Tag: Pensoft

Rebranded Social Psychological Bulletin opens up to the world with PsychOpen GOLD & ARPHA

Formerly known as Psychologia Spoleczna, the scholarly journal is now publishing exclusively in English and is free to both readers and authors after joining the PsychOpen GOLD platform based on ARPHA

Social Psychological Bulletin (SPB), formerly known as the Polish-born Psychologia Spo?eczna, has rebranded and evolved to reflect its new international outlook and dedication to social psychological research and open science practices.

In line with its renowned legacy, the peer-reviewed journal welcomes original empirical research, theoretical review papers, scientific debates, and methodological contributions in the field of basic and applied social psychology.

However, from now on, accepted articles are to be exclusively in English and openly accessible from day one of publication. Furthermore, authors are able to publish with SPB free of charge in the name of socially committed and responsible research.

The journal places special emphasis on what its Editors-in-Chief Drs Michal Parzuchowski and Marcin Bukowski call “the updated FOCI” – an abbreviation for Focused on people, Open, Committed and Integrative.

The changes meant to lead up to the journal’s long-term progress, also outlined in the latest Editorial, come as a result of SPB joining two prime movers in the open science field – the Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information (ZPID) with its unique publication platform, PsychOpen GOLD, and Pensoft with its innovative journal publishing and management system, ARPHA.

Since 2012, PsychOpen GOLD – The European Open Access Publishing Platform for Psychology – allows for both journals and authors to increase the visibility and accessibility of novel psychological research in the spirit of open science practices free of charge.

In the new pilot project, ZPID’s PsychOpen GOLD also collaborates with the technologically advanced academic journal and book publishing platform ARPHA in order to further facilitate and increase visibility of the novel findings of societal value.

As a result of the partnership, SPB will make use of the long list of high-tech and user-friendly innovations, provided by ARPHA, which go far beyond the brand new sleek look and feel of the journal.

“We proudly present the new SPB journal to the scientific community, representing a major breakthrough in open access publishing in psychology,” says ZPID director Prof. Dr. Michael Bosnjak. “SPB on PsychOpen GOLD assisted by ARPHA is now up and running at record speed.”

“It’s really exciting to announce our partnership with ZPID, PsychOpen GOLD and SPB, in this collaborative venture to advance accessibility and visibility of research with such an impact on our own society,” says Prof. Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO of ARPHA Platform and its developer – Pensoft Publishers. “At ARPHA and Pensoft, we have always worked towards next-age innovations in Open Science – be it improved accessibility, findability, usability or collaboration – so it only makes sense to join in this amazing initiative to open up the latest fine research in psychology.”

The journal’s first thematic issue comprises 10 forum papers (by Dariusz Doli?ski, Arie Kruglanski, Adam Factor & Katarzyna Jasko; Leonel Garcia-Marques & Mario Ferreira; Wolfgang Stroebe; Karl Halvor Teigen; Jolanda Jetten & Alexander S. Haslam; Miros?aw Kofta; Bogdan Wojciszke & Konrad Bocian; and Klaus Fiedler) dedicated to discussions on behavior and its measurement as triggered by Prof. Dariusz Dolinski’s article “Is Psychology Still a Science of Behaviour?”.

In his paper, Doli?ski calculates that the number of articles in a recent volume of the flagship Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2017) presenting studies in which the dependent variable consisted of a real behavior was 4 out of 49 (8.2%). Out of a total number of 290 studies presented in this volume, a mere 18 (6,2%) addressed behaviour.

He argues that in addition to studying phenomena like stereotypes, attitudes, and values – which he dubs the “what, how, and why people think”, social psychology needs to also remain dedicated to the “what, why and how people act”, i.e. things such as aggression, altruism, and social influence.

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Follow the discussion in the second 2018 issue of Social Psychological Bulletin on the journal’s new website.

Follow SPB on Twitter and Facebook.

Economics journals hosted on ARPHA to have their content indexed at RePEc

The first to take advantage of the service is the most recent addition to the journal platform’s portfolio — Russian Journal of Economics

Following the recent integration between ARPHA and the collaborative project RePEc (Research Papers in Economics), journals publishing in economics will have their articles indexed in RePEc decentralised bibliographic database upon moving to the technologically advanced platform.

Working with 50,000 registered authors from around the globe, having indexed about 2.3 million research publications from 2,800 journals, and serving over 80,000 email subscriptions on a weekly basis, RePEc’s services are set to further increase the discoverability and creditability of economics papers published in any ARPHA-hosted journal.

