Ultimaterials B.V. signs with Pensoft to publish Atomic Layer Deposition International Journal on ARPHA Platform

To fully unlock the potential of the upcoming era of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) research, it is crucial to incorporate the viewpoints of academia, industry, and governmental organisations, and ensure that these insights are promptly reflected in the academic articles.

To address this demand and bridge the gap between industry and scientific advances, Ultimaterials BV: a Netherlands-based company developing products in the domain of rechargeable batteries, nanotechnology and composite materials, run by scientists of diverse backgrounds, such as physics, chemistry and mechanical engineering – recently launched the new diamond open-access, peer-reviewed Atomic Layer Deposition International Journal. 

Powered by Pensoft’s publishing platform ARPHA, the new academic outlet is dedicated to the latest research and developments in the field of atomic layer deposition.

Atomic Layer Deposition is targeting scientists specialising in all aspects of ALD and related alternating vapour phase technologies. Pensoft’s publishing platform ARPHA enables the journal to publish a range of scholarly content, such as original research articles, reviews, short communications, and method papers.

The system is tailored to assist the authors and the editors throughout the entire manuscript submission, review, and publication process, delivering an end-to-end experience and resulting in the publication of articles, enriched with data and multimedia content.

In addition to streamlining the editorial management and publication process, Atomic Layer Deposition can now enjoy improved visibility for its published articles: every article is published in multiple formats, including convenient PDF, semantically-enriched HTML and fully data-minable XML. Thanks to its advanced features and integration with major indexing services, it’s not only simpler to cite and reuse the published research, but the articles are also more readily discoverable and accessible to researchers and decision-makers across the globe.

Atomic Layer Deposition publishes papers in atomic and molecular layer deposition, area selective and spatial ALD, vapour phase infiltration, atomic layer etching, new developments in ALD process design, precursors and chemistry, applications, and characterization and analysis of films and coatings.

Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Ultimaterials B.V., the journal is not only free-to-read, but also free-to-publish, thereby ensuring that the latest research in ALD is available to a global audience to access, but also to produce and disseminate efficiently.

Submissions that report on innovative research, offer new insights or techniques, and contribute to advancing the state-of-the-art in the field from authors working in academic, industrial, and government research settings are especially welcome in Atomic Layer Deposition. 

“Publishing a peer reviewed journal is quite a complicated endeavour. The peer review software, website hosting, production, layout, proofreading, publication in HTML, XML and PDF, indexing and archiving are fortunately all taken care of by the ARPHA Platform and the skilled team at Pensoft. We are glad that the Atomic Layer Deposition journal has found a home with a solid publishing foundation,”

comments the founder of the journal and CEO of Ultimaterials B.V., Dr DJ Monsma.

“We are thrilled to welcome the Atomic Layer Deposition International Journal to our expanding portfolio of scholarly journals published on ARPHA Platform. We are confident that this important and particularly promising industry is being met with increasing enthusiasm. This positive trend is also seen in the appreciation and popularity of this novel journal among professionals in the field”,

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

The first papers of 2023 are already available online on the new website of Atomic Layer Deposition. 

Within the pioneering papers published, there is a research article by US scholars that discusses the use of ALD for the fabrication of efficient and stable catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction in water splitting for renewable energy applications.

Another study by a Dutch team reports the development of a world-first low-temperature atmospheric-pressure spatial ALD process for SiNx, which can reach comparably low oxygen atomic percentages as those obtained by low-pressure temporal ALD processes based on similar chemistries.

***
The Atomic Layer Deposition journal is also on social media. You can follow the ALD journal on Twitter and Linkedin.

***
Additional information

About Ultimaterials B.V.:
Ultimaterials B.V. consists of scientists with background in physics, chemistry and mechanical engineering, and talented business administrators.  Products developed by Ultimaterials B.V. are in the domain of rechargeable batteries, nanotechnology and composite materials. Apart from developing products with improved functionality and longevity, Ultimaterials BV also provides consulting services for venture fund enterprises and investments in the energy sector and materials science.

