Acta Biologica Sibirica signs with Pensoft and moves to ARPHA

Acta Biologica Sibirica, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of Altai State University, with its content on original research in the field of experimental and field biology, moves to Pensoft and the publisher’s scholarly platform ARPHA. The journal has been published since 2015 and follows all the standards in modern biological research and Open Access policy. The first papers published in 2020 are already available on a brand new user-friendly website, running on ARPHA publishing platform.

Acta Biologica Sibirica 
Credit: Acta Biologica Sibirica and Pensoft 
License: CC-BY 4.0
The first papers in 2020 of Acta Biologica Sibirica, journal of Altai State University, are published on the innovative ARPHA publishing platform and already available online on a user-friendly brand new website
Credit:Acta Biologica Sibirica and Pensoft
License: CC-BY 4.0

Acta Biologica Sibirica is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal on the biodiversity of Siberia and the adjacent lands by Altai State University. Since 2015, it has been publishing  original research in the field of experimental and field biology. 

Starting from 2020, Acta Biologica Sibirica moves to the full-featured technologically advanced platform ARPHA and will be published in collaboration with the scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft.

Pensoft’s original publishing system ARPHA allows Acta Biologica Sibirica to publish original research papers, reviews, short communications, letters and discussion papers, book reviews and memorial articles. The scholarly platform was designed to facilitate authors in the manuscript writing, submission and review process as end-to-end experience, including publication of the data and multimedia content in the form, suitable for both enhanced high-tech human and machine discoverability of the scholarly outputs.

Acta Biologica Sibirica accepts for publication papers in taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography, faunistics, floristics, biological systematics, nature conservation and protected areas. In the fields of faunistics and floristics there are several types of articles, available for submission: floral and faunal lists on any region of the world, faunal and floral discoveries (e.g. species newly recorded in a particular region, additions to previously published inventories), papers on methodology of faunal and floral studies.

«Our basic task is to turn our journal into a high-quality world-class publication. Without the help of modern publishers, this is almost impossible. The choice of the publisher was perfectly logical – the reputation of Pensoft Publishers and its founder, the famous Bulgarian zoologist Lubomir Penev, is impeccable. To stand in one cohort with powerful publications with a long history is an honor for us. High standards of editing and reviewing manuscripts, the absolute level of originality and scientific novelty – these are the criteria on which we will rely»,

comments the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Professor of Altai University Roman Yakovlev.

«At Pensoft, we are delighted to initiate this wonderful partnership with yet another renowned research institution in Russia, namely Altai State University. With our long-year experience in zoological and biodiversity research publishing and dissemination, I am certain that the journal has found a fitting place in the family of Pensoft and ARPHA»,

comments Prof. Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft and ARPHA.

The first papers of 2020 are already available online on the new website of Acta Biologica Sibirica.

Within the pioneering papers published in the renewed journal, there is a research article about the first result of DNA-studies on the Central Asiatic owlet moths in the genus Euchalcia. The studied specimens were collected in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan during the expeditions of the Russian Entomological Society in 2017-2019. When comparing a specific mitochondrial gene (cytochrome C oxidase subunit I or COI) between various species, the scientists revealed that the difference amongst European Euchalcia species is smaller than the one amongst high-mountainous Central Asiatic species.

Another study records the first occurrence of the moorland clouded yellow in Altai Region. The butterfly was found to share a mitochondrial barcode with some specimens from mountain populations from the Alps and the Czech Republic.

Colias palaeno, male, vicinity of Ozerki village, Talmenskiy district, Altai region, Russia 
Credit: Nazar A. Shapoval
License: CC-BY 4.0
Colias palaeno, male, vicinity of Ozerki village, Talmenskiy district, Altai region, Russia
Credit: Nazar A. Shapoval
License: CC-BY 4.0

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Additional information

About Altai State University:

Altai State University is one of the leading Russian classical higher education institutions established in 1973. It is a major educational, research and cultural center located in the Asian part of the country, integrated into the international academic community, training the intellectual elite and conducting high-impact research.

The unique geographical position of Altai region, located in the center of Asia predestinates the University’s mission – to appear as an international research and educational center that integrates, develops and spreads the modern Western, Russian and Asian knowledge in education, science and culture within the Asian region.

