stm publishing

Senckenberg Nature Research Society transfers three journals to ARPHA Platform

Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Vertebrate Zoology and Geologica Saxonica are the latest historic titles to select the various services and advanced technology provided by the OA-born scholarly publishing platform

One of the largest natural research associations in Germany, the Senckenberg Nature Research Society moved three of its international, open-access scholarly journals to the publishing platform ARPHA, following a recent contract with the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft.

Having opted for the white-label publishing solution, the journals remain under the brand of the Society and the Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden, one of the oldest natural-science museums in the world. Despite transitioning to a new platform, the past volumes of the journals remain accessible from a link on their website homepages.

Following their recent move to the Pensoft-developed publishing platform, Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Vertebrate Zoology and Geologica Saxonica have not only acquired their own glossy and user-friendly websites, but have also taken advantage from ARPHA’s signature fast-track, end-to-end publishing system, which is to benefit all journal users: authors, reviewers and editors alike. In addition, the journals are already using many of the unique services offered by ARPHA, including publication in PDF, semantically enhanced HTML and machine-readable XML formats; advanced data publishing; sub-article-level usage metrics; automated export of sub-article elements and data to key aggregators; web-service integrations with major indexing and archiving databases; and others.

In particular, to the appeal of the authors, editors and reviewers, the ARPHA’s collaboration-centred online environment takes care after each submitted manuscript during the review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving stages, so that no one needs to deal with locally stored files and their transfer by email or third-party cloud storages. Additionally, the platform is designed to regularly notify the users about any required action, thus sparing the burden of unnecessary communication and ensuring the speedy processing of manuscripts.

All three journals operate a Diamond Open Access policy, thanks to the support of the Senckenberg Nature Research Society, making the journals free to publish for all authors.

Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny

Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny is the successor of the historical Entomologische Abhandlungen, formerly published by the Museum of Zoology at Dresden.

Its scope covers the taxonomy, morphology, anatomy, phylogeny, historical biogeography and palaeontology of arthropod taxa, but excludes faunistics and research with a strong regional focus. Descriptions of new taxa are only welcome when embedded in a wider context, for example, a phylogenetic, evolutionary, or biogeographical framework.

Currently, the journal enjoys an Impact Factor of 1.51 and a continuously increasing Scopus CiteScore.

Vertebrate Zoology

Similarly, Vertebrate Zoology was preceded by Zoologische Abhandlungen, also formerly published by the Museum of Zoology at Dresden. Its first publications since the move to ARPHA Platform and part of the first journal volume for 2021 are already a fact.

The journal deals with research on taxonomy, morphology, anatomy, phylogeny, historical biogeography and palaeontology of vertebrates. Again, descriptions of new taxa should be integrated into a proper context, for example, a complete revision of a taxon. To support accountability and reproducibility in science and academia, the journal requires that studied specimens have to be deposited in a public scientific collection.

Vertebrate Zoology’s Impact Factor is currently standing at 1.167, while its last Scopus CiteScore reached 2.1 (2019).

Geologica Saxonica

Geologica Saxonica – Journal of Central European Geology, began its life in distant 1876, when it was founded under the name Mitteilungen aus dem Königlichen Mineralogisch-Geologischen und Prähistorischen Museum by German geologist Hanns Bruno Geinitz, renowned for his work on the Carboniferous and Cretaceous rocks and fossils of Saxony.

The journal’s scope ecompasses geology, paleontology, stratigraphy, petrography, mineralogy and geoscience history with focus on Central Europe.

“At Pensoft, we are delighted to support a world-renowned natural history association like Senckenberg in carrying its legacy and treasure of knowledge into our days and well beyond. Now, with ARPHA’s white-label solution, we’re certain that the journals will simultaneously preserve their identity and enjoy all perks of modern and technologically advanced publishing,”
comments Pensoft and ARPHA’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev.

“We are very pleased to have found reliable partners in Pensoft and the ARPHA platform for our three publications to further increase their visibility. Senckenberg’s scientific publications have a long – almost 200-year tradition – and are now shown in a new and innovative design with unprecedented information retrieval options!”
says Prof. Dr. Uwe Fritz, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Vertebrate Zoology and head of the Department of Zoology at Senckenberg Natural History Collections in Dresden.