The collaboration was inspired by the recent move of the open access peer-reviewed Russian Journal of Economics to ARPHA. Shortly after appearing on the journal’s new website provided by the platform, RuJE’s first 2018 issue, themed ‘The Austrian School of Economics: Its Reception in European Countries,’ was also available via the RePEc’s web interfaces, including IDEAS.

“Having added yet another web-service integration to the list, ARPHA once more demonstrates its flexibility and customer-oriented approach when it comes to providing a new home for journals looking to step up and provide all those innovative and high-tech features to their users,” says ARPHA’s and Pensoft’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev. “In times where the findability of a research publication is almost as important as its quality, I am certain that our integration with RePEc will significantly benefit our clients specialising in economics.”

Speaking in Novosibirsk, Russia, the founder of RePEc, Thomas Krichel noted, “When I set out what would become RePEc in the early 1990, my vision was of a non-proprietary system that all could contribute to, and that all could use freely. My particular concern was to level the playing field between publishers. Open access content is particularly valuable. I am pleased that ARPHA has chosen that publishing avenue.”

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Additional information:

About RePEc:

RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in 96 countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics and related sciences.

The heart of the project is a decentralised bibliographic database of working papers, journal articles, books, books chapters and software components, all maintained by volunteers. The collected data are then used in various services that provide the collected metadata to users or enhance it.

So far, over 1,900 archives from 96 countries have contributed about 2.3 million research pieces from 2,800 journals and 4,500 working paper series. About 50,000 authors have registered and 75,000 email subscriptions are served every week.

RePEc grew out of the NetEc project founded by Thomas Krichel in 1993.

Four Cheers for Marine Diversity: New species from Pensoft journals float their way up to the ‘TOP 10’ charts of WoRMS

The Harry Potter ‘hero’ crab, Palau president’s colonial anemone and the ‘living fossil’ octocoral published in ZooKeys along with the Bob Marley’s intertidal spider from the pages of Evolutionary Systematics made it to the top in the two lists compiled by the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). The ‘TOP 10’ charts mark the 10th anniversary of the organisation dedicated to noting down all creatures splashing around Earth’s marine habitats.

While the three species in the ‘Ten remarkable new marine species from 2017’ list have been bathing in glory mostly thanks to their prominent human namesakes, the octocoral from Japan found a place amongst the ‘Ten astounding marine species of the last decade (2007-2017)’ after being identified as a ‘living fossil’.

To compile the lists, WoRMS first invited all their editors to nominate their favourites in the two disciplines, and then asked a small committee of taxonomists and data managers to provide their votes.

Without further ado, let’s dive into a little bit of a reminder to find out exactly why and how those particular species turned up at the top.

 

  • Harry Potter ‘hero’ crab (Harryplax severus)

Harryplax severus 2

To the delight of the millions of fans of the iconic fantasy franchise Harry Potter around the world, a new species of charming crab discovered in the coral reefs of the island of Guam, the Pacific Ocean, was named after not one, but two of their favourite characters – protagonist Harry Potter and the villain-turned-hero Professor Severus Snape.

Luckily for lead author and self-confessed ‘Potterhead’ Dr. Jose Christopher E. Mendoza, the crustacean was simultaneously identified as a new species and a new genus, which made it possible to have the genus name (Harryplax) ‘reserved’ for the famous fictional wizard, while the species name (severus) remains dedicated to his secretive teacher.

Furthermore, the two scientists – Dr. Jose Christopher E. Mendoza and Dr. Peter Ng, both affiliated with the National University of Singapore – used the scientific name of their rubble-inhabiting discovery to pay tribute to its initial collector – Harry Conley. About 20 years ago, the “soft-spoken ex-Marine with a steely determination and a heart of gold” collected a curious-looking crab from the waters of Guam to unknowingly hand his successors with a piece of nature’s undescribed gems.

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Learn more about Harryplax severus on our blog or read the study published in our open access journal ZooKeys.

 

  • Bob Marley’s intertidal spider (Desis bobmarleyi)

Female Desis bobmarleyi

It’s true – underwater spiders are for real!

Keep calm, though, they tend to be tiny and harmless to humans, so you are highly unlikely to get in contact with them by pure chance.

