Metabarcoding & Metagenomics selected for inclusion in the Web of Science

Metabarcoding & Metagenomics (MBMG) has been approved for inclusion in Clarivate’s Web of Science, one of the most renowned citation databases that indexes the world’s leading scholarly journals. This recognition underscores the journal’s growing influence in its field, and reflects its commitment to publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed research.

Since its launch in September 2017, the journal has been at the forefront of publishing papers on metabarcoding and metagenomics for both basic and applied studies. At the time of its inauguration it was seen as a particularly forward-looking and niche scholarly outlet because it was devised to address the need for an innovative journal in the rapidly developing fields of DNA-based environmental research, biodiversity monitoring and nature conservation. Going forward, MBMG’s inclusion in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) at Web of Science will further enhance the visibility and accessibility of existing and future research.

Now that it has completed the Web of Science’s rigorous quality and integrity assessment, MBMG may receive its first Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as early as 2025. This is a testament to the dedication of the authors, reviewers, and editorial board members who have contributed to the journal’s success.

MBMG is indexed and archived in more than 60 databases, including Scopus, DOAJ, ResearchGate, Library of Congress, British Library, Baidu Scholar, CNKI, EBSCO, Unpaywall, CLOCKSS and Zenodo.

In June 2024, the journal received a Scopus CiteScore of 5.4, placing it in Q1 in five categories: Animal Science and Zoology; Insect Science; Plant Science; Ecology, Evolution, Behaviour and Systematics; and Nature and Landscape Conservation.

This inclusion in the Web of Science marks a new chapter in the journal’s mission to facilitate the production and dissemination of important research.

“The quality of research and the perception by the community our MBMG staff supports matter most. Being officially listed in Web of Science and having a Journal Impact Factor are criteria of high importance to many of our authors. Therefore, I‘m very happy about this new development.”

Prof. Dr. Florian Leese, Editor-in-Chief of MBMG and Full Professor in Aquatic Ecosystem Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

“This represents a significant milestone in the growth of MBMG and will likely make it an even more attractive choice for researchers in this field.”  

Dr. Dirk Steinke, Deputy Editor-in-Chief at MBMG and Associate Director at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at the University of Guelph, Canada. 

“From the very beginning, we were convinced that this niche is of high relevance and will be rapidly expanding. The inclusion of MBMG in the Web of Science will be of particular importance for our (young) authors, who are too often evaluated by IF-based criteria. At the same time, MBMG hopefully will face a further growing number of submissions.”

Dr Alexander M. Weigand, Liaison editor at MBMG and Zoology Curator at the National Museum of Natural History Luxembourg.

Follow Metabarcoding & Metagenomics on X and Facebook.

New Diamond OA journal Natural History Collections and Museomics launches on ARPHA Platform

Mockup of a Natural History Collections and Museomics journal besides a collection of pinned butterflies.

Natural History Collections and Museomics (NHCM), a brand-new Diamond Open Access journal, has launched on ARPHA platform

The journal aims to serve as a leading platform for scholarly research, discussion, and innovation in the field of natural history collections worldwide and will be published by Pensoft Publishers

By promoting the exchange of knowledge between museum professionals, researchers, educators, and enthusiasts, the publication aims to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of natural history and its significance in society. 

A Pensoft conference stand with a poster promoting the Natural History Collections and Museomics journal.
Natural History Collections and Museomics promoted by Pensoft at the 2024 International Congress of Entomology in Kyoto, Japan.

Natural History Collections and Museomics (NHCM) encourages interdisciplinary approaches and collaborations across fields such as taxonomy, conservation, education, ethics, and museum studies. The editorial team welcomes original research articles, reviews, case studies, methods, letters and perspectives addressing a wide range of topics related to natural history institutions and collections. 

The journal is supported by CETAF (Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities), Europe’s leading voice for taxonomy and systematic biology. The support of this European network of scientific institutions ensures a robust and collaborative foundation for the journal’s academic endeavours.