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

About Pensoft:
Pensoft is an independent, 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. 

To date, the company has continuously been working on various tools and workflows designed to facilitate biodiversity data findability, accessibility, discoverability and interoperability. The latest large projects, led by Pensoft include the OpenBiodiv knowledge graph and the Horizon 2020 project BiCIKL.

Contacts: 

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

Dr DJ Monsma, founder of the Atomic Layer Deposition International Journal and CEO of Ultimaterials B.V.
LinkedIn

INVASIVESNET signs with Pensoft to move its official journal: Aquatic Invasions to ARPHA Platform

INVASIVESNET signs with Pensoft to move its official journal: Aquatic Invasions to ARPHA Platform

Aquatic Invasions is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal on the biological invasions in inland and coastal water ecosystems from around the world launched by the International Association for Open Knowledge on Invasive Alien Species (INVASIVESNET) & the Regional Euro-Asian Biological Invasions Centre (REABIC). 

The journal was established in 2006 as an initiative of the International Society of Limnology (SIL) Working Group on Aquatic Invasive Species (WGAIS) with start-up funding from the European Commission Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development Integrated Project ALARM to address the need for a dedicated platform to address the challenges of aquatic invasive species. 

Aquatic Invasions has been gradually building on its appeal within the field of aquatic invasive species research, as its impact has been on the rise. Its latest Scopus CiteScore stands at 4.3 and its Journal Impact Factor is 2.651. 

In early 2023, Aquatic Invasions moved to the ARPHA publishing platform to take advantage of its advanced tools and features, allowing the users to navigate throughout the website and enjoy the articles in either semantically enriched HTML or classic PDF format. ARPHA’s innovative and intuitive system streamlines the publication process, reducing the time and effort required to bring high-quality research to the scientific community.

In addition to providing a seamless publication experience, Aquatic Invasions will now benefit from enhanced visibility for its published articles. With advanced search capabilities and integration with major indexing services, including Web of Science, Scopus, and many others, articles published in Aquatic Invasions will be more easily discoverable and accessible to researchers around the world. 

Furthermore, the implementation of the new article- and sub-article level metrics will enable real-time tracking of various elements, providing valuable insights into their usage.

Aquatic Invasions accepts papers related to the introduction, establishment, spread, and impacts of non-native aquatic species in freshwater, estuarine, and marine environments. 

The journal also considers papers that provide new insights into the biology, ecology, and management of invasive species, as well as those that assess the ecological, economic, and social impacts of invasions.

«I am delighted to see Aquatic Invasions moving on to the ARPHA Platform. This will help the growth of our journal, facilitating the submission and production process.

Since its foundation, AI has been focused on biological invasions in aquatic environments, among the most vulnerable and threatened ecosystems by species introduction, to provide continuous updates for researchers but also stakeholders and managers, and promote the spread of its papers to all the sectors of society affected by this problem.

We want to improve our role in this sense, attracting more contributors and reaching more and more people, especially from that part of the world where the phenomenon and study of biological invasions in aquatic environments are increasing, such as Africa, Asia and South America. I am confident this new change will be positive for the journal!»

comments the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Professor of University of Florence Dr Elena Tricarico.

«Aquatic Invasions was the first international fully open-access journal devoted to biological invasions. Currently, Aquatic Invasions, along its sister journals, BioInvasions Records and Management of Biological Invasions, is a core linking element of INVASIVESNET – the global professional Association of organisations and experts working in the area of biological invasions. Our strategic goal – to make our publication services free of charge for all authors in the long-term, and within INVASIVESNET, we are working on the development of the Open Access Publishing Fund and seeking for potential sponsors and other funding solutions.

Also, we are extremely optimistic that the movement of Aquatic Invasions to the ARPHA platform will improve our services for authors and facilitate free dissemination of data and knowledge on invasive species globally»,

comments the founder and Managing Editor of the journal, Director of REABIC, Dr Vadim Panov.

