Will PLOS One ever be legit in PS? « Political Science Rumors

"Will PLOS One ever be legit? Why, or why not? In the 'no' column, I'd say there's an established bias against open access and pay-to-play within PS. Traditions are tough to change, especially in a discipline like ours looking to conserve the status quo. Yet, I think there are some notes in the 'maybe yes' column, too. Lots of high profile natural science work is published in open access journals, and open access journals have gotten lots of media attention. I bet NPR runs some science-y story about research published in PLOS One at least once a week. I think any dean, anywhere, would be thrilled to have faculty research featured on NPR, regardless of where it was published. Given the popularity of open access in the natural sciences, and given the public profile it's developing, will PS ever go along? If not, what will our reasoning be? And will that reasoning be good enough to satisfy deans and provosts that are hungry for the public exposure they see happening in the natural sciences via open access publishing?"