By utilising a Diamond Open Access model, the journal allows free access to published content without any fees for authors or readers. This approach ensures that important research can reach the widest possible audience, promoting inclusivity and global collaboration in the field.

A strong Editorial Board is already in place, co-chaired by two distinguished scholars in the field. 

Dr Franco Andreone: Serving as the zoology curator at the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali in Turin, Italy, Dr Andreone is a renowned herpetologist with a profound impact on amphibian taxonomy, roles of natural history museums and conservation, particularly in Italy and Madagascar. His experience as a former Chair of the IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group – Madagascar and his current role as a special advisor underscore his life-long dedication to preserving biodiversity.

Prof Shuqiang Li: A prominent Chinese arachnologist,  Prof Li brings his vast expertise in zoological systematics to the journal. Among many accomplishments, he led the construction of 29 natural history museums for the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of which is an 8,800 square metre collection building to preserve more than 10 million specimens and another a 6,600 square metre public museum in the Zoological Institute in Beijing. As leading taxonomist and the Editor-in-Chief of Zoological Systematics, Professor Li has described more than 2,000 new species. His work on how Tethyan changes shaped diversification is most notable. His research has also revealed the origin of spider webs based multi-omics analyses.

The Board expects the team of subject (associate) editors to soon expand further, as they have been actively recruiting colleagues from diverse professional and geographical backgrounds. Experts in fields within the scope of the new journal are also invited to apply to join the NHCM team as either editors or reviewers. Conveniently, the respective application forms are made accessible from the journal website’s homepage.

“The journal Natural History Collections and Museomics will serve as a perfect forum and place to publish cutting-edge research.

“Natural history collections are gargantuan resources and tools to discover and preserve global diversity. We need to treat them as immense treasures to discover and describe new species and understand Earth’s marvels.”

Dr Franco Andreone and Prof Shuqiang Li, Editors-in-Chief.

We are thrilled to launch Natural History Collections and Museomics on the ARPHA Platform. The importance of natural history collections cannot be overstated and we look forward to publishing valuable research to a wide audience.

Prof Dr Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft Publishers.

Submissions to the journal are now open. Researchers, scholars, and practitioners are invited to contribute articles to Natural History Collections and Museomics

For more information and submission guidelines, please visit the Natural History Collections and Museomics website.

You can also follow the journal on X and Facebook.

About ARPHA Platform:

ARPHA is a full-featured, end-to-end publishing platform for journals, books, conference materials and preprints. ARPHA offers flexible operating and business models, and a wide-range of automated and human-provided services. The ARPHA team places a special focus on its scholarly communication solutions designed to leverage the visibility and outreach of academic output, while promoting inclusivity and engagement.

About Pensoft:

Pensoft is an independent, open-access publisher and technology provider, best known for its biodiversity journals, including ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, Phytokeys, Mycokeys, One Ecosystem, Metabarcoding and Metagenomics and many others. Over the past 30 years, Pensoft has built a reputation for its innovations in the field, after launching ZooKeys: the very first digital-first scientific journal in zoology and the first to introduce semantic enrichments and hyperlinks within a biodiversity article. To date, the company has continuously been working on various tools and workflows designed to facilitate biodiversity data findability, accessibility, discoverability and interoperability. 

Cuckoo in the nest: challenges for smaller journals and publishers in the push towards Diamond Open Access

Contrary to the popular expression, diamonds do not shine. Instead, they reflect, refract and disperse light to the fascination of the onlooker. 

Similarly, even though Diamond Open Access (OA) offers a stellar publication and dissemination route for both readers and authors, some of the biggest actors in the scholarly publishing industry have been trying to deflect the concept behind it. While they might be moving from reader-facing charges, they seem to be billing libraries, institutions and consortia the same money they would have received in subscription fees. 

National library consortia are paying for read-and-publish / publish-and-read ‘transformative agreements’ (also known as ‘transitional agreements’ or ‘big deals’), which include clauses for “non-APC” quotas of Open Access publishing for authors based in their country’s institutions. As a result, authors need to only submit their work to journals cited in these agreements, if they wish to avoid APC payments.