«We are thrilled to announce our partnership with another journal focused on the important topic of biological invasions here at Pensoft. With our extensive experience in publishing and disseminating research on zoology and biodiversity, I am confident that this journal has found a perfect home within the ARPHA journals family»,

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

The first papers of 2023 are already available online on the new website of Aquatic Invasions. 

Among the seven articles published, there are four papers on marine and three papers on inland water invasions across 4 continents. The studies are covering non-native ascidians in southern California; invasive forams along the coasts of Normandy; invasive sun coral spreading along the Brazilian coasts; invasive pufferfish in the Eastern Mediterranean; invasive New Zeland mudsnail in the Greater Yellowstone Area (U.S.A.); Australian red-claw crayfish in Thailand and non-native species that invaded Poyang Lake Basin (China) after 2000.

***

Additional information

About INVASIVESNET:

The International Association for Open Knowledge on Invasive Alien Species (INVASIVESNET) is a global network of scientists and researchers who collaborate to improve knowledge sharing and management related to invasive alien species. INVASIVESNET is committed to promoting the use of open data and knowledge to advance research, management, and policy related to invasive alien species. The organization aims to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas among its members and other stakeholders to promote effective invasive alien species management strategies and enhance global biosecurity.

About REABIC:

The Regional Euro-Asian Biological Invasions Centre (REABIC) is an international organisation that focuses on research, management, and prevention of biological invasions, particularly in the Euro-Asian region. REABIC was established in 2003 and is based in Helsinki, Finland. The organisation brings together scientists, experts, and stakeholders from various fields to develop and implement strategies for preventing and managing the negative impacts of invasive species on biodiversity, ecosystems, and human well-being. 

About ARPHA:

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

About Pensoft:

Pensoft is an independent, 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. The latest large projects, led by Pensoft include the OpenBiodiv knowledge graph and the Horizon 2020 project BiCIKL.

Contacts: 

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

Dr Elena Tricarico, Editor-in-Chief of Aquatic Invasions
Email: elena.tricarico@unifi.it 

Dr Vadim Panov, Managing Editor of Aquatic Invasions and Director at REABIC
Email: vepanov@gmail.com

ARPHA Platform reports 6 journals now indexed in ERIH PLUS

Following a thorough evaluation that has been going on for the last several months, the Indexing team at ARPHA Platform reports that the applications submitted on behalf of six journals have all been approved by ERIH PLUS – the European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS)

Four journals (co-)published by the scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft: Nature Conservation, NeoBiota, Neotropical Biology and Conservation and Fossil Record, and two journals using the white-label publishing solution of ARPHA Platform: the Journal of the Bulgarian Geographical Society and the Amsterdam University Press’ Heritage, Memory and Conflict (HMC) were recently accepted by the key index within the field of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS): ERIH PLUS.

ERIH (European Reference Index for the Humanities or ERIH) was established by the European Science Foundation. In 2014, it was extended to also include social science disciplines and was renamed ERIH PLUS.

The aim of the index is to increase the visibility, searchability and availability of research published in the fields. It is widely used within the European academic community.

“We want to be a key player in the European work that is done to make HSS research available to the wider community, and we want to do this by providing an index which not only supplies metadata about journals, but also places the HSS research in a wider academic context,”

says the team behind ERIH PLUS.

The ERIH PLUS easily-searchable database includes journals that have proved to meet an extensive list of requirements in line with good academic practices and research integrity, such as: 

“explicit procedures for external peer review; an academic editorial board, with members affiliated with universities or other independent research organizations; a valid ISSN code, confirmed by the international ISSN register; abstracts in English and/or another international language relevant for the field for all published articles; information on author affiliations and addresses; a maximum two thirds of the authors published in the journal from the same institution”.

ERIH PLUS is a member of different key-organisations like COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).

