I'm a postdoc and thinking about where to publish. eLife seems good for my work. However, I heard that eLife would be considered "reviewed preprints" and not count as publications for tenure decisions. Is this the case? I'm in computational neuroscience so am considering applied math and neuroscience departments.
-
2From Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELife) - "eLife is a not-for-profit, peer-reviewed, open access, science publisher for the biomedical and life sciences. It was established at the end of 2012 by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Max Planck Society, and Wellcome Trust," On the other hand, in 2022 the adopted "a new model without accept or reject decisions"– Jon CusterCommented Nov 22 at 16:28
-
3I feel like this question is distinct from other questions about particular journals because eLife's peer review system is unique as far as I know, and they've been in the news recently and in the past for it: science.org/content/article/… As such, I see this more as a question about the publishing model and less about this individual journal, it's just that there aren't other journals with this same model (that I am aware of; at least not in the same field).– Bryan Krause ♦Commented Nov 22 at 16:29
-
4@BryanKrause Agreed, but I think the question would benefit from a description of the specific publishing model.– AnyonCommented Nov 22 at 16:57
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
eLife is a journal experimenting with an alternative peer review model. All submissions that pass editorial review are peer reviewed, but the reviews do not influence a publication decision: everything passing editorial review is published, alongside the reviews.
They are recently in the news for Clarivate's Web of Science decision to suspend the journal and remove their impact factor. They've decided that the journal's review model doesn't meet their standards.
I would avoid eLife at this stage in your career. It's a controversial journal, and although I think a substantial number of people view their model favorably or at least with curiosity, it's just not worth the controversy at your career stage. Assuming you want an academic job after your post doc, you're not going to want to miss out on some fraction of publications "counting" at any potentially interested institution, you just can't afford it.
In the next stage of your career, you'll have more opportunity to know exactly what the expectations and attitudes are at your specific institution. For now, you need a broad brush.
answered Nov 22 at 16:27
-
2It’s worth noting that for a long time eLife actively fought not to have an impact factor (or at least claims this). Unfortunately information on this is difficult to find on the Internet nowadays.– Wrzlprmft ♦Commented Nov 23 at 8:45
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what people here think about eLife. What matters is what the people in the department and university you will end up think about it. That's something we can't tell you, of course, but that you can easily find out: Talk to your colleagues in your current department, as they will likely have a good read on what the community believes.
answered Nov 22 at 23:39
