I'm hoping to get a dialogue going on what peoples experiences are (both good and bad) with various bioinformatics-focused journals. Which have you submitted to, plan to submit to, and why? If you know the impact factor of your journal of choice, please supply it, but also any personal reasons for choosing a journal may also prove useful to the rest of us. If we get enough nominations (for good ones) I will set up a poll and hopefully we can decide on our favorites.

Ryan

Hi Ryan,

I've had good experiences with BMC Bioinformatics , one bad experience with Bioinformatics, and mixed feelings about Biomedical Informatics.

BMC was great because the response time in terms of reviews and of getting your article up online is really fast. I'm debating resubmitting something that was rejected to Biomedical Informatics versus sending it over to BMC right now. Trouble is that it seems a bit easier to publish in BMC so I'm not clear how this will affect perception of the articles published there (and of course of me).

If I had to pick - and i guess I do, I'd pick BMC bioinformatics as my favorite journal to publish in. I think their philosophy of open access, only online content, and fast turnover times win the day. Ultimately I guess I don't think the journal really makes the paper anyway - if its good, it will be rewarded with citations regardless.

ramble ramble

My very first post! Yay! :-)

Most of my publications have been in cancer/genome type journals, but my first peer reviewed publication was in BMC Bioinformatics.

The fast response time that Ben speaks up was certainly not what I experienced. After about 2 months of my manuscript status being listed as 'With Reviewers,' I emailed the editor and who got back to me with a message basically stating that the reviews were sitting on her desk for the past month. This happened again after the first round of revisions :-(

Eventually, the manuscript was accepted, so I guess I can't complain. Furthermore, I first submitted the manuscript in mid to late November, so maybe there was a bit of the Christmas rush going on.

Regarding impact factors, at the time of this writing, BMC Bioinformatics is at 3.49, which isn't too bad, but I get the impression that it has become a bit of a dumping ground for rejected bioinformatics projects.

Anyone with experience publishing in PLoS Computational Biology or PLoS One?

A colleague of mine was telling me that it took forever (~ 3 months) for her to get the first round of reviews back for her PLoS One manuscript. Basically, the editor said that the work was so novel that it was difficult for them to find suitable reviewers....!

Never heard of that one before!