Tag: journal publishing

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Senckenberg Nature Research Society’s General director Prof. Klement Tockner on a visit at the National Museum of Natural History and Pensoft

Prof. Klement Tokner, Director general of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research (centre) with Pensoft’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev (right) and Prof. Pavel Stoev, Director of the National Museum of Natural History (Bulgaria) and COO at Pensoft (left).

On 2 June 2023, we welcomed Prof. Klement Tockner, Director general of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, who travelled to Bulgaria to meet with Pensoft’s and the National Museum of Natural History’s (NMNHS) senior management to discuss current and future collaborations. 

The visit took place in the NMNHS, where Tockner had fruitful discussions with Pensoft’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev and Prof. Pavel Stoev, Director of the Museum and COO at Pensoft.

An important point in the discussion was the performance of the four scientific journals, owned by the Society, which moved to Pensoft’s publishing platform ARPHA a couple of years ago, and marked the beginning of a fruitful and highly promising partnership.

On the agenda was also the opportunity for an Open Access agreement to be signed between the Society and the publisher, in order to support researchers who wish to publish in any Pensoft journal. 

Tokner was also curious to learn more about the additional publishing services, provided by Pensoft via the ARPHA platform, including the various and continuously elaborated data publishing workflows, and the opportunities to streamline the description of new marine species, identified from DNA material.

In early 2021, the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research signed with the publisher to move three of its legacy titles from the natural sciences domain: Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Contributions to Entomology, Geologica Saxonica and Vertebrate Zoology. Later, in November, the journal Contributions to Entomology followed suit. All four of them went for the white-label publishing solution available from ARPHA, designed to preserve the exclusive identity of historical journals.

Interoperable biodiversity data extracted from literature through open-ended queries

The partners also talked about further extending the collaboration between Senckenberg and Pensoft to European Commission-funded scientific projects. Tokner was particularly fascinated with the progress made by the currently undergoing project Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library (BiCIKL), coordinated by Pensoft and involving 14 European institutions from ten countries. Additionally, over the past 20 years, Pensoft has also partnered in over 50 different consortia as a publisher, science communicator and technology provider.

Stoev (right) shows Tockner (left) around the collections of the National Museum of Natural History (Sofia, Bulgaria).

In his role as Director of the NMNHS, Stoev used the occasion to tour Tockner around the NMNHS collections and tell him more about the Museum’s latest achievements and projects, as well as its traditions in the fields of human evolution research and paleornithology.

Stoev (left) tells Tockner (right) about the recently launched Bulgarian national unit of DiSSCo.

The two also engaged in a vivid discussion about the poorly studied biodiversity in Bulgaria and the region, but also about the recent efforts of the NMNHS team, including the launch of a Bulgarian national unit of DiSSCo tasked to digitise a large proportion of the institution’s collection in the next three years. Tokner and Stoev also talked about the need of additional networking activities and closer collaborations between smaller natural history museums across Europe that could be mediated through the Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF), where Senckenberg is an active member.

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How to get data from research articles back into the research cycle аt no additional costs?
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Eye for Detail: Papers in Pensoft journals sport a new look

Readers at some of the journals published by Pensoft, who have downloaded/printed a publication or ordered a physical copy of a journal issue over the last few weeks, might be in for a surprise concerning the layout of the PDF format of the articles. 

Research papers published in ZooKeys demonstrating the former (left) and the current (right) article layout seen in the PDF format. 

Even though it’s been years since online publishing has become the norm in how we are consuming information – including scientific publications – we understand that academia is still very much fond of traditional, often paper-based, article layout format: the one you use when accessing a PDF file or a print copy, rather than directly scrolling down through the HTML version of the article. 

Even if today large orders of printed volumes from overseas are the exception, rather than the rule, we know we have readers of ours who regularly print manuscripts at home or savе them on their devices. Trends like this have already led to many journals first abandoning the physical- for digital-first, then transitioning to digital-only publication format.

Meanwhile, it is true that needs and demands have fundamentally changed in recent times. 