***

The six journals mentioned here are not the first ones in the ARPHA portfolio to be accepted at ERIH Plus. Already in the database are a total of 15 scholarly outlets published on the platform: 

  1. BioRisk
  2. Check List
  3. European Science Editing
  4. Maandblad voor Accountancy en Bedrijfseconomie
  5. One Ecosystem
  6. Plant Ecology and Evolution
  7. Plant Sociology
  8. Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal)
  9. Rethinking Ecology
  10. Fossil Record
  11. Heritage, Memory and Conflict
  12. Nature Conservation
  13. NeoBiota
  14. Neotropical Biology and Conservation
  15. Journal of the Bulgarian Geographical Society

***

Support in indexing and archiving is only a part of the human-provided services offered by the ARPHA publishing platform to client journals regardless of their choice to be (co-)published by Pensoft or retain their own publishing brand. 

You can find more about the services offered by ARPHA on the platform’s website.

***

You can also follow ARPHA Platform on:

Five journals published on ARPHA with an Impact Factor from 2023

In late July, Clarivate announced that starting from the next Journal Citation Report (JCR) release, expected in June 2023, all journals indexed by the Emerging Science Citation Index (ESCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) will receive an Impact Factor.

So far, the score was only available for journals in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).

The news means that the following journals using the ARPHA publishing platform will receive their first Impact Factor next year:

The 2023 JCR report will reflect how many times publications in a particular journal from the Web of Science database have been cited in scholarly articles published in other journals from the same database during 2022. Then, this number will be divided by the number of ‘citable items’ published in the journal in the preceding two years (i.e. research articles, review papers and proceedings papers published in 2021 and 2020).

Note that while citations of any article type are counted in the numerator of the ratio, ‘non-citable items’, such as editorials, letters, obituaries, meeting abstracts and corrigenda, are left out of the denominator.

Can we forecast the Impact Factor?

Unfortunately, we can only guess what the first Impact Factor for any of those journals will be like. 

While you can find the Scopus CiteScore for each of them displayed on the journal’s website homepages, we need to remind you that Web of Science and Scopus use their own databases and apply quite different formulae. 

The Scopus CiteScore is calculated from the number of citations made over the last four completed years divided by the publications from the same years. Apart from a yearly score for the last complete year, Scopus also presents a CiteScoreTracker, whose estimate is updated on a monthly basis.

***

A comprehensive post, published on the independent Scholarly Kitchen blog provides further details and discussion on what the change could mean for journals in the ESCI index. The post also includes a short interview with Dr. Nandita Quaderi, Editor in Chief and Editorial Vice President, Web of Science.  

***

Follow ARPHA Platform on Twitter and LinkedIn. 

You can also subscribe to the ARPHA blog by entering your email address in the box on the right. 

Plant Ecology and Evolution, a journal of Meise Botanic Garden and the Royal Botanical Society of Belgium, moves to ARPHA

Plant Ecology and Evolution

Another diamond open-access, peer-reviewed journal – owned by Meise Botanic Garden and the Royal Botanical Society of Belgium – now boasts an improved publishing infrastructure after moving to the technologically advanced ARPHA Platform, developed by scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft. Pensoft is eager to welcome a journal with rich history going back to 1862 on its platform.

Plant Ecology and Evolution is a scientific journal devoted to the ecology, phylogenetics, and systematics of all plant groups in the traditional sense (including algae, fungi, and myxomycetes), also covering related fields such as comparative and developmental morphology, conservation biology, evo­lution, phytogeography, reproductive biology, population genetics, and vegetation studies. Although submissions from all over the world are welcome, the journal has a particular interest in tropical biodiversity, especially from Africa. 

Officially launched 12 years ago in 2010, it was established as a merger of the Belgian Journal of Botany and Systematics and Geography of Plants, as their scopes started to overlap significantly, with both focusing mainly on (sub)tropical African botany.

The Belgian Journal of Botany dates back to 1862, when its first volume was published under the name Bulletins de la Société royale de Botanique de Belgique. As for Systematics and Geography of Plants, its publication started in 1902 under the name Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de l’État à Bruxelles.