Scientists Drs. Barbara Baehr, Robert Raven and Danilo Harms, affiliated with Queensland Museum and the University of Hamburg, themselves, had to stay alert and wait for the low tide at the coastline of Australia’s “Sunshine State” of Queensland, in order to spot and collect the several-millimetre spider now known as the Bob Marley’s intertidal spider (or Desis bobmarleyi if you stumble upon it in the academic books).

Fans of the legendary reggae musician, the biologists were quick to link the emergence of the arachnid to a favourite song – “High Tide or Low Tide” – and its underlying message about love and friendship through all struggles of life.

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Check out our blog post on Desis bobmarleyi or go read the full study appearing in the open access Evolutionary Systematics and its first issue published since the journal joined Pensoft last December.

 

  • Palau president’s colonial anemone (Antipathozoanthus remengesaui)

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Yes, the species in the picture is an animal living in the sea, even though Anemone is also a genus of flowering plants growing on the ground. Confused? In fact, the two have nothing to do with each other, apart from their ‘flowery’ appearance.

While researchers from the University of the Ryukyus, Kagoshima University, Japan and the Palau International Coral Reef Center were studying the sea anemones living on top of black coral colonies in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, they discovered a total of three new lovely species (allegedly, even more!), where one, Antipathozoanthus obscurus, was spectacular with its preference for hiding in the narrow reef cracks, rather than ‘perching’ proudly on corals.

Amazed by the quantity of yet to be explored biodiversity at the studied localities, including the island country of Palau, the scientists took the occasion to say Thank you to Palau’s President Tommy Remengesau for his nation’s support.

By naming one of the new species A. remengesaui, the scientists also pay tribute to the politician’s vision on nature conservation which has already placed Palau “at the forefront of marine conservation”, as noted by senior author Dr. James Reimer.

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Find more about the new anemones from our blog post or check out the full study openly accessible in ZooKeys.

 

  • The ‘living fossil’ octocoral (Nanipora kamurai)

living fossil

Dubbed ‘living fossil’ for having much more in common with extinct species than it has with its ‘living’ relatives, this octocoral discovered in Okinawa, Japan, comes to show that sometimes it’s staying calm and still on the (shallow reef) surface that takes you places.

Here, the extraordinary, in modern sense, octocoral species landed a spot among the ten most astounding marine species of the decade.

The ‘living fossil’ resembles the extraordinary blue corals, which are said to have been widely distributed around the globe during the Cretaceous period. Much like its ancestors, it sports a hard skeleton of calcium-carbonate, explain graduate student Yu Miyazaki and associate professor Dr James Davis Reimer, University of the Ryukyus.

Planning a trip to Okinawa? Keep an eye open, as this unusual species prefers depths of less than a meter, which is once again quite the contrary to the habitats picked by its contemporaries.

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Check out our blog post on the ‘living fossil’ octocoral and find the study in our open access journal ZooKeys.

Pensoft’s ARPHA teams with Hypothesis to encourage scientific discourse through annotation

In a new integration, the Pensoft-developed innovative journal publishing platform ARPHA teams up with nonprofit, open-source annotation technology provider Hypothesis to further enable academic discussion and foster collaboration in the spirit of open science practices.

This partnership makes Pensoft the second publisher to implement this technology across its whole journal portfolio.

Current and future scholarly journals using ARPHA, including Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal), ZooKeys, One Ecosystem, Journal of Hymenoptera Research and others, will have a new layer added to their content, so that anyone registered with Hypothesis will be able to add public sentence-level annotations within any publication and use it as a starting point for further discussions. All annotations are stored at Hypothesis and listed in the user’s account.

Upon opening an article published in any ARPHA journal, website visitors can now spot a dialog-box icon in the top-right of the screen showing the number of submitted annotations, which he/she can reply to at the click of a button. Annotations appear highlighted within the webpage whenever a user is logged into their account on Hypothesis.

annotation

Alternatively, the user can simply select some text and add a note to share his/her own idea, feedback, opinion or question inspired by the publication. Thus, the content of the research paper becomes alive, while readers could contribute to the study’s discourse.

“I am delighted to see ARPHA partnering with Hypothesis not only because this benefits our users and journals, but because it also works for the good of science and academia in general,” comments Pensoft’s and ARPHA’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev.

“What we’ve learned from implementing Open Science more and more vigorously in research practices is that striving for transparency and easier collaboration only stimulates scientific progress,” he adds. “One way to do this is definitely by providing the right platforms for giving and addressing feedback.”