As we speak, readers are accessing PDF files from much higher-quality desktops, in order to skim through as much content as possible. 

In the meantime, authors are relying on greater-quality cameras to document their discoveries, while using advanced computational tools capable of generating and analysing extra layers of precise data. While producing more exhaustive research, however, it is also of key importance that their manuscripts are processed and published as rapidly as possible.

So, let’s run through the updates and give you our reasoning for their added value to readers and authors.

Revised opening page

One of the major changes is the one to the format of the first page. By leaving some blank space on the left, we found a dedicated place for important article metadata, i.e. academic editor, date of manuscript submission / acceptance / publication, citation details and licence. As a result, we “cleaned up” the upper part of the page, so that it can better highlight the authors and their affiliations. 

Bottom line: The new layout provides a better structure to the opening page to let readers find key article metadata at a glance. 

Expand as much – or as little – as comfortable

As you might know, journals published by Pensoft have been coming in different formats and sizes. Now, we have introduced the standard A4 page size, where the text is laid in a single column that has been slightly indented to the right, as seen above. Whenever a figure or a table is used in a manuscript, however, it is expanded onto the whole width of the page.

Before giving our reasons why, let’s see what were the specific problems that we address.

Case study 1

Some of our signature journals, including ZooKeys, PhytoKeys and MycoKeys, have become quite recognisable with their smaller-than-average B5 format, widely appreciated by people who would often be seen carrying around a copy during a conference or an international flight.

However, in recent times, authors began to embrace good practices in research like open sharing of data and code, which resulted in larger and more complex tables. Similarly, their pocket-sized cameras would capture much higher-resolution photos capable of revealing otherwise minute morphological characters. Smaller page size would also mean that often there would be pages between an in-text reference of a figure or a table and the visual itself.

So, here we faced an obvious question: shall we deprive their readers from all those detailed insights into the published studies?

Case study 2

Meanwhile, other journals, such as Herpetozoa, Zoosystematics and Evolution and Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, had long been operating in A4 size, thereby providing their readers with a full view of the figures in their publications. 

Yet, the A4 format brought up another issue: the lines were too long for the eye comfort of their readers. 

What they did was organise their pages into two-column format. While this sounds like a good and quite obvious decision, the format – best known from print newspapers – is pretty inconvenient when accessed digitally. Since the readers would like to zoom in on the PDF page or simply access the article on mobile, they will need to scroll up and down several times per page. 

In addition, the production of a two-column text is technologically more challenging, which results in extra production time.

Bottom line: The new layout allows journals to not sacrifice image quality for text readability and vice versa. As a bonus, authors enjoy faster publication for their papers.

Simplified font

If you have a closer look at the PDF file, you would notice that print-ready papers have also switched to a more simplistic – yet easier to the eye – font. Again, the update corresponds to today’s digital-native user behaviour, where readers often access PDF files from devices of various resolutions and skim through the text, as opposed to studying its content in detail.

In fact, the change is hardly new, since the same font has long been utilised for the webpages (HTML format) of the publications across all journals.

Bottom line: The slightly rounder and simplified font prompts readability, thereby allowing for faster and increased consumption of content. 

What’s the catch? How about characters and APCs?

While we have been receiving a lot of positive feedback from editors, authors and readers, there has been a concern that the updates would increase the publication charges, wherever these are estimated based on page numbers.

Having calculated the lines and characters in the new layout format, we would like to assure you that there is no increase in the numbers of characters or words between the former and current layout formats. In fact, due to the additional number of lines fitting in an A4 page as opposed to B5, authors might be even up for a deal.

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For news from & about ARPHA and the journals using the platform, you can follow us on Twitter and Linkedin.

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One Ecosystem selected for inclusion in the Web of Science

Seven years after its official launch in May 2016, the One Ecosystem journal has successfully completed the rigorous quality and integrity assessment at Web of Science.

Scientific papers published in One Ecosystem from 2021 onwards will be indexed at the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), revealed the Indexing team at ARPHA Platform.