About ARPHA:

ARPHA is the first end-to-end, narrative- and data-integrated publishing solution that supports the full life cycle of a manuscript, from authoring to reviewing, publishing and dissemination. ARPHA provides accomplished and streamlined production workflows that can be customized according to the journal’s needs. The platform enables a variety of publishing models through a number of options for branding, production and revenue models to choose from.

About Pensoft:

Pensoft is an independent academic publishing company, well-known worldwide for its innovations in the field of semantic publishing, as well as for its cutting-edge publishing tools and workflows. In 2013, Pensoft launched the first ever end to end XML-based authoring, reviewing and publishing workflow, as demonstrated by the Pensoft Writing Tool (PWT) and the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ), now upgraded to the ARPHA Publishing Platform. Flagship titles include: Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), One Ecosystem, ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, PhytoKeys, MycoKeys and many more.

Contacts:

Prof. Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft
Email: penev@pensoft.net

Prof. Alex Matsyura, Editor-in-Chief of Acta Biologica Sibirica
Email: amatsyura@gmail.com

Prof. Roman Yakovlev, Editor-in-Chief of Acta biologica sibirica 
Email: yakovlev_asu@mail.ru


Seven journals moving to ARPHA in early 2020 showcase the versatility of the publishing platform

Seven journals of diverse backgrounds, scopes and geographies are moving to Pensoft-developed open access publishing platform ARPHA.

A full-featured, open access publishing platform for journals, books and data, which comes with an extensive list of services and features – both automated and human-provided – to adapt to the individual needs of any client journal. But how does that translate into practice? 

The latest scholarly titles to join the ranks of ARPHA might just provide a perfect example of the capabilities of the platform to accommodate the specificity of scholarly journal across sciences, audiences, geographies and languages.

Amsterdam University Press strengthens partnership with ARPHA by launching two brand new journals

Journal of European Landscapes (JEL) and Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal (HMC) add up to the partnership between ARPHA and Amsterdam University Press (AUP), which started in early 2018 with the transfer of the only Dutch-language open-access journal focussing on accountancy, business economics and related areas: Accountancy and Business Economics, or Maandblad voor Accountancy en Bedrijfseconomi (MAB).

Homepage of Amsterdam University’s journal Accountancy and Business Economics (Maandblad voor Accountancy en Bedrijfseconomi), using the white-label publishing solution of ARPHA Platform.

Not only was MAB the first journal on the platform that publishes articles exclusively in a language other than English, but also became an impressive precedent with its nearly 100-year content that got successfully dusted off and fitted into the user-friendly digital environment of today. All papers ever issued in MAB since its launch in 1923, were re-published, so that each could be assigned with a DOI; have its metadata registered on CrossRef; and its article content fully searchable within the PDF copy.

All three make use of ARPHA’s white-label publishing solution, which allows for AUP to carry its recognisable logo through a unified banner across the websites of the journals. Unlike MAB, however, JEL and HMC are to have their articles published exclusively in English to further promote their international scope and focus.

Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal (HMC)

Homepage of the new Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journalpublished by Amsterdam University Press via ARPHA Platform.

Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal is a brand new journal launched to trace back the remnants of the past – be it physical or anecdotal – back to their roots in the days of old. How do memory sites and discourses operate as vehicles at local, national and transnational levels and what indeed is the ‘cargo’ they carry? This is the type of questions authors from across disciplines – academic, artistic and industrial – will be trying to answer when preparing their manuscripts for HMC

Journal of European Landscapes (JEL) 

Homepage of the new Journal of European Landscapes published by Amsterdam University Press via ARPHA Platform.

Similarly, the second newly launched Journal of European Landscapes is to turn to history and cultural heritage, in order to understand the present use of the past when it comes to landscape. JEL’s founders point out that while Europe’s landscapes have so far enjoyed quite a lot of scientific attention, there isn’t a journal to address its indisputable and critical connection to heritage, even though the latter is what connects historical research with modern planning and management.

Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS)

Homepage of the new Vegetation Classification and Survey journal published by the International Association for Vegetation Science via ARPHA Platform.

