PLoS ONE is an open access, online scientific journal from the Public Library of Science (ISSN 1817-101X). It covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine. Submissions go through pre-publication peer review but are not excluded on the basis of lack of perceived importance or adherence to a scientific field. Unlike other PLoS journals, the PLoS ONE online platform has post-publication user discussion and rating features. PLoS ONE articles are indexed in PubMed, and by Web of Science.
History
PLoS ONE was launched at the end of 2006 as a beta version. As of June 2008, there were over 2,500 articles available. Until March 2008 the Managing Editor was Chris Surridge, and after this date it became Peter Binfield.
Publication concept
PLoS ONE is built on several conceptual differences compared to traditional peer-reviewed scientific publishing. According to Nature, the journal's aim is to "challenge academia's obsession with journal status and impact factors."[1] Being an online-only publication allows PLoS ONE to publish more papers than a journal that prints a weekly or monthly issue. It does not restrict itself to a specific scientific area in an effort to facilitate publication of research on topics outside, or between, traditional science categories.[2] In addition, it does not use presumed importance of a paper as a criterion for rejection. Instead, PLoS ONE only verifies whether experiments were conducted rigorously and astutely and permits the scientific community to ascertain importance, post publication, through debate and comment:[2]
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"Each submission will be assessed by a member of the PLoS ONE Editorial Board before publication. This pre-publication peer review will concentrate on technical rather than subjective concerns and may involve discussion with other members of the Editorial Board and/or the solicitation of formal reports from independent referees. If published, papers will be made available for community-based open peer review involving online annotation, discussion, and rating."[3] |
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Business model
As with all journals of the Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE is financed by charging authors a publication fee. As of July 2008, PLoS ONE charges authors $1,300 to publish an article. It will waive the fee for authors who do not have the funds.[4]
The 'publication fee' model allows PLoS ONE (and other PLoS journals) to provide all articles to everybody for free immediately after publication. This is more commonly known as 'Open Access' and the specific usage of articles is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution License, version 2.5.[5]
See also
References
External links
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