Plant Ecology and Evolution opted for ARPHA’s white-label solution, benefitting from all of ARPHA’s services and a new user-friendly website, while publishing under the branding and imprint of the two non-profit organisations that support it: Meise Botanic Garden and the Royal Botanical Society of Belgium.

Thanks to their financial support, Plant Ecology and Evolution is published under Diamond Open Access, which means that it is free to read and publish. In addition, it takes advantage of ARPHA’s signature fast-track publishing system, which offers an end-to-end solution from submission to publication, distribution, and archiving. Providing a synergic online space for submission, reviewing, editing, production, and archiving, ARPHA ensures a seamlessly integrated workflow at every step of the publishing process.

The journal will also support publication of the submitted manuscripts on ARPHA Preprints platform developed by Pensoft to streamline public access to the latest scientific findings. The platform allows authors to submit a preprint in a matter of seconds along with their manuscript, with no need to upload any additional files. Once the associated paper is published, a two-way link between the article and the preprint is established via CrossRef.

New articles of Plant Ecology and Evolution will be published in three formats: PDF, machine-readable JATS XML, and semantically enriched HTML for better and mobile-friendly reader experience.

“We chose ARPHA for many reasons, one of which is functionality: the entire editorial process happens online, which provides a smooth experience for authors, reviewers, and editors. ARPHA also allows for the automatic dissemination of biodiversity data to numerous databases. Our journal wants to contribute to making biodiversity data freely available to all in the spirit of open science, and ARPHA makes this possible, easy and automated,”

said Editor-in-Chief, Dr Brecht Verstraete.

“With the ARPHA platform, Plant Ecology and Evolution is stepping into the future of biodiversity publishing,”

he added.

Additional information:

About Meise Botanic Garden:

The history of Meise Botanic Garden dates back to 1796 and it is therefore older than the Kingdom of Belgium. The Garden has a collection of more than 18,000 living plants and has a huge herbarium with approximately 4 million specimens. The Garden also has a botanical library with more than 200,000 books from the 15th century until today. As a research institute, it maps and studies the diversity of plants, mushrooms, and algae covering the whole world, from Antarctica to the rainforests of Congo.

About the Royal Botanical Society of Belgium:

The Royal Botanical Society of Belgium was founded in 1862 and promotes botany through scientific research, publications, and conferences. The members of the society, in Belgium and abroad, are teachers, students, researchers, naturalists, nature reserve managers, etc. The society is open to anyone interested in botany.

About Pensoft:

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

About ARPHA:

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

Contact:

Dr Brecht Verstraete, Editor in chief of Plant Ecology and Evolution
Email: brecht.verstraete@plantentuinmeise.be

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

Natural History Museum of Berlin’s Fossil Record journal started publishing on ARPHA Platform

Fossil Record – the paleontological scholarly journal of the Natural History Museum of Berlin (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin) published its first articles after moving to the academic publisher Pensoft and its publishing platform ARPHA in late 2021. The renowned scientific outlet – launched in 1998 – joined two other historical journals owned by the Museum: Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Zoosystematics and Evolution, which moved to Pensoft back in 2014.

Published in two issues a year, the open-access scientific outlet covers research from all areas of palaeontology, including the taxonomy and systematics of fossil organisms, biostratigraphy, palaeoecology, and evolution. It deals with all taxonomic groups, including invertebrates, microfossils, plants, and vertebrates.

As a result of the move to ARPHA, Fossil Record utilises the whole package of ARPHA Platform’s services, including its fast-track, end-to-end publishing module, designed to appeal to readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike. A major advantage is that the whole editorial process, starting from the submission of a manuscript and continuing into peer review, editing, publication, dissemination, archiving and hosting, happens within the online ecosystem of ARPHA. 

As soon as they are published, the articles in Fossil Record are available in three formats: PDF, machine-readable JATS XML and semantically enriched HTML for better and mobile-friendly reader experience. 