Adding up to the landscape topic is the Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) journal. This is the latest outlet launched by the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS): a worldwide union of scientists and other aficionados of theory and practice concerning the study of vegetation. 

With its transfer to ARPHA, VCS fulfils the mission of the union to move to Open Access. Interestingly, the journal supports two permanent sections: Ecoinformatics and Phytosociological Nomenclature. There, authors can submit certain unique article types: Review and Synthesis and Short/Long Database Reports. 

Devoted to plant community ecology, VCS publishes original research that works toward the development of novel vegetation classifications, as well as applied studies that use such typologies. Particularly encouraged are methodological studies that design and compare tools for vegetation classification and mapping. 

Plant Sociology 

Homepage of the new Plant Sociology journal published by Società Italiana di Scienza della Vegetazione via ARPHA Platform.

Another modern botany journal still awaiting its first issue since its transfer to ARPHA, is Plant Sociology, brought to life by the “Società Italiana di Scienza della Vegetazione” (SISV) with the aim to succeed the historical journals of the society: Fitosociologia (1990-2011) and Notiziario della Società Italiana di Fitosociologia (1964-1989).

The editorial management opted to have the journal co-published with Pensoft: the academic publisher and technology provider standing behind ARPHA. Thus, by default, the journal receives some extra perks as a result of Pensoft’s partnerships with leading innovators in the scholarly communication domain.  An excellent example would be the indexing and addition of each Plant Sociology article by the research discovery platform ScienceOpen in the “Pensoft Biodiversity” collection, following a recent strategic collaboration between the two Open Science champions.

With a wide scope covering vegetation studies from plant community to landscape level, Plant Sociology puts a special focus on topics such as plant sociology and vegetation survey for developing ecological models, as well as plant classification, monitoring, assessment, management and conservation, as long as the studies are based on rigorous and quantitative measures of physical and biological components.

Caucasiana

Adding up to the well-pronounced biodiversity theme in ARPHA’s and Pensoft’s journal portfolios, as well as the “Pensoft Biodiversity” collection on ScienceOpen, is the first Georgian journal to join the lines of the publishing platform. Caucasiana is to be co-published by the top biodiversity research centre in the region: Ilia State University in Tbilisi and Pensoft.

The scholarly outlet that we’ll soon see on ARPHA Platform is in fact a successor of an earlier journal launched by the Institute of Zoology of the Georgian Academy of Science that has been revamped top-to-bottom. Transformed into a technologically advanced publishing venue, Caucasiana’s task is to handle the growing research interest in the incredible, yet surprisingly overlooked animal, plant and fungal life of Caucasus and adjacent regions. 

Research published in Caucasiana will be well-positioned to bring this hotspot of biodiversity and endemism into focus for the global conservation movement.

The EASE Journal: European Science Editing (ESE)

The quarterly journal of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE): European Science Editing (ESE) is a key news source for all actors involved in scholarly publishing.

For the first time, ESE will open up its content to the public from day one of its publication, thanks to its move to ARPHA. While digital and print subscriptions used to be included as part of the association’s membership packages, other readers would have had to wait six months after print publication to receive free access.

Launched in 2003, ESE’s aim has been to keep editors posted about everything they need to know concerning scholarly communication. To do so, the journal publishes research articles, meeting reports, essays and viewpoints, as well as book and website reviews. Especially for members of the association, ESE takes care to highlight upcoming events and provide resources and publications, considered to be of their interest. 

Bulgarian Journal of Cardiology

In 2020, ARPHA will also welcome the third Bulgarian-born academic journal and the fourth covering the field of Medical Sciences to its open-access portfolio: the journal of Bulgaria’s National Cardiac Society, which is part of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

For the first time, the Bulgarian Journal of Cardiology will make use of the soon-to-be-released English-Bulgarian bilingual publishing solution from ARPHA. Similarly to the English-Russian approach to journal publishing, which was presented in Moscow in early December, ARPHA will allow for users of the Bulgarian Journal of Cardiology to not only publish papers in both English and Bulgarian, but also enjoy a top-to-bottom Bulgarian user interface.

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Learn more about ARPHA’s key features and achievements from 2019 in our yearly recap.