Dan Whaley, CEO at Hypothesis, adds:

“We’re excited to see annotation brought to the many publications on the ARPHA platform. As an early member of the Annotating All Knowledge Coalition with a strong commitment to open research and transparent data, Pensoft shares Hypothesis’ commitment to facilitating conversations around scholarly content and improving researcher workflow. We look forward to working with the journal editors to integrate annotation into existing workflows to maximize the success of this initiative.”

For a better grasp of the Web Annotation Architecture, as seen by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), see their interactive infographic.

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About Hypothesis:

Hypothesis is a US 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the development and spread of open, standards-based annotation technologies and practices that enable anyone to annotate anywhere, helping humans reason more effectively together through a shared, collaborative discussion layer over all knowledge. Hypothesis is based in San Francisco, CA with a worldwide team. Learn more from <web.hypothes.is>.

Pensoft journals integrated with Catalogue of Life to help list the species of the world

While not every taxonomic study is conducted with a nature conservation idea in mind, most ecological initiatives need to be backed by exhaustive taxonomic research. There simply isn’t a way to assess a species’ distributional range, migratory patterns or ecological trends without knowing what this species actually is and where it is coming from.

In order to facilitate taxonomic and other studies, and lay the foundations for effective biodiversity conservation in a time where habitat loss and species extinction are already part of our everyday life, the global organisation Catalogue of Life (CoL) works together with major programmes, including GBIF, Encyclopedia of Life and the IUCN Red List, to collate the names of all species on the planet set in the context of a taxonomic hierarchy and their distribution.

Recently, the scholarly publisher and technological provider Pensoft has implemented a new integration with CoL, so that it joins in the effort to encourage authors publishing global taxonomic review in any of the publisher’s journals to upload their taxonomic contributions to the database.

Whenever authors submit a manuscript containing a world revision or checklist of a taxon to a Pensoft journal, they are offered the possibility to upload their datasets in CoL-compliant format, so that they can contribute to CoL, gain more visibility and credit for their work, and support future research and conservation initiatives.

Once the authors upload the dataset, Pensoft will automatically notify CoL about the new contribution, so that the organisation can further process the knowledge and contact the authors, if necessary.

In addition, CoL will also consider for indexing global taxonomic checklists, which have already been published by Pensoft.

It is noteworthy to mention that unlike an automated search engine, CoL does not simply gather the uploaded data and store them. All databases in CoL are thoroughly reviewed by experts in the relevant field and comply with a set of explicit instructions.

“Needless to say that the Species 2000 / Catalogue of Life community is very happy with this collaboration,” says Dr. Peter Schalk, Executive Secretary.

“It is essential that all kinds of data and information sharing initiatives in the realm of taxonomy and biodiversity science get connected, in order to provide integrated quality services to the users in and outside of our community. The players in this field carry responsibility to forge partnerships and collaborations that create added value for science and society and are mutually reinforcing for the participants. Our collaboration is a fine example how this can be achieved,” he adds.

“With our extensive experience in biodiversity research, at Pensoft we have already taken various steps to encourage and support data sharing practices,” says Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Pensoft’s founder and CEO. To better serve this purpose, last year, we even published a set of guidelines and strategies for scholarly publishing of biodiversity data as recommended by our own experience. Furthermore, at our Biodiversity Data Journal, we have not only made the publication of open data mandatory, but we were also the first to implement integrated narrative and data publication within a single paper.”

“It only makes sense to collaborate with organisations, such as Catalogue of Life, to make sure that all these global indexers are up-to-date and serve the world’s good in preserving our wonderful biodiversity,” he concludes.

Track changes and easy comparison of manuscript versions now available in ARPHA Writing Tool

Monitoring the progress of your manuscript has never been easier!

The eagerly anticipated Track changes feature is now available in ARPHA Writing Tool to further facilitate collaborative authoring in the five academic journals* which currently make use of the ARPHA-XML publishing workflow.

Having tapped into ARPHA’s users constructive feedback, we have also updated our Revision History feature. Now, not only can authors access any past version, as created by their co-authors and collaborators, but they can also compare any two of these at the click of a button.

Track changes

To let co-authors and collaborators easily see any changes they have made, a user needs to simply switch on the Track changes mode. From now on, each individual author’s input will be highlighted to draw the attention of the next user.

 

Track_changes_on

 

Logically, any newly inserted text will appear in green, while the deleted one will be coloured in red. A hover over a highlighted text will show the user who has made the edit.