Meanwhile, these Transformation Agreements (TAs) are raising increasing concerns about their capability to achieve their very purpose: assisting scientific publishers in flipping their journals from closed- to open-access models in line with the objectives of the global Open Access 2020 Initiative. Back in 2016, the initiative signed by over 150 scholarly organisations posited a deadline for the majority of today’s scholarly journals to transfer from subscription to OA by 2020. While it is obvious that as of mid-2024 this transition is far from complete, a recent report issued by Jisc, estimates that based on 2018-2022 data, “it would take at least 70 years for the big five publishers to flip their TA titles to OA”. Citing “an erosion in confidence that TAs will achieve a transition within an acceptable timescale”, the report also highlights pressing issues concerning transparency on how “OA publishing charges are costed” and how and when the surveyed publishers will achieve their task.

Impact on scholars

The above-mentioned approaches to ostensibly free-of-charge scholarly publishing are indeed taking a great burden off the shoulders of many scientists, as long as they are working in top research institutions in certain countries.

In the meantime, independent researchers and smaller or underfunded institutions – typically located in countries that have not signed such expensive agreements at national or library consortia levels – are left out of the equation. If they wish to publish in the very same flashy journals, they need to pay fees in the range of several thousands of dollars either out of their research grants, or their own pockets. The “barriers to access” seem to have simply transformed into ”barriers to publication”.

There are also production costs. After all, quality publication of human knowledge in the vast digital world, which is increasingly powered by smart computer algorithms and Artificial Intelligence, surely costs some money, doesn’t it? Publication platforms comprising continuously evolving workflows and third-party integrations, impeccable user experience, diligent customer support, and far-reaching dissemination and communication, all require specialised staff and equipment. The question is how much does it cost to make science effectively public? The immediate answer is that taxpayers currently pay corporate publishers prices several times as high as actual publication costs.

Impact on smaller journals, societies and publishers   

In the past, smaller publishers predominantly launched as open-access academic outlets. After all, they were either run by scientists who saw paywalls as the unthinkable evil that hinders the world’s progress, or they simply realised that their primary audience could not afford to pay to learn about their field. Further, it is the same altruistic and understanding backstory of society and smaller institution-led journals – in addition to their historical legacy and independence from commercial entities – that make them particularly cherished and respected in academia.

The issue here is that, these days, scientific publications and journals abound, which makes it practically impossible for one’s work to reach another researcher, let alone non-specialist audiences, including policy makers, without a lot of dedicated effort. Even if there was a single huge publicly available centralised source for all research outcomes out there, it would be practically impossible for one – expert or not – to navigate the deluge of data and statements without sophisticated tools, infrastructure and workflows capable of discerning what is actually useful.

To ensure scientific output is practically findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), you need much more than a URL that resolves at no additional charge. Instead, a journal needs to provide optimal discoverability and visibility for its content, so that publications are capable of reaching their intended audience via existing search engines and portals. 

This can only be achieved through professional publishing platforms (e.g. peer review, publication, hosting, third-party service integrations), tools (e.g. metadata import/export; semantic tagging) and services (e.g. application to indexing databases; in-house editorial services; copy-editing, customer support; science communication), which will inevitably increase the costs of the publication process.

Here comes the tough call for most smaller institutions and journals: whether to seek the services of multiple professional providers and then introduce APCs to cover the expenditure OR to opt for in-house editorial services and open-source infrastructure, but compromise the quality of service, including the discoverability and reach of the content with which their authors entrust them.

Yet, this is a choice that only needs to be made by small- to mid-sized, OA-born publishers and journal owners, since large commercial, originally subscription publishers are covered through deals and agreements, as long as a research paper is submitted by a research team with the right affiliation. The situation begs the question: who is actually being charged?

Impact on equity and sustainability in academia

Suffice to say, the scientific community has gone a long way to prompt public and worldwide access to the latest research at a greater than ever speed and scale. However, there is still a gaping chasm in academia when it comes to inclusivity and equity in scholarly publishing and dissemination of knowledge. Despite the ongoing work and progress coordinated by international funders of research and policy-makers, a vast part of the world continues to be singled out due to a mismatch in funding and unhealthy commercialisation that paves the way to mono-/oligopolies.