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Senckenberg is not the first prestigious German research institution to sign an agreement with Pensoft and ARPHA Platform. Since 2014, the Natural History Museum Berlin has trusted the publisher with its own historical titles in the Biology domain: Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Zoosystematics and Evolution. In 2017, Evolutionary Systematics by the University of Hamburg, another prominent journal with a legacy in the field of Zoology, followed suit. Last year, Zitteliana, a historical scholarly journal covering all fields of paleontology and geobiology by the State Natural History Collection of Bavaria (SNSB) also announced its joining the journal portfolio of Pensoft and ARPHA Platform.

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RIO shifts gears to serve as project-driven knowledge hub

Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal) upgrades its unique concept to appeal to scientific projects, conference organisers and research institutions

Over the last few years, we’ve been increasingly observing how major funders of research around the world, including the likes of the European Commission, Wellcome, U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) recognise the research cycle as a continuum, rather than scattered standalone conclusions and reports.

Hence, as a forward-looking, open science-driven journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) took it as its own responsibility to encourage scientific project teams, conference organisers and research institutions to bring together unconventional research outputs (e.g. grant proposals, data management plans, project deliverables, policy briefs, conference materials) as well as traditional (e.g. research or review papers, monographs, etc.), including such published elsewhere. To do so, RIO now provides the platform ready to be used as a research knowledge hub, where published outcomes are preserved permanently and easier to share, disseminate, reference and reuse.

Hence, RIO stepped up its game by turning permanent article collections into a one-stop source of diverse research items, where project coordinators, conference organisers or research institutions can not only publish early, interim and conclusive research items as they emerge within a research project, a series of events or the continuous scientific efforts at their lab, but also link relevant publications (i.e. preprints, articles or other documents, published elsewhere) available elsewhere through their metadata. As a result, they will receive a one-stop source under their own branding for every piece of scientific contribution ready to present to funding bodies or prospective collaborators and future research teams.

*A permanent topical collection in RIO Journal may include a diverse range of both traditional and unconventional research outputs, as well as links to publications from outside the journal (see* *What can I publish* *on the journal’s website).*

Apart from bringing contextually linked research outcomes together, thus prompting findability, readership and citability en masse, RIO’s approach to collections ensures further accessibility by not only having RIO-published articles available in traditional PDF, semantically enriched HTML and minable XML format. The open-science journal has now made it possible for users to add to their collections preprints from ARPHA Preprints, as well as author-formatted PDFs (e.g. project deliverables, reports, policy briefs, etc.) and linked metadata to documents published elsewhere. Thanks to the integration of the journal with the general-purpose open-access repository Zenodo, all items in a collection are archived, and additionally indexed, disseminated and cited.

By focusing on article and preprint collections coming out from a research project, institution or conference, RIO provides a quite specific and unique combination of benefits to all actors of the research process: scientists, project coordinators, funders and institutions:

Project, institution or conference branding and promotion.
One-stop point for outputs of a research project, institution or conference.
Free publication of author-formatted project outputs (i.e. grant proposals, deliverables, reports, policy briefs, conference materials and others).
Inclusivity through adding articles, preprints and other documents published elsewhere as easy as entering the DOI number of the document.
Credit and recognition for the Collection and Guest editors, who take care to organise and manage the article collection.
Easier discoverability and usability of topically related studies to benefit both authors and readers.
Increased visibility of related papers in a collection, even when these might otherwise not have much exposure.
Simultaneous citation of multiple articles related to a certain subject.
Citation and referencing of the whole collection as a complete entity.
DOI and citation details for collections and individual articles.

Furthermore, RIO Journal maps all publications to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in order to emphasise the real-world impact of each published contribution, by displaying the corresponding badge within the article list.

Last, but not least, both collections and individual publications in RIO enjoy the variety of default and on-demand science communication services, provided by Pensoft.

How do project coordinators, funders and institutions benefit from a collection in RIO?

At the time a grant proposal is submitted to a research funder for evaluation, the team behind the proposed project has already put in considerable efforts, resulting in a unique idea with the potential to make a great stride towards the resolution of an outstanding problem in science, if only given the chance. However, too many of these ideas are bound to remain locked away in the archives of those funders, not because they are lacking in scientific value, but due to limited funds.