 

Track_changes_see_user

 

To make overseeing even a single edit impossible, ARPHA Writing Tool has made it mandatory for a user to resolve all suggested changes before either submitting the manuscript or switching off the Track changes mode.

Not overlooking any new input, regardless of the length and complexity of a manuscript, is made even easier thanks to the Prev and Next buttons allowing a user to go through the changes one by one.

 

But what shall you do if you or your co-authors/collaborators happen to forget to switch on the Track changes mode?

 

Compare Manuscript Versions

Our latest update to the Revision history button lets users compare any two past manuscript versions, so that they can see at a glance what has changed between any two set points in time.

Just like before, clicking the Revision history button delivers a list of all manuscript versions along with the users who have created them in a chronological order. Now, however, a tick box next to each of these allows the user to select any two versions and see all edits that have taken place in between.

 

revision_history_compared

 

Again, newly added text shows in green, while the deleted text is crossed over and appears in red.

Step-by-step instructions on both how to track changes and compare past versions are available in the Tips and Tricks guidelines accessible anytime in the header of the writing tool.  

 

Tips_and_tricks

 

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*The open access scholarly journals Biodiversity Data Journal, Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal), One Ecosystem, BioDiscovery and Biodiversity Information Science and Standards (BISS) are all making use of the technologically advanced collaboration-centred ARPHA-XML workflow, which features the signature ARPHA Writing Tool.

The world’s 3rd oldest entomological journal Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift (DEZ) turns 160 years

Near the closure of an extremely successful year at Pensoft, we’re pleased to be part of yet another great celebration – the 160th anniversary of the Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift (DEZ) journal.

Being the third oldest of world’s currently existing entomological periodicals, the Museum für Naturkunde’s historical journal has never ceased to progressively make a difference in the world of systematic entomology, as well as science in general.

Originally founded in the distant 1857 under the name of Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift by the young and dedicated visionary Ernst Gustav Kraatz and the Berliner Entomologischer Verein (BEV) society, the journal was intended to turn into the publishing platform of the soon to be established German Entomological Society (Deutsche Entomologische Gesellschaft).  

The journal managed to overcome a number of perils, which dominated the first fifty years of its existence. Those included two world wars, splitting of the society and personal controversies. Nevertheless, the title was only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. In retrospect, the journal has published the astonishing total of 22,613 species new to science.

Most of the credit to all those glorious defeats goes to the Kraatz, who promoted a number of nomenclature rules and practices in entomology that scientists abide by to this day.

Amongst the latest steps in building DEZ’s excellent and solid reputation was joining the ranks of openly accessible academic titles when it moved to Pensoft – a scholarly publisher well-known for its dedication to transparent and easily discoverable open science.

In an era, where specimens were commonly kept in personal collections and curators could deny or allow access to material at their sole discretion, Kraatz was already a fervent proponent of inclusive and facilitated access to knowledge. It was his desire to help any entomology aficionado that made him plan and eventually establish the Entomological National Museum to bring together the collections and libraries of all German entomologists. The institution is still standing today under the name of DEI – Deutsches Entomologisches Institut.

“It would have certainly pleased Gustav Kraatz that since the transfer of the DEZ to open access with Pensoft in 2014 all articles are freely accessible to anyone anywhere in the world, likewise facilitating the access to knowledge,” says the journal’s Editor-in-Chief Dr. Dominique Zimmermann.

“Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift is the journal I’ve grown up with as entomologist some 30 years ago,” adds Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Pensoft’s founder and CEO. “At that time it was published in East Germany, hence it was easy to access, read and publish with if you were an Eastern European scientist. It’s delightful for me to be part of this iconic title’s journey on the road to next-generation technology, innovation and openness.”

At Pensoft, we would like to congratulate all editors, authors and reviewers of DEZ for yet another conquered milestone and express our deepest gratitude for sharing this marvelous achievement with us.

We are looking forward to many more decades of disseminating the finest of entomological research with the world!

A special Editorial was recently published in DEZ to celebrate the anniversary and conclude the journal for 2017.

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Follow DEZ on Twitter and Facebook.

Swiss-born rebranded Alpine Entomology journal joins Pensoft’s open access portfolio

Formerly dedicated to all fields in entomology, the journal now focuses on insect research from mountainous regions from around the world

Launched about a century and a half ago, the Swiss Entomological Society‘s official journal Die Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen Entomologischen Gesellschaft (Journal of the Swiss Entomological Society) is the latest historical scientific journal to join the lines of Pensoft’s portfolio.

