PLOS ONE What sets PLOS ONE apart?

Well, I think that a journal has a twofold scope. The first one is of course to publish science, so to disseminate it. And the second one is to build a community around it. Well, you know, I think it was always a very good journal. I published one of my first neuroscience articles in there, shortly before I became an Academic Editor. And, I think that it has a lot of breadth. I think it’s the breadth and I think it’s the reputation that the reviews and the process are really thorough. I’m quite proud, both as an editor, and as an author in PLOS ONE that the standards of the research are very high. I think it’s a great journal. And that’s why I accepted to be an Academic Editor for it, because I believe in the mission. Oh, I think PLOS ONE is absolutely necessary for the scholarly ecosystem because of its Open Access.

01:26 - It makes a huge difference; PLOS ONE has influenced the other journals to be Open Access. It’s important because we are publicly funded and the big thing is that we need to have that information accessible to others and we need the data to be accessible to others because it’s the public that’s funding it and the public that should get the benefit from that. At the beginning it was the only journal which could guarantee a wide scope, free of perceived impact and just based on the solid science. PLOS ONE is Open Access and it’s also I would say a “mega journal”, which I think is good because it allows someone to publish a paper that might not exactly fit within the niche of another journal. To me the best part of PLOS ONE is that it doesn’t look at “is this sexy? Is this new? Is this important? Is this going to have impact?” The only criterion is, “is it good science?” And that PLOS ONE does, and does very well. .