The publications are equipped with real-time metrics on both article and sub-article level that allow easy access to the number of visitors, views and downloads for every article and each of it’s figures, tables or supplementary materials. In their turn, the semantic enhancements do not only allow for easy navigation throughout the text and quick access to cited literature and the article’s own citations, but also tag each taxon that appears in the paper to provide links to further information concerning its occurrences, genomics, nomenclature, treatments and more as available from various databases.      

The first five papers – now available on the brand new journal website powered by ARPHA – already demonstrate the breadth of topics covered by Fossil Record, including systematics, paleobiogeography, palaeodiversity and morphology, as well as the international appeal of the scholarly outlet. The articles are co-authored by collaborative research teams representing ten countries and spanning three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa.

***

About the Natural History Museum of Berlin:

The “Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science” is an integrated research museum within the Leibniz Association. It is one of the most important research institutions worldwide in the areas of biological and geological evolution and biodiversity.

The Museum’s mission is to discover and describe life and earth – with people, through dialogue. As an excellent research museum and innovative communication platform, it wants to engage with and influence the scientific and societal discourse about the future of our planet, worldwide. Its vision, strategy and structure make the museum an excellent research museum. The Natural History Museum of Berlin has research partners in Berlin, Germany and approximately 60 other countries. Over 700,000 visitors per year as well as steadily increasing participation in educational and other events show that the Museum has become an innovative communication centre that helps shape the scientific and social dialogue about the future of our earth. 

Second economics journal by Moscow State University migrates to ARPHA Platform

Two years ago the publishing platform, developed by the scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft, welcomed Moscow State University’s journal Population and Economics. Now, ARPHA announces the transfer of a second academic title published by the institution’s Faculty of Economics. The peer-reviewed, open-access BRICS Journal of Economics covers key economic issues of middle-income developing countries, primarily BRICS countries. 

BRICS Journal of Economics is a fairly new scientific outlet launched in 2020 with the aim to provide a better understanding of the specifics of the BRICS countries (China, Russia, Brazil, India, and South Africa), as well as a broader knowledge about the prospects emerging in those constantly growing economies. It publishes four issues per year, where all articles are submitted in English and undergo double-blind peer review. Thanks to sponsorship available from one of the leading universal banks of Russia: VTB Bank, it runs a Diamond Open Access policy, where neither reading, nor publishing incurs any costs to readers and authors.

With its move to ARPHA, BRICS Journal of Economics is to utilise the whole package of ARPHA Platform’s signature services, including a fast-track, end-to-end publishing module, designed to appeal to readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike. 

Soon, the journal will relaunch on its brand new ARPHA-powered website, where authors, editors and reviewers will find and track the progress of all of their tasks, files and correspondence, in addition to the infrastructure needed to complete every step along the editorial process. Put simply, once submitted, a manuscript has no need to leave the online, collaborative-friendly platform all the way to its publication, dissemination and archiving.

On their part, the readers of BRICS Journal of Economics will enjoy the publications in a conventional PDF format that allows easier storage, as well as semantically enriched HTML. The latter ensures a complete and mobile-friendly reading experience by relying on easier navigation and plenty of related additional linked information within the article’s text. Meanwhile, the third utilised format: the machine-readable JATS XML will make the publications much more visible and findable to both humans searching on the Internet and algorithms mining the web. 

Amongst the other advantages provided by the journal is a full suite of various metrics designed to track the usage of both articles and sub-article elements, such as figures and tables, at any time.

“We are delighted to extend our collaboration with the Moscow State University’s Faculty of Economics by taking care after the technological advancement of BRICS Journal of Economics. This particular journal is undoubtedly serving a fantastic role in the community by filling a niche in the study of Economics, and it is an honour for us at ARPHA and Pensoft to aid its reach to the international public,” 

says Prof. Dr Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft.

Additional information:

About Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University:

Founded in 1941, the Faculty of Economics continues the centuries-old tradition of economic education in Russia, being one of the leading university-level centres in the field of Economics.