As a result of an unanimous vote at the Swiss Entomological Society’s general assembly in March, the journal is now rebranded as Alpine Entomology to reflect the shift in its scope and focus. Furthermore, the renowned journal is also changing its format, submission and review process, “in accordance with the standards of modern scientific publishing”, as explained in the inaugural Editorial.

The first articles of Alpine Entomology in partnership with Pensoft are already live on the journal’s new website.

“Focusing the scope will improve the quality of the journal and of the submitted papers and therefore increase the impact in the scientific community,” say Dr. Thibault Lachat, Bern University of Applied Sciences and Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, and Hannes Baur, Natural History Museum of Bern, and University of Bern.

Alpine Entomology now accommodates a long list of high-tech perks and brand new looks thanks to the innovative journal publishing platform ARPHA – the Pensoft-developed innovative journal publishing platform.

Nonetheless, the journal preserves its well-respected expertise and dedication to original research on the insect fauna. Occasionally, it will be also publishing studies on other arthropods from the Alpine region or other mountainous regions all over the world.

Apart from the all-new look and feel visible at first glance, there are many technologically-advanced innovations to benefit authors, readers, reviewers and editors alike.

Thanks to the fast-track and convenient publishing provided by ARPHA, each manuscript is carried through all stages from submission and reviewing to dissemination and archiving without ever leaving the platform’s singular collaboration-friendly online environment.

Once published, all articles in Alpine Entomology are to be available in three formats (PDF, XML, HTML), enriched with a whole set of semantic enhancements, so that the articles are easy to discover, access and harvest by both humans and machines.

Amongst the first papers, there are descriptions of several new mountainous species from around the world that have remained unknown to science until very recently. Two separate papers describe two new species of long-legged flies from Turkey and Croatia, respectively; while a third one reports a new ground beetle dwelling in Bhutan’s Thrumshingla National Park.

“I’m delighted to welcome this particular new member of the Pensoft’s and ARPHA’s family,” says the publisher’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev. “With our own solid experience in both scholarly publishing and entomological research, I’m certain that we’ll be able to provide the right venue for a fantastic title as Alpine Entomology.

“This year sees a lot of changes for the Swiss Entomological Society‘s signature journal, which I believe are all extremely positive,” says Alpine Entomology‘s Editor-in-Chief Dr. Thibault Lachat. “By making use of the modern, technologically advanced open access publishing provided by ARPHA and Pensoft, I’m convinced that our journal will increase its visibility and gain an international reputation in the entomological community.”

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Follow Alpine Entomology on Twitter | Facebook.

New open-access journal Metabarcoding & Metagenomics joins the lines of publisher Pensoft

The new innovative academic journal makes use of the one-of-a-kind publishing platform ARPHA and its collaborative writing tool via the ARPHA-XML workflow

A new innovative open-access academic journal Metabarcoding and Metagenomics (MBMG) is launched to welcome novel papers from both basic and applied aspects.

Focusing on genetic approaches to study biodiversity across all ecosystems, MBMG covers a considerably large scope of research including environmental, microbial and applied metabarcoding and metagenomics (especially DNA-based bioassessment and -monitoring, quarantine, nature conservation, species invasions, eDNA surveillance), as well as associated topics, such as molecular ecology, DNA-based species delimitation and identification, and other emerging related fields. Submissions of bioinformatic approaches to MBMG (algorithms, software) are also encouraged.

Featuring novel article formats and data publishing workflows, MBMG is to reflect the rapid growth in the use of metabarcoding and metagenomics in life and environmental sciences.

Issued via ARPHA – the first ever publishing platform to support manuscripts all the way from authoring to peer review to publication and dissemination, designed by the academic publisher and technology provider Pensoft, the new journal is to host a wide range of outcomes from across the research cycle, including data, models, methods, workflows, software, perspectives, opinions, implementation strategies, as well as conventional research articles.

While the above-mentioned publication types are already available in other journals published on the ARPHA platform, such as Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), Biodiversity Data Journal and One Ecosystem, MBMG provides five extra domain-specific article types, namely: Emerging Technique, Applied Study, DNA Barcode Release, Primer Validation and Probe Validation.

The journal’s articles are to be available in three formats (PDF, XML, HTML) and full of semantic enhancements for better human- and machine-readability and discoverability. The XML-based workflow also ensures that content and data are available for extraction, indexing and re-use immediately after publication.

