardly speedier than what most STM publishers are doing. Clearly, whatever work was going into the article, it wasn’t peer review at its most rigorous. It wasn’t even manuscript editing.
>
> So if we add to these factors the recent dramatic increase in the APC, one has to ask whether this form of publishing really is any meaningful sense superior to the system it is meant to replace or “disrupt.” It’s also a question whether there can be long-term sustainability to a method of publication that places such a low premium on intellectual quality.
>
>
> Michael Magoulias
> University of Chicago Press
> Director, Journals