Arguably, academia is threatened by its own good intentions and a new status quo, where it is only researchers working at well-funded research institutions that get to publish their work in visible and discoverable journals.

Our way forward

While our team at Pensoft realises there is no easy way to high-quality, open and equitable scholarly publishing, we are firm supporters of an environment governed by transparency, inclusivity and democracy, where researchers are not “limited in their choice of publication channels due to financial capacities rather than quality criteria”, as put by the Council of the European Union in their “Conclusions on high-quality, transparent, open and equitable scholarly publishingissued last year.

If scholarly publishers and technology providers remain true to their purpose of being a vehicle for scientific knowledge between the individual scientist and the world, we can collectively contribute to a healthy diversity of continuously developing tools and workflows for researchers, journal owners, learned societies and scientific funders to cater for their own users and audiences in the ever-evolving modern world.

As such, we have accepted it as our mission to provide affordable, compromise-free Diamond OA, empowering smaller journals to deliver top-quality services to their authors, editors and readers. Alternatively, our end-to-end publishing platform ARPHA also offers several Gold OA and custom-made workflows designed to support particular groups of authors, as they balance affordability, functionality, reliability, transparency and long-term sustainability. In both cases, our client journals enjoy a complete set of highly automated and human-provided services packaged in a way that fits their wants and needs.

Above all, our approach is based on working individually with journal owners, societies and publishers to create their own custom operational and business model, and achieve long-term sustainability for their scholarly titles.

To ensure our utter transparency and trustworthiness for our clients, we actively support and adopt international best practices and standards in scholarly publishing, including cOAlition S’s Plan S requirements regarding full transparency of costs and prices, and the Journal Comparison Service.

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Get in touch with the Pensoft and ARPHA teams at info@arphahub.com

Find more on the ARPHA platform website. You can also follow ARPHA on Twitter and Linkedin.

Innovations in Agriculture moves to the ARPHA Platform

A green scientific journal next to crops being watered by a robotic arm.

Innovations in Agriculture, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing agricultural research, has partnered with Pensoft to transition to the ARPHA publishing platform.  This move will enhance the journal’s publishing workflow, content visibility, and elevate the impact of their research within the global agricultural community.

Established in 1970, Innovations in Agriculture is committed to publishing high-quality research that addresses the critical challenges and opportunities in modern agriculture. The journal covers a wide range of topics, including agricultural technology, sustainable farming practices, crop and livestock management, and policy implications.

All the journal’s legacy papers have been successfully migrated to the ARPHA platform, and the first new issue has been published on its new ARPHA-powered website, complete with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) tags on individual articles.

Research articles showcasing SDG tags.

By utilising ARPHA’s white-label solution, Innovations in Agriculture will enjoy several key benefits, including a streamlined submission and review process, automated workflows, advanced authoring tools, and robust archiving and indexing.

During the journal’s launching phase, authors may benefit from a yearly quota covering the free publication of 25 standard articles (up to 20 published pages).

“We are thrilled to welcome Innovations in Agriculture to ARPHA’s family of next-generation scientific journals. ARPHA’s publishing solutions will help Innovations in Agriculture thrive and continue disseminating important research.”

said Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft.

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For more information, visit the Innovations in Agriculture website.

The International Biogeography Society relaunches flagship journal Frontiers of Biogeography on ARPHA Platform

The International Biogeography Society (TIBS) has relaunched its flagship open-access scientific journal, Frontiers of Biogeography (FoB), on the ARPHA platform, where it will be co-published with Pensoft Publishers.

This collaboration underscores the society’s commitment to maintaining high-quality, high-visibility and low-cost open-access publishing for the biogeographical community.

“This switch of our journal to a cutting-edge platform, and its committed team of editors, should continue to raise the journal’s visibility and impact,”

comments Prof. Dr. Susanne Renner, TIBS President.