So, with its launch back in 2015, RIO Journal made it possible to publish and shed light on grant proposals and research ideas in general, similar early research outputs regardless of whether they are eventually funded or not, a novelty in scholarly publishing which earned RIO the SPARC Innovator Award Winner in 2016. To date, the journal has already published 75 grant proposals.

Then, imagine what a contribution to science it would make to bring together the whole continuum of knowledge and scientific work all the way from the grant proposal to data and software management plans, workshop reports, policy briefs and all interim and final deliverables produced within the span of the project!

On the other hand, funders are increasingly evaluating a prospective project’s impact based on its communication strategy. So, why not publish a grant proposal at the time of the submission of your proposal, in order to prove to the funding body that your project is serious about optimising its outreach to both the public and academia? Furthermore, by having an academic journal host any subsequent project deliverable, as a coordinator, you can rest assured that the communication activities of your project remain consistent and efficient.

In an excellent example of a project collection, the EU-funded ICEDIG (Innovation and Consolidation for Large Scale Digitisation of Natural Heritage), led by several major natural history institutions, including the Natural History Museum of London, Naturalis Biodiversity Center (the Netherlands), the French National Museum of Natural History and Helsinki University, brought together policy briefs, project reports, research articles and review papers, in order to provide a fantastic overview of their own research continuum. As a result, future researchers and various stakeholders can easily piece together the key components within the project, in order to learn from, recreate or even build on the experience of ICEDIG.

*The Path2Integrity Project Outcomes* *collection demonstrates how research papers published elsewhere are featured in RIO Journal.*

Similarly, conference organisers can make use of their own branded collections to overcome the ephemerality of presented research by collating virtually all valuable conference outputs, including abstracts, posters, presentations, datasets and full-text conference talks. For further convenience, a collection can be divided into subcollections, in order to organise the contribution by type or symposium. What particularly appeals to conference participants is the ARPHA Writing Tool, an intuitive collaborative online environment, which practically guides the user through each step: authoring, submission and pre-submission review, within a set of pre-designed, yet flexible templates available for each type of a conference output, thus sparing them the hassle to familiarise themselves with specific and perplexing formatting requirements

For institutions, RIO offers the opportunity to continuously provide evidence of the scholarly impact of their organisation. To better serve the needs of different labs or research teams, an institution can easily organise their outputs into various subcollections, and also customise their own article types, as well as the available usage tracking systems. Furthermore, by making use of the available pre-paid plans, institutions can support their researchers by covering fully or partially the publication charges at a discounted rate.

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Find more information regarding the submission and review process, policies and pricing, visit RIO Journal’s website.

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Making the most of conferences with modern publishing and indexing practices

Given scientific conferences present academics with the fantastic opportunity to meet up and discuss their latest work, as well as share their vision for the future of their field, it’s no wonder that, historically, the majority of ground-breaking science can easily be traced back to a particular event.

This said, don’t you think that we need to do everything within our powers to ensure the visibility, dissemination and long-term accessibility of research presented and linked to these wonderful drivers of scientific progress that conferences are? Similarly to the care conference organisers take to make sure the event runs smoothly and the attendants are happy with the programme and enjoy themselves, the organisational committee should also be thinking how to preserve all those promising pieces of research well after the event is over.

Here at Pensoft, an open-access scholarly publisher, founded by scientists, we’ve been contemplating for a while now how to encourage and support the community to efficiently open up the valuable outputs to researchers and readers well beyond the publication of abstracts in an abstract book of the conference.

As a result, we came up with several simple, yet efficient publishing solutions for scientific conferences to collect and contextualise various research outputs either presented at or resulting from the event.

Bear in mind that with any solution, all publications enjoy the benefits seen in conventional research papers, such as:

Crossref registration and individual DOI to ensure preservation;
Publication in PDF, semantically enhanced HTML and data-minable XML formats to improve readability, accessibility and findability;
Indexing and archiving at multiple, industry leading databases to increase visibility;
PR and social media promotion to boost outreach to various audiences.

