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.

Moscow State Linguistic University’s journal Languages and Modalities launched on ARPHA Platform

Languages and Modalities, a new peer-reviewed international journal published by the Moscow State Linguistic University, now uses a high-end publishing infrastructure after moving to the technologically advanced ARPHA Platform and signing with scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft.

The journal encourages the exchange of ideas in the study of meaning at the intersection of various languages and modes and channels of communication. It explores the ways in which we create, express, or negotiate meaning using different languages and modes or channels of communication, how we borrow and adapt words and their meanings between languages, how meanings differ in different languages, and how they travel and change across languages and modalities.

Languages and Modalities publishes articles on the cross-lingual aspects of semantics, comparative and contrastive semantics, various types of bilingualism, and on the multimodality of human interaction. It especially encourages submissions that are interdisciplinary in content and methodology. The cutting-edge approaches and methods of cross-lingual and multimodal linguistic research it disseminates help improve our understanding of natural interaction across languages and contribute to more efficient communication. Providing an open-access platform for international audiences of scholars in cross-lingual and multimodal semantics, the journal contributes to building up the capacity of cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas worldwide.

After moving to Pensoft’s scholarly publishing platform ARPHA, and with a new user-friendly website, Languages and Modalities now takes full advantage of ARPHA’s signature fast-track, end-to-end publishing system, which significantly improves user experience for authors, reviewers and editors alike. The collaboration-focused platform supports manuscripts in all steps of the publishing process – submission, peer review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving, all within its online environment. To the benefit of readers, published articles are then made available in PDF, machine-readable JATS XML formats, and semantically enriched HTML, which makes them much easier to discover, access, cite and reuse.

“ARPHA has proved to be the best solution for both commencing and experienced editorial teams, as it creates a very friendly environment from the point of view of publishing processes, as well as personal interaction,” commented the journal’s editor in chief, Olga Iriskhanova.

The journal’s first issue, focused on multimodal studies of co-speech gestures as well as sign languages, is already available open access on its new website. It is dedicated to the memory of Dominique Boutet (1966–2020), a French researcher who introduced a breakthrough method of analyzing co-speech gestures and sign language signs based on modern technology from the digital arts and a multidisciplinary approach to gesture annotation. His kinesiological approach offers a unique methodological system that changes a researcher’s perspective from an external (visual) to an internal (physiological) one, allowing for a more objective and digital-friendly analysis.

Other highlights in this pilot issue, which contains works are inspired, built on, or related to Boutet’s framework for multimodal kinesiological analysis of interlocutors’ bodily movements observed in various languages, include an investigation of the multimodal expression of irony in interaction and a discussion of the use of the question-answer pattern for relativisation across signed languages. 

With this new partnership, Pensoft steps into the field of linguistics and communication studies. The scholarly publisher, best known for its wide range of biodiversity journals, is constantly looking to expand its thematic scope – just recently it added computer studies to its portfolio after announcing a deal with the Journal of Universal Computer Science.

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 & PhylogenyVertebrate 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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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 CrossrefGoogle ScholarScopus and PubMed Central.

dimensions screenshot 3

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.

dimensions blog 1

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.

dimensions screenshot 2

“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.

ARPHA teams with Hypothesis to encourage scientific discourse through annotation

In a new integration, the 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)ZooKeysOne EcosystemJournal of Hymenoptera Research and others, will have a new layer added to their content, so that anyone registered with Hypothesis will be able to add public sentence-level annotations within any publication and use it as a starting point for further discussions. All annotations are stored at Hypothesis and listed in the user’s account.

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

annotation

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

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

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

Dan Whaley, CEO at Hypothesis, adds:

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

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

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About Hypothesis:

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

ARPHA reaches further out! Dr Matthias Wahls assigned as the platform’s new Business Development Manager

The Netherlands-based independent publishing consultant Dr. Matthias Wahls has recently joined ARPHA Journal Publishing Platform as the venture’s new Business Development Manager.

Bringing in extensive expertise from his previous appointments with key players in the academic publishing market, alongside experience accumulated through years of independent consultancy, Dr Wahls will be working on expanding ARPHA’s reach towards Western Europe, Greater China, and other Asian countries.

“I’m more than enthusiastic to join the team of ARPHA Publishing Platform and Pensoft Publishers, effective 2018,” says Dr. Matthias Wahls, the Hague, NL“Bringing this cutting-edge software platform to as many academic publishers will be my key priority. Our focus is to supply an end-to-end solution answering the needs of individual society journals and small to mid-sized publishers alike on their way to entering the Open Science publishing era and switching to the technologically advanced workflows of the future. We equally welcome stand-alone and new journals eager to become ready for the future of Gold Open Access publishing, within the greater context of the EU’s Horizon-2020 program.”

“Making academic research accessible to everyone around the globe has been a key priority for Pensoft from the very start. Having always been exclusively Open Access, in the last couple of years we’ve been aiming to go beyond and supply cutting-edge technologies that tick all boxes on the way to Open Science. With ARPHA we want to provide small publishers and society and institutional journals with a technologically advanced and affordable solution that allows them to enter the era of Open Science, while sitting strong on an increasingly demanding global publishing market.” adds Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Founder and CEO at Pensoft and ARPHA.

Dr Wahls invites editors, publishers, and individual academics who are facing the multiple transition hurdles on their way to adopt Gold Open Access, to take their journals to a next technological level with ARPHA, while staying independent under their own identity.

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What is ARPHA?

Authoring, Reviewing, Publishing, Hosting and Archiving, all in one place for the first time, this is what stands behind the innovative fully integrated journal publishing solution ARPHA, a product of Pensoft.

Fully equipped to cater for a successful transition to a next-generation, technologically-advanced publishing, ARPHA is specifically designed to meet the needs of small and mid-sized publishers and individual society and institutional journals on their journey to entering the era of Open Science, armed with a top-notch publishing technology. Alongside its journal-based module, ARPHA offers solutions for advanced open access book and conference proceedings publishing.

More than just software
ARPHA offers an end-to-end journal publishing platform, in combination with a range of technologically advanced and human-provided services.

Future-proof
This platform offers an option for smooth transition from the conventional, document-based, to the forthcoming, fully XML-based publishing workflow.

White label
ARPHA supports both individual and multiple journal platforms under their own logo, customised design and imprint.

High-level integration
ARPHA is integrated with leading indexing and archiving platforms via web services.

Semantic publishing
ARPHA provides generic and domain-specific markup to enhance and facilitate dissemination, machine-readability, harvesting and reuse of published content to improve readers’ experience.

Tailored publishing models
Publishers or individual journal editors can customise their own preferred workflow across ARPHA’s modules.

 

Contact Dr Wahls at:

matthias2fotoSlavenaAddress: M.Wahls Publishing Services, Plesmanlaan 88, 2497CB The Hague, The Netherlands

Tel: +31 644310818

Email: wahls@arphahub.com

WeChat: matthiaswahls1206

 

For more information and resources:

Visit: http://arphahub.com

Twitter: @ARPHAplatform

Video: https://youtu.be/pzTRc-zvfA8