Established by TIBS in 2009, Frontiers of Biogeography serves as an independent forum for research dissemination, and publishes studies on all geographical variations of life at all levels of organisation. The journal adheres to rigorous academic standards, reflecting the mission of TIBS to promote and advance public understanding of biogeographical sciences. 

The journal’s editorial leadership includes Prof. Robert J. Whittaker (University of Oxford, United Kingdom), Dr. Janet Franklin (San Diego State University, USA) and Prof. Mark J. Costello (Nord University, Norway), all esteemed figures in the field.

Frontiers of Biogeography was launched on the ARPHA Platform on the 1st of July 2024. The platform is now open for new submissions and offers a robust review and publication process. Articles and supplementary materials published on ARPHA will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), ensuring wide accessibility and reuse. All previously published issues on the e-Scholarship platform will remain freely accessible, ensuring the continuity of knowledge dissemination.

Frontiers of Biogeography has recently been selected for inclusion in the Web of Science™. Beginning with volume 14(1), articles will be indexed in Emerging Sources Citation Index, Zoological Record, Biological Abstracts, and BIOSIS Previews, significantly enhancing the journal’s visibility.

Furthermore, the journal’s latest Scopus CiteScore of 4.3 places it in the Q1 category for Ecology and Ecology, Evolution, Behaviour and Systematics, and elevates it from Q3 to Q2 in the Global and Planetary Change category.

I am looking forward to working with the new platform and to the start of a new partnership with our colleagues at Pensoft Publishers. This arrangement underlines the commitment of The International Biogeography Society to the growth and success of Frontiers of Biogeography as a service to our members and the broader scientific community,”

stated Prof. Dr. Robert J. Whittaker, Editor-in-Chief.

In these days of sometimes exorbitant costs to pay publication charges by some of the big publishers, TIBS and Pensoft are joining forces to make it possible for all authors to be able to publish their work at reasonable costs while maintaining the high scholarly standards of peer-review and editorial management which are the foundation of good science,”

added Prof. Dr. Mark J. Costello, Co-Editor-in-Chief.

“We are excited to welcome Frontiers of Biogeography to the ARPHA Platform and look forward to a successful, open-access future. This partnership aligns with our mission to support scientific research through innovative publishing solutions,”

said Prof. Dr. Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft Publishers.

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Visit the Frontiers of Biogeography’s new website at https://biogeography.pensoft.net/. Use the Email alert field on the homepage to follow the latest publications, news, and highlights from Frontiers of Biogeography.

You can also follow the journal on X (formerly Twitter) at @newbiogeo.

Keep up to date with the latest from TIBS by following them on X (@Biogeography) and joining the society’s Facebook group.

Pensoft collaborates with R Discovery to elevate research discoverability

Leading scholarly publisher Pensoft has announced a strategic collaboration with R Discovery, the AI-powered research discovery platform by Cactus Communications, a renowned science communications and technology company. This partnership aims to revolutionize the accessibility and discoverability of research articles published by Pensoft, making them more readily available on R Discovery to its over three million researchers across the globe.

R Discovery, acclaimed for its advanced algorithms and an extensive database boasting over 120 million scholarly articles, empowers researchers with intelligent search capabilities and personalized recommendations. Through its innovative Reading Feed feature, R Discovery delivers tailored suggestions in a format reminiscent of social media, identifying articles based on individual research interests. This not only saves time but also keeps researchers updated with the latest and most relevant studies in their field.

One of R Discovery’s standout features is its ability to provide paper summaries, audio readings, and language translation, enabling users to quickly assess a paper’s relevance and enhance their research reading experience significantly.

With over 2.5 million app downloads and upwards of 80 million journal articles featured, the R Discovery database is one of the largest scholarly content repositories.

At Pensoft, we do realise that Open Science is much more than cost-free access to research outputs. It is also about easier discoverability and reusability, or, in other words, how likely it is for the reader to come across a particular scientific publication and, as a result, cite and build on those findings in his/her own studies. By feeding the content of our journals into R Discovery, we’re further facilitating the discoverability of the research done and shared by the authors who trust us with their work,” said ARPHA’s and Pensoft’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev.