Collections of conference abstracts, posters and presentations

Conference (video) abstracts, posters and presentations are easily the first to fall victims of the ephemerality of an event, yet these are too often the stepping stones to major scientific discoveries. This is why a few years back we launched ARPHA Conference Abstracts (ACA), where conference organisers can open their own collection and provide the participants with submission, review and publication of their abstracts ahead of the conference.

Furthermore, these abstracts can be handled editorially in sub-collections, e.g. the convenors of symposia or working groups within a conference will take care of the abstracts submitted to them, thus spreading the editorial workload across larger teams of editors and organisers.

Not only will conference organisers spare themselves the worries about providing a special platform for abstracts submissions, but this will also facilitate presenting authors, who will be able to easily point to their contribution before, during or after their presentations. On the contrary, the abstracts are assigned with DOIs, published in human-readable PDF and HTML and machine-actionable JATS XML, permanently preserved on ARPHA and Zenodo, and easy to find, access and cite, just like a conventional research paper, providing authors with full credit for their work early on.

Further, with ACA, the conference abstracts can be enhanced into what we call “extended abstracts”, meaning they can also include data, images, videos and multimedia. After the conferences, we can add video recordings of the presentations or graphic files of posters, so that these are visualised on the page of each abstract.

For example, take a look at the conference abstract collection of the Vth International Congress on Biodiversity: “Taxonomy, Speciation and Euro-Mediterranean Biodiversity”.

Conference proceedings

About the time we launched ACA, we also created ARPHA Proceedings, in order to also find a place for full-text conference papers. Similarly, the platform supports dedicated collections, where conference attendants are invited to submit and publish dynamically articles under the imprint of the event.

Conference papers in ARPHA Proceedings can also include data, figures and citations, and can also be updated with video recordings, posters and presentations following the conference.

Check out an example by the VI International Forum on Teacher Education.

Article topical collections and special issues resulting from conferences

Naturally, papers resulting from a particular conference are contextually linked, so a one-stop place to discover topical studies sharing one and the same topic would be greatly appreciated by readers and future researchers. In turn, this would lead to better viewership and citability of the papers in the collection.

With our user-friendly, dedicated workflow for special issues and permanent topical article collections, we’ve made it easy for guest editors across our journals to pitch and manage article collections, in order to bring together valuable and related studies. Using such a collection under the theme of your conference in a suitable journal, you can invite your conference’s participants or, better yet, all scientists working within the field, to submit their work in a nice package of topical science. We’d be happy to assist you with the identification of the most suitable journal for your conference, authors and goals.

See an example from One Ecosystem and the collection “Mapping and assessment of ecosystem condition and ecosystem services across different scales and domains in Europe”, the result from the “Mapping and assessment of ecosystem services – Science in action” conference, held in 2017.

Bringing together traditional and non-conventional research outputs, (e.g. research ideas, grant proposals, conference materials or workshop reports) with RIO Journal’s article collections

Undoubtedly, valuable research outcomes come in many shapes and sizes well beyond research papers, conference abstracts, posters and proceedings. We are firm supporters that every research item, even early and interim outputs, could be of value to the scientist next in line within a particular study.

This is why we launched the award-winning journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO), where your collections can include both conventional and non-traditional research outputs, such as research ideas, posters, workshop reports, forum papers, policy briefs, software and data management plans to name a few. Furthermore, in RIO, you can even link articles or preprints published elsewhere to your collection via their metadata. Similarly to other Pensoft journals, in RIO, you will have the full control to whom you are opening your collection for submissions, allowing you to either limit it to the outcomes coming from your conference or welcome submissions from other researchers as well.

A permanent topical collection in RIO Journal may include a diverse range of both traditional and unconventional research outputs, as well as links to publications from outside the journal (see What can I publish on the journal’s website).

See the Brainhack 2016 Project Reports, whose aim is to collate reports from the 2016 Brainhack events. Also, check out the collection of the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) Project, providing a nice example for a wide range of publication types.

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Don’t hesitate to get in touch to discuss your own case and select the best option for your conference – we’ll be happy to hear from you!

