PLoS Blog

We need in medical academia to care more about quality than prestige: The quality of our research, of our publication and dissemination goals, of the impact of our work, and of our hiring and promotion decisions. So instead of “Publish or Perish,” perhaps our mantra ought to be “Quality or Quit.”

Today marks the publication of a special neuroscience Review in PLoS Computational Biology that we expect will become a key reference work. Gustavo Deco, Viktor K. Jirsa, Peter A. Robinson, Michael Breakspear, and Karl Friston present the results of several years of collaboration in response to a challenge posed at a Brain Connectivity Workshop to define and clarify the true meanings and usage of models in constant, but approximate use. Terms such as mean-field approximations, mass-action, neural-mass models, neural-field models, density-dynamics, etc. were in regular use but in undefined ways. This article tries to address how different models, used to simulate and predict observed brain dynamics, can be traced back to their common fundaments. In an accompanying Editorial also published today, Karl Friston, PLoS Computational Biology’s neuroscience editor, explains the origin and purpose of the article, which should standardise many concepts for some time.

Thirty four years later we have a new report, with seemingly no new messages. Regrettably I think we can assume no new progress on social justice.

We’re pleased to announce the creation of a new blog site to help us promote and organize the first ever Open Access Day which will be held on October 14, 2008. This is the day after our birthday (the fifth publishing anniversary of our first ever journal PLoS Biology is October 13, 2008, a public holiday in the USA).

PLoS and the Max Planck Society (MPS) have recently established an agreement whereby open access publication fees in PLoS journals will be paid directly by the MPS for articles from researchers at Max Planck Institutes.