The faculty combines fundamental education and professional training in order to develop its students’ analytical skills and creative thinking, thereby helping its graduates to adapt quickly and successfully to the requirements of any job in the field of economics.

About Lomonosov Moscow State University:

Founded in 1755 by Russian polymath, scientist and writer Mikhail Lomonosov, the university is currently the highest-ranking Russian educational institution, according to the 2018 QS World University Rankings. It is also considered to be the most prestigious university in the former Soviet Union.

Every year Moscow University enrolls about 4 000 international students and postgraduates from all over the world.

Fossil Record, a Natural History Museum of Berlin journal moves to ARPHA

Having been publishing its historically renowned scientific journals Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift (DEZ) and Zoosystematics and Evolution (ZSE) in partnership with the scholarly publisher Pensoft and its ARPHA Platform since 2014, the Natural History Museum of Berlin (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin) now extends the collaboration by moving a third signature journal: Fossil Record. 

Launched in 1998 under the name Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Geowissenschaftliche Reihe, Fossil Record is the Natural History Museum of Berlin’s palaeontological journal. Published in two issues a year, the open-access scientific outlet covers research from all areas of palaeontology, including the taxonomy and systematics of fossil organisms, biostratigraphy, palaeoecology, and evolution. It deals with all taxonomic groups, including invertebrates, microfossils, plants, and vertebrates.

Following its move to ARPHA, Fossil Record is to utilise the whole package of ARPHA Platform’s services, including its fast-track, end-to-end publishing module, designed to appeal to readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike. 

With ARPHA, each submitted manuscript is carried through the review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving stages without leaving the platform’s collaboration-centred online environment. The articles are made available in PDF and machine-readable JATS XML formats, as well as semantically enriched HTML for better and mobile-friendly reader experience. 

As a result, the journal’s articles are as easy to discover, access, reuse and cite as possible. Once published, the content is indexed and archived instantaneously and its underlying data exported to relevant specialised databases. Simultaneously, a suite of various metrics is enabled to facilitate tracking the usage of articles and sub-article elements, such as figures and tables.

“We have deeply enjoyed our collaboration with the Natural History Museum of Berlin for the past seven years that started with two great journals moving to our scholarly portfolio and advanced open access. Now, I am delighted to strengthen this wonderful partnership by welcoming Fossil Record and its fantastic editorial team to the families of ARPHA and Pensoft. I am certain that together we will not only repeat the success we had with DEZ and ZSE, but will actually build on it,”

says Prof. Dr Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft.

About the Natural History Museum of Berlin:

The “Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science” is an integrated research museum within the Leibniz Association. It is one of the most important research institutions worldwide in the areas of biological and geological evolution and biodiversity.

The Museum’s mission is to discover and describe life and earth – with people, through dialogue. As an excellent research museum and innovative communication platform, it wants to engage with and influence the scientific and societal discourse about the future of our planet, worldwide. Its vision, strategy and structure make the museum an excellent research museum. The Natural History Museum of Berlin has research partners in Berlin, Germany and approximately 60 other countries. Over 700,000 visitors per year as well as steadily increasing participation in educational and other events show that the Museum has become an innovative communication centre that helps shape the scientific and social dialogue about the future of our earth.

Herpetozoa renews contract with Pensoft for another 5 years

Herpetozoa, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the Austrian Herpetological Society, renewed its contract with Pensoft, re-signing with the scholarly publisher for another five years. Published since 1988, the journal offers a venue for research articles, short contributions and reviews dealing with all aspects of the study of amphibians and reptiles.

Enticed by the opportunities that open access publishing offers, and looking to improve its visibility, Herpetozoa first came to Pensoft in 2019. The move equipped the journal with a brand new website and a full suite of publishing services tailored to the needs of biodiversity-themed academic publications available from ARPHA, Pensoft’s self-developed publishing platform. 