With Pensoft standing for transparent, reproducible and open science, the authors at MBMG are strongly encouraged to make all data publicly available either within the publication itself, or to link to external repositories. In their turn, the peer reviewers are also suggested to provide public access to their reviews and identities.

In time for the launch, MBMG has already gathered a team of experienced and renowned scientists from across the globe together on its editorial and advisory board.

“I am pleased to introduce the Metabarcoding and Metagenomics journal to the family of Pensoft,” says Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Founder and Managing Director at Pensoft. “With its exhaustive scope and advanced services and concept, I believe it fills fantastically a niche in our strong portfolio of mostly biodiversity- and ecology-themed journals.”

“Metabarcoding and metagenomics approaches are rapidly progressing and revolutionise research and its application alike,” Chief Editor Prof. Florian Leese states. “With the MBMG journal we provide an ideal platform to respond to this rapidly growing field, nucleate the emerging knowledge and stimulate further development.”

The first batch of research papers published in MBMG are now available on their new website.

“MBMG not only complements the range of journals in the field of molecular environmental life sciences, but also stands out as a novel outlet providing several unique features designed to help researchers to prepare for, and professionally deal with, the massive “deluge” of data,” reads the Editorial.

To celebrate the launch, MBMG starts with a tempting offer to potential authors: publishing will be completely free of charge during the beginning stages of the journal.

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Follow Metabarcoding and Metagenomics on Twitter | Facebook.

Journal of Orthoptera Research joins scholarly publisher Pensoft’s open access portfolio

The Orthopterists’ Society’s Journal of Orthoptera Research (JOR) joins the growing portfolio of open access titles published on the Pensoft-developed journal publishing platform ARPHA (abbreviation for Authoring, Reviewing, Publishing, Hosting and Archiving).

The first issue in collaboration with Pensoft is live on the new journal’s website as of June 2017.

logoWhile preserving its attractive and well-known style and global expertise on the order Orthoptera and other closely allied insect orders, the journal now offers increased accessibility through a modernised design, intuitive interface, and many high-tech perks for authors, readers, reviewers and editors alike.

In continuous publication since 1992, Journal of Orthoptera Research is no newcomer to the arena of entomological peer-reviewed journals. It has enjoyed an esteemed place in the canon as the only global scientific publication dedicated to publishing work on the grasshoppers, crickets and bushcrickets. Now, the move to Pensoft ushers the journal to a new digital age by providing a modernised platform for showcasing fascinating research on these most charismatic and valuable of insects.

Among the innovative advantages is fast-track and convenient publishing thanks to ARPHA. Each manuscript is carried through all stages from submission and reviewing to dissemination and archiving on a single platform to facilitate and expedite the process using the best technological capabilities. Furthermore, this results in publications available in three formats (PDF, XML, HTML) with state-of-the-art semantic enhancements, so that articles can be easily found, accessed and harvested by both humans and machines.

Among the nine articles comprising the first Journal of Orthoptera Research issue since joining Pensoft [JOR Vol. 26(1)], there is a new species of bushcricket from China that sings an unusually complex tune when courting its potential partners; a curious experiment in the colour-shifting abilities of adult grasshoppers; and a description of a unique YouTube video showing two male bushcrickets engaging in previously unreported sexual activities.

“It’s pretty exciting to welcome Journal of Orthoptera Research to Pensoft’s family,” says Pensoft’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev. “We first started discussions on the possible publication of the journal by Pensoft back in 2010 and have resumed them a couple of times since. I am happy to see the journal now published in the modern design and format it really deserves!”

“I’m certain that ARPHA will secure the right place for Journal of Orthoptera Research among a whole portfolio of excellent zoological journals. Our journal will definitely feel at home next to the names of Journal of Hymenoptera Research, Nota Lepidopterologica, Zoologia, ZooKeys and many others,” says Editor-in-Chief Dr. Corinna Bazelet.

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The journal will continue being released biannually. Traditionally, it publishes research on the insect order Orthoptera, as well as its close allies – Blattodea, Mantodea, Phasmatodea, Grylloblattodea, Mantophasmatodea and Dermaptera. The range of biological studies of these insects includes diversity, conservation, and control and management of pest species. As for the article types accepted in the journal, in addition to original research, editors will be considering review articles, short communications, and articles focusing on policy and management of Orthoptera.

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