Abhishek Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of Cactus Communications, commented on the collaboration, “We are delighted to work with Pensoft and offer researchers easy access to the publisher’s high-quality research articles on R Discovery. This is a milestone in our quest to support academia in advancing open science that can help researchers improve the world.”

So far, R Discovery has successfully established partnership with over 20 publishers, enhancing the platform’s extensive repository of scholarly content. By joining forces with R Discovery, Pensoft solidifies its dedication to making scholarly publications from its open-access, peer-reviewed journal portfolio easily discoverable and accessible.

Brand new journal Estuarine Management and Technologies streamlines innovation in ecosystems conservation

Where freshwater rivers meet seas and oceans lies a scientifically intriguing and ecologically important type of ecosystem. As estuarine ecosystems provide various and diverse services to humanity and the planet at large, including food security and natural buffers and filters in the events of storms and water pollution, there has been an increasing need to facilitate and support the exchange of research findings and ideas related to their conservation and sustainable management by means of new-age technology and novel approaches.

This is how a team of renowned and passionate scientists, headed by Dr. Soufiane Haddout (Ibn Tofail University, Morocco), took the decision to launch a brand new open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly, aptly titled Estuarine Management and Technologies. They explain the rationale behind the journal in a new editorial, published to mark the official launch of the journal.

Having already worked closely with the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft on the fine touches of the concept of the new academic title, the team opted to use Pensoft’s publishing platform of ARPHA. As a result, the new journal provides a seamless, end-to-end publishing experience, encompassing all stages between manuscript submission and article publication, indexation, dissemination and permanent archiving. 

Within the collaboration between the journal’s and Pensoft’s teams, Estuarine Management and Technologies will take advantage of various services offered by the ARPHA platform, including full-text automated export in machine-readable and minable JATS-XML format to over 60 relevant databases for scientific literature and data; semantically enriched and multimedia-friendly publications accessible in HTML; and rich statistics about the outreach and usage of each published article and its elements (e.g. figures and tables), including views, downloads, online mentions, and citations. 

The publishing platform’s in-house indexing team will continue their close work with the journal’s editors to ensure that the scholarly outlet retains highest quality and integrity, so that it covers the criteria for indexation at additional key databases that require individual evaluation. In the meantime, ARPHA’s technical and editorial teams will provide technical and customer support to authors, editors and reviewers. The marketing and promotion team of ARPHA will be also joining forces with the journal to boost the visibility and image of the new academic title.

During the launch phase, content accepted for publication following double-blinded peer review will be made public right away for free to both authors and readers, where the journal will be operating under a continuous publication model.

Estuarine Management and Technologies welcomes studies from a wide spectrum of disciplines, including physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and hydrology, with a focus on interdisciplinarity, multifaceted approaches and holistic perspectives.

“One crucial aspect of estuarine management is the sustainable use of resources to balance conservation with human needs. Striking this delicate equilibrium requires a holistic understanding of the intricate web of ecological interactions within estuarine environments. Advanced technologies, such as isotopic techniques, environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis, can provide insights into the biodiversity of estuarine ecosystems with unprecedented precision,”

explain Dr Haddout and his colleagues in the opening editorial.

Amongst the unique features of the new journal are several additional publication types, such as Expert View, Video Paper, Rapid Communication, Mini Review and Estuarine Scientists, where these have been added to traditional publication outputs (e.g. Research Paper, Review Paper, Data Paper) to foster collaboration between researchers and other stakeholders in the field.

The journal is also running an annual Trailblazing Talent in Estuarine Management and Technologies award intended to recognise and encourage young scientists and engineers at the forefront of cutting-edge research in estuarine management and technologies. Nominations and applications are currently open.

Estuarine Management and Technologies also welcomes applications for guest editors in order to further expand the journal and its immediate expert network.