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Journal platform ARPHA partners with Dimensions to deliver extra citation data and insight

Citation count per individual publication is only a part of the useful and comprehensive data freely available for any articles published in a journal hosted on the ARPHA Platform, thanks to a new integration of the recently launched Dimensions badges.

The badges, which provide a citation count and further context on when and where an item was cited, further enhance the familiar citation insights already available from ARPHA. These include a current list of all papers referencing a particular article straight from major databases Crossref, Google Scholar, Scopus and PubMed Central.

To provide an additional in-depth insight into a paper’s impact, while placing it into a relevant context, Dimensions searches through over 90 million publications, and 873 million citations indexed in its own massive database. Going beyond the conventional research article, the tool also provides links to related grants, clinical trials, patents and policy documents.

A single click on the Metrics tab within the menu of any article in an ARPHA-published journal reveals the new eye-catching Dimensions badge, where it appears beneath the popular colourful “donut” of Altmetric – another research analytics innovation developed by Digital Science.

At a glance, the visitor can see the total and recent (from the last two calendar years) count of citations, in addition to the Field Citation Ratio and Relative Citation Ratio – designed to help users see how the article compares in a given field.

In a useful information page, the Dimensions team explains what these values stand for. For example, an article with a Citation Ratio of 0.8 has a count of citations considered as average for its subject area. The 1.2 is the watershed, beyond which a publication is deemed highly cited. Once at the 5-point mark, the number of citations is to be read as extremely high.

A second click on the badge brings up the Dimensions Details Page, where the reader can find a new set of citation data, including an interlinked list of the publications that have cited the paper, as well as their distribution over time and across research categories.

“There is no doubt that citation count and real-time, real-life impact within both the scientific community and the public space are essential for any scientist,” said ARPHA’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev. “In this sense, analytical and user-friendly tools, such as Dimensions and Altmetric, come to bridge a crucial gap – one which could easily make-or-break a researcher’s career and image in academia.”

“I am pleased to ensure that any author who has ever published with our journals can easily and openly track and demonstrate the actual performance of their work,” he added.

Christian Herzog, who led the Dimensions project at Digital Science, said “The Dimensions badges were developed to aid the research community in assessing and contextualizing publications. We’re happy to partner with ARPHA and contribute additional value to their platform.”

Learn about the partnership between ARPHA and Altmetric here.

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.

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>.

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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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.

While 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.

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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Brazilian Zoologia joins Pensoft’s portfolio of open access journals

In a new partnership between Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia (Brazilian Society of Zoology) and the academic publisher Pensoft, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in South America, Zoologia joins Pensoft’s portfolio of open access peer-reviewed journals.

In 1982, Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia‘s launched the Revista Brasileira de Zoologiajournal, which resulted in 25 volumes published bimonthly. Then, to broaden its visibility and step on the international stage, the journal broaden its scope to cover zoological research from outside the county, and changed its name to Zoologia in 2009 and completed 33 volumes this year.

The next step forward for Zoologia is the recently signed partnership with Pensoft, which makes it the first South American journal published by Pensoft – known for its innovations in scholarly publishing. The collaboration will provide a brand new, modern and technologically advanced look and feel for Zoologia, following the already successful format, provided by Pensoft’s publishing platform ARPHA (abbreviation standing for Authoring, Reviewing, Publishing, Hosting and Archiving).

Zoologia will not only be smooth and nice to look at and navigate around, but will also provide high-tech perks, ensuring that the user experience for all authors, readers and editors remains as immaculate as possible at all times. Fast-track and convenient publishing is provided thanks to ARPHA, which takes care of a manuscript through all stages from authoring and reviewing to dissemination and archiving, as well as publications in three formats (PDF, XML, HTML) and full of semantic enhancements.

Having been completely revamped on the outside, Zoologia keeps its academic excellence and well-deserved reputation. The journal’s scientific scope covers various areas of original zoological research, including systematics, evolution, taxonomy, nomenclature, biogeography, biology, ecology, conservation, applied zoology, and others, published by both Brazilian and international authors. Extensive reviews or articles on current topics in zoology are published by invitation in the Invited Review section. Zoologia is to continue issuing at least six volumes a year on a bimonthly basis.