In ARPHA’s fast-track publishing system, each manuscript is carried through all stages, from submission and reviewing to dissemination and archiving, without ever leaving the platform’s collaboration-friendly online environment. In addition, semantic enhancements, automated data export to aggregators, web-service integrations with major indexing databases, and a variety of publishing formats ensure that all articles are easy to find, access, and use by both humans and machines.

The journal also makes use of ARPHA Preprints, another service developed by Pensoft to streamline public access to the latest scientific findings. The platform allows authors to submit a preprint in a matter of seconds along with their manuscript, with no need to upload any additional files. Following a quick in-house screening, the preprint is then made available on ARPHA Preprints in a few days’ time. Once the associated paper is published, a two-way link between the article and the preprint is established via CrossRef.

In the past three years, we saw Herpetozoa publish some quite peculiar discoveries that were quick to attract the attention of the global media. Such was the case of a set of first-of-their-kind observations of kukri snakes gutting toads and eating their organs while still alive. At the same time, the journal doesn’t fail to bring public attention to urgent conservation and biodiversity loss issues like reptile poaching in Pakistan, as well as innovative methods to monitor delicate amphibians in a non-invasive manner.

Contributions to Entomology is the fourth Senckenberg journal to move to ARPHA Platform

By signing with the scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft, Contributions to Entomology – a journal by the Senckenberg German Entomological Institute – becomes the fourth Senckenberg academic title to transfer to the growing portfolio of the open-access scholarly publishing platform ARPHA. 

Earlier this year, the publisher came to similar agreements with Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Vertebrate Zoology and Geologica Saxonica, which have already been relaunched on ARPHA under the branding of the Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden.

Likewise, Contributions to Entomology is to continue as a journal published exclusively by Senckenberg, thanks to the white-label publishing solution designed by ARPHA to preserve the identity of historical journals. Still, the journal is to utilise the whole package of signature services provided by the platform, including ARPHA’s fast-track, end-to-end publishing system, which benefits readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike.

With ARPHA – the scholarly publishing platform initially developed by Pensoft to cater for the needs for academic journals – each submitted manuscript is carried through the review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving stages without leaving the platform’s collaboration-centred online environment.

Thanks to ARPHA’s highly automated workflow, once published, the content is indexed and archived instantaneously and its underlying data exported to the relevant specialised databases. Simultaneously, a suite of various metrics is enabled to facilitate tracking the usage of articles and sub-article elements – like figures and tables – in real time .

The articles themselves are openly available in PDF, machine-readable JATS XML formats, and semantically enriched HTML for better reader experience. Thus, the journal’s content is made as easy to discover, access, reuse and cite as possible.

Founded back in 1951 under the title “Beiträge zur Entomologie”, Contribution to Entomology publishes original contributions on insect systematics, taxonomy, phylogeny, zoogeography, faunistics, ecology, applied entomology, entomological bibliography, and the history of entomology. The journal operates a Diamond Open Access policy, where neither access to content, nor publication incurs charges.

“We are delighted to welcome this particular journal on ARPHA Platform. While we’re publishing academic titles from across the sciences, Pensoft and ARPHA are still best known for their biodiversity- and ecology-themed journals and domain-specific innovations. This is why we are honoured to be able to share our experience and approach with Senckenberg and Contributions to Entomology,”

says Prof. Dr Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft.

***

About Senckenberg:

Senckenberg, Research Institutes and Natural History Museums, conduct research in bio- and geoscience. Major research fields are biodiversity and ecosystem research and the research on the entire Earth-Human-Earth system. Senckenberg headquarters are located in Frankfurt am Main, but research on marine, terrestrial and climate systems is also housed at additional nine locations throughout Germany: in Dresden, Gelnhausen, Gorlitz, Hamburg, Messel, Muncheberg, Tubingen, Weimar and Wilhelmshaven. Senckenberg employs about 1,000 people, including 300 scientists. Senckenberg scientists are active in projects worldwide, most of which are international collaborations with universities and other research institutions. Senckenberg hosts biological and geological research collections with more than 35 million series.