“I am delighted to see the Estuarine Management and Technologies journal already live on the ARPHA platform. We are confident that this particularly important, yet so far quite overlooked area of study will greatly benefit from this highly promising journal,”

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

“I am pleased to announce the launch of the Estuarine Management and Technologies journal on ARPHA, a decision rooted in our commitment to advancing the field. We believe that this strategic partnership will not only enhance the visibility and accessibility of our journal, but will also foster collaboration and innovation within the estuarine management and technologies community. We expect this alliance to be a catalyst for scholarly excellence, providing a robust platform for researchers and practitioners to share insights, address challenges, and propel the field forward. Together with ARPHA, we are confident in the positive impact our journal will have on shaping the future of estuarine management and technologies.”

says Dr. Soufiane Haddout, Editor-in-Chief and founder, Estuarine Management and Technologies.

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You can visit the journal website and sign up for its newsletter from the homepage.

You can also follow Estuarine Management and Technologies on X (formerly Twitter).

Smithsonian’s Dr Torsten Dikow appointed Editor-in-Chief of ZooKeys, a leading journal in systematic zoology and biodiversity

Esteemed entomologist specialising in true flies (order Diptera) and cybertaxonomy, Dr Torsten Dikow was appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief of the leading open-access peer-reviewed journal in systematic zoology and biodiversity ZooKeys.

Dikow is to step into the shoes of globally celebrated fellow entomologist and colleague at the Smithsonian and founding Editor-in-Chief of ZooKeys Dr Terry Erwin, who sadly passed away in May, 2020, leaving behind hefty scientific legacy and immeasurable admiration and fond memories

Today, Dikow is a Research Entomologist and Curator of Diptera and Aquatic Insects at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (Washington, DC, USA), where his research interests encompass the diversity and evolutionary history of the superfamily Asiloidea – or asiloid flies – comprising curious insect groups, such as the assassin flies / robber flies and the mydas flies. Amongst an extensive list of research publications, Dikow’s studies on the diversity, biology, distribution and systematics of asiloid flies include the description of 60 species of assassin flies alone, and the redescription of even more through comprehensive taxonomic revisions.

Dikow obtained his M.S. in Zoology from the Universität Rostock (Germany) and Ph.D. in Entomology from Cornell University (New York, USA) with three years of dissertation research conducted at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). 

During his years as a postdoc at the Field Museum (Illinois, USA), Dikow was earnestly involved in the broader activities of the Encyclopedia of Life through its Biodiversity Synthesis Center (BioSynC) and the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). There, he would personally establish contacts with smaller natural history museums and scientific societies, and encourage them to grant digitisation permissions to the BHL for in-copyright scientific publications. Dikow is a champion of cybertaxonomic tools and making biodiversity data accessible from both natural history collections and publications. He has been named a Biodiversity Open Data Ambassador by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

Dikow is no stranger to ZooKeys and other journals published by the open-access scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft. For the past 10 years, he has been amongst the most active editors and a regular author and reviewer at ZooKeysBiodiversity Data Journal and African Invertebrates.

“Publishing taxonomic revisions and species descriptions in an open-access, innovative journal to make data digitally accessible is one way we taxonomists can and need to add to the biodiversity knowledge base. ZooKeys has been a journal in support of this goal since day one. I am excited to lend my expertise and enthusiasm to further this goal and continue the development to publish foundational biodiversity research, species discoveries, and much more in the zoological field,”

said Dikow.

Dikow took on his new role at ZooKeys at a time when the journal had just turned 15 years on the scholarly publishing scene. In late 2020, the scientific outlet also marked the publication of its 1000th journal volume.

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Visit the journal’s website and follow ZooKeys on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. You can also follow Torsten Dikow on X.

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About ZooKeys:

ZooKeys is a peer-reviewed, open-access, rapidly disseminated journal launched to accelerate research and free information exchange in taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography and evolution of animals. ZooKeys aims to apply the latest trends and methodologies in publishing and preservation of digital materials to meet the highest possible standards of the cybertaxonomy era.