“I am truly delighted to welcome Zoologia to Pensoft’s family,” says Pensoft’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev. “With a strong background in zoological sciences, we have been looking forward to extending our outreach to South America, a well-known home to numerous biodiversity hotspots and excellent taxonomic traditions. It is a great success that this is now happening thanks to our partnership with no other but Zoologia.”

“This is an important step in the efforts to further professionalize and increase worldwide visibility of Zoologia that has been underway since 2008,” says Walter Boeger, the Editor-in-chief of the journal.

“Brazil is one of the hotspots in animal diversity in the world and the research in zoology is exceptional and of international excellence. The Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia would like Zoologia to be the main gateway for these studies and other, of similar profile, performed with animals from all parts of the world,” proposes Luciane Marinoni, the president of SBZ. “We predict that this will happen in the near future following this important partnership.”

The first batch of research papers published in the revamped Zoologia are now available on the new website.

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Journal publishing platform ARPHA partners with content recommendation engine TrendMD

Thanks to the new collaboration between content recommendation engine TrendMD and journal publishing platform ARPHA, readers of all journals under Pensoft’s imprint, as well as those using the white-label publishing solution provided by the platform, will be given a useful list of recommended articles related to the study they are reading. The new widget is to save the users a great amount of time, by simply pointing them to the most relevant papers on the topic from across a constantly expanding network of of peer-reviewed articles and research news.

While nearly 8,000 new scholarly articles are published each day, it is basically impossible staying up-to-date with the news from a single scientific field, let alone doing cross-disciplinary research. Furthermore, sifting out the quality literature is another painstaking activity no academic is looking forward to. Hence, TrendMD comes as the sensible solution to help a reader find the most relevant and fine studies on a particular topic. The widget’s recommendations are based on the topic a user is currently reading, what papers they have read in the past, and the articles others with similar interests have sought out – all available from the most authoritative and quality journals in the world.

“TrendMD is excited to welcome Pensoft, a highly innovative, open access, online publishing platform, to the TrendMD network! This partnership will bring over 5,000 open access articles and books in the field of natural history, predominantly taxonomy and organismal biology, to TrendMD’s ever expanding network,” says Paul Kudlow, CEO and co-founder of TrendMD.

“In our continuing effort to develop and implement the most novel tools and workflows in academic publishing, at Pensoft we are pleased to have integrated our journal publishing platform ARPHA with the new-age scholarly innovation that is TrendMD’s tool, so that our readers have an easy and constant access to the most relevant and best-quality research,” says Pensoft’s CEO and founder Prof. Lyubomir Penev.

Five new Pensoft journals integrated with Dryad to improve data discoverability

Academic publisher Pensoft strengthens partnership with Dryad by adding its latest five journals to the list integrated with the digital repository. From now on, all authors who choose any of the journals published under Pensoft’s imprint will be able to opt for uploading their datasets on Dryad. At the click of a button, the authors will have their data additionally discoverable, reusable, and citable.

Started in 2011 as one of the first ever integrated data deposition workflows between a repository (Dryad) and a publisher (Pensoft), the partnership has now been reinforced to cover publications submitted to any of Pensoft’s 21 journals, including recently launched Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) and One Ecosystem, as well as BioDiscovery, African Invertebrates and Zoologia, which all moved to Pensoft within the last year.

By agreeing to deposit their datasets to Dryad, authors take advantage of a specialised and highly acknowledged platform to easily showcase and, hence, take credit for their data. On the other hand, the science community, including educators and students, can readily access the data, facilitating verification, citability and even potential collaborations.

“Dedicated to open and reproducible science, at Pensoft we have always strived to encourage our authors to make their research as transparent and, hence, trustworthy as possible, by providing the right infrastructure and support,” says Pensoft’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev. “By strengthening our long-year partnership with Dryad, I envision more and more authors, who publish in our journals, adding open data to their list of best practices.”

“Dryad works to promote data that are openly available, integrated with the scholarly literature, and routinely re-used to create knowledge,” said Dryad’s Executive Director, Meredith Morovati. “We are encouraged by the growth of our partnership with Pensoft, one of our earliest supporters. We are honored to provide services to Pensoft authors to ensure their data is openly available, linked to the article, and preserved for future use and for the future of science.”