PLoS ONE

Context

"The reason that most scientists have not yet defected from the old system of publishing is the fear instilled by something known as the Impact Factor.

The Impact Factor is a kind of magic incantation cast on the reputation of every working scientist. Essentially, the Impact Factor is a measure of how many people read and cite a given science journal. Based on a proprietary formula calculated by the private company Thomson Scientific, Impact Factors have become the defacto method to judge the importance of a scientists' work, which is often used to appoint professors, deny grants, give out fellowships. Articles published in journals with high Impact Factors are accorded a certain prestige that turn into professional advancement where the widespread use of Impact Factors guard the sanctity of established journals.

Nevertheless, articles published in high Impact Factor journals are not necessarily brilliant. Many are not cited at all. Indeed, most papers leading to Nobel prizes were not been published in Nature of Science. Scientists slavishly desire to have the articles published in journals with high Impact Factors, even those many fail, in order to have high Imact Factors on their CV. Sending their best work to fringe open-access journals -- with correspondingly low Impact Factors -- would be the kiss of death on their CV.

In order to dismantle the walls of the scientific publishing industry, the spell of the Impact Factor will have be broken." (http://shareable.net/blog/the-lumpy-future-of-science-publishing)

Description

'And the thing that will be do the breaking may very well be a young open-access journal, barely 2 years old, called PLoS ONE. Launched in 2006, by the Public Library of Science, PLoS has introduced a radically different model of scientific publishing. The publishing of PLoS ONE is that peer-review of an article is based on originality, soundness of method, and good prose. What is interesting is what is missing.

Unlike every other science journal, PLoS ONE does not judge an article on perceived impact, or fit with the journal. As long as it satisfies the requirements, PLoS ONE will publish it. PLoS ONE just does not care about the Impact Factor. Instead, PLoS ONE is the only journal in existence that publish detailed citation statistics for every single article. At this level of detail, Impact Factors looks like a crude accounting bludgeon that misses the true worth of scientific papers.

But is it working? The numbers prove it. In just two years, PLoS ONE has become the third largest publisher of scientific journals. They are close to breaking even as a financial model, and their revenue stream is actually subsidising other journals in the PLoS ONE family.

But more importantly, it has captured the attention of the younger scientists. Flashy articles are starting to appear in PLoS ONE, articles that have saturated the media, like articles published by Nature and Science. The promise of a smoother ride for articles with bold new findings, their fast turn-around speed has attracted some very high impact articles indeed. These flashy young scientists just don't give a shit about their precious Impact Factors.

Indeed, the PLoS ONE model has proven so influential that the Macmillian group, which publishes Nature, has just recently annouced a journal along the lines of PLoS ONE -- Nature Communications -- fast review, no judgements on perceived impact and open access." (http://shareable.net/blog/the-lumpy-future-of-science-publishing)