ZooKeys publishes papers in systematic zoology containing taxonomic/faunistic data on any taxon of any geological age from any part of the world with no limit to manuscript size. To respond to the current trends in linking biodiversity information and synthesising the knowledge through technology advancements, ZooKeys also publishes papers across other taxon-based disciplines, such as ecology, molecular biology, genomics, evolutionary biology, palaeontology, behavioural science, bioinformatics, etc. 

Pensoft partners with ResearchGate to drive readership and visibility of open access journals

ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and Pensoft, an independent open access academic publisher known worldwide for its cutting-edge publishing tools and workflows, today announced a new partnership that will see a set of Pensoft’s open access journals increase their reach and visibility through ResearchGate – increasing access and engagement with its 25 million researcher members.  

Pensoft is a fully open access publisher, providing high-quality end-to-end services to its own and third-party scientific journals via its in-house developed scholarly publishing platform ARPHA.

As part of this new partnership, 20 journals published by Pensoft – including the publisher’s flagship titles ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, MycoKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal and Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal) amongst others – will now have their content automatically added to ResearchGate upon publication to benefit from enhanced visibility and discoverability through ResearchGate’s innovative Journal Home offering. These journals will all have dedicated profiles and be prominently represented on all associated article pages on ResearchGate, as well as all other relevant touch points throughout the network.

As part of this new partnership, 20 journals published by Pensoft will now have their content automatically added to ResearchGate upon publication to benefit from enhanced visibility and discoverability through ResearchGate’s innovative Journal Home offering.

Journal Home provides a unique opportunity for Pensoft to connect its authors with their readers. The new journal profiles on ResearchGate will provide a central location for each journal, enabling researchers to learn more, discover new article content, and understand how, through their network, they are connected to the journal’s community of authors and editors. Authors of these journals additionally benefit from having their articles automatically added to their ResearchGate profile page, giving them access to metrics, including who is reading and citing their research. These rich insights will also enable Pensoft to build a deeper understanding of the communities engaging with its journals. 

“Pensoft is delighted to be working with ResearchGate to provide an even greater service to our authors and readers. ResearchGate offers an innovative way for us to grow the reach and visibility of our content, while also giving us a way to better understand and engage our author and reader audiences,”

said Prof Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft.

“We couldn’t be happier to see Pensoft embark on this new partnership with ResearchGate. Journal Home will not only enable Pensoft authors to build visibility for their work, but provide them and Pensoft with greater insights about the communities engaging with that research. I look forward to seeing this new collaboration develop.”

said Sören Hofmayer, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at ResearchGate.

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About ResearchGate:

ResearchGate is the professional network for researchers. Over 25 million researchers use researchgate.net to share and discover research, build their networks, and advance their careers. Based in Berlin, ResearchGate was founded in 2008. Its mission is to connect the world of science and make research open to all.

Pensoft and ARPHA partner with scite.ai to dig deeper into article citations

In the ever-evolving landscape of academic publishing, comprehensive and informative citation metrics can make all the difference. Pensoft, the scholarly publisher and technology provider, and the innovative scite.ai platform, have partnered to provide a novel service that is looking to change the way readers perceive and utilise citation data.

scite.ai has been making waves in the scholarly world with its pioneering approach to citation metrics. At the heart of their offering are two distinctive badges, elegantly displayed on the article’s page to let readers gain deeper insights into how a publication is cited by other indexed works. 

Each citation is categorized as Supporting, Contrasting, or Mentioning, based on the context of surrounding sentences within the citing publication. This way, anyone can explore not just how many times a document has been cited but also why.

The feature is already accessible under the Metrics tab of any research paper published by a Pensoft journal. The first scite.ai badge displays the number of citations, breaking them down into Supporting, Contrasting, or Mentioning; the second one offers insights on the sections of an article where the citations were featured.

At Pensoft, we are confident that this new functionality enhances the discoverability and contextual richness of articles published in our journals. The integration also  empowers Pensoft’s users to gain deeper insights into their research. Whether you’re a scientist seeking to validate your research or a reader in search of authoritative sources, this new feature promises to enrich your academic journey.

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Stay up to date with the latest integrations and features available at journals published by Pensoft by following ARPHA Platform on Twitter and Linkedin.