The news means that One Ecosystem might see its very first Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as early as 2024, following the latest revision of the metric’s policies Clarivate announced last July. According to the update, all journals from the Web of Science Core Collection are now featured in the Journal Citation Reports, and thereby eligible for a JIF.

“Giving all quality journals a Journal Impact Factor will provide full transparency to articles and citations that have contributed to impact, and therefore will help them demonstrate their value to the research community. This decision is aligned to our position that publications in all quality journals, not just highly cited journals, should be eligible for inclusion in research assessment exercises,” said back then Dr Nandita Quaderi, Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Vice President at Web of Science.

“We are happy to learn that Web of Science has recognised the value and integrity of One Ecosystem in the scholarly landscape. Not only does it mean that the scientific content One Ecosystem has been publishing over the years is persistent in merit and quality, but that innovative research outputs are already widely accepted and appreciated within academia. After all, one of the reasons why we launched One Ecosystem and why it has grown to be particularly distinguished in the field of ecology and sustainability is that it provides a scholarly publication venue for traditional research papers, as well as ‘unconventional’ scientific contributions,”

comments Prof Dr Benjamin Burkhard, Executive Director at the Institute of Physical Geography & Landscape Ecology, Leibniz University Hannover (Germany) and founding Editor-in-Chief of One Ecosystem.

“These ‘unconventional’ research outputs – like software descriptions, ecosystem inventories, ecosystem service mappings and monitoring schema – do not normally see the light of day, let alone the formal publication and efficient visibility. We believe that these outputs can be very useful to researchers, as well as practitioners and public bodies in charge of, for example, setting up indicator frameworks for environmental reporting,”

says Prof Davide Geneletti, Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering of University of Trento, Italy, and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of One Ecosystem.

“In fact, last year, we also launched a new article type: the Ecosystem Accounting table, which follows the standards set by the the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA). This publication type provides scientists and statisticians with a platform to publish newly compiled accounting tables,” 

adds Dr Joachim Maes, Policy analyst at the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of One Ecosystem.

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Previously, One Ecosystem has been accepted for indexing at over 60 major academic databases, including Scopus, DOAJ, Cabell’s Directory, CABI and ERIH PLUS. In June 2022, the journal received a Scopus CiteScore reading 7.0, which placed it in Q1 in five categories: Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Nature and Landscape Conservation; Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous); Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics.

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You can follow One Ecosystem on Twitter and Facebook.

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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.

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

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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

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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.

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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

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Pensoft joins Advisory Panel to further develop the Journal Comparison Service by cOAlition S

Back in December, we announced that Pensoft joined 27 other publishers in sharing prices and services via the Journal Comparison Service developed by cOAlition S, in order to boost transparency in scholarly publishing.

Now, we are up to another challenge: we have joined the Advisory Panel appointed by cOAlition S to help further the improvement and development of this important service. The Advisory Panel consists of twelve members (six publishers and six end-users) representing different stakeholders in the scholarly communication ecosystem.

Journal Comparison Service (JSC) is an initiative by cOAlition S aimed to improve transparency and communication regarding publishing costs between publishers and institutions. 

It serves to provide the libraries with all the information they need to make informed decisions about whether the fees charged by a particular journal are reasonable and commensurate with the services delivered. 

In their turn, the publishers can use it to demonstrate their dedication to fostering an open business culture and to bring awareness of the value of their services. 

To facilitate this process, the publishers are advised to submit information about their prices and publishing policies on an annual basis using the JCS Frameworks format. 

An Advisory Panel will review the Frameworks and offer suggestions on how to improve them, aiming to make the data collected as valuable as possible to all involved parties. Additionally, the Panel will actively promote the use of JCS among stakeholders.

The panel will meet twice a year, and the first meeting has already been scheduled for May 2023.

We are delighted that we have been able to establish such a high-quality Advisory Panel, representing all the key stakeholders.

The primary function of the Panel will make recommendations on how the data collection frameworks might be further developed to ensure that the price and service data is as useful as possible for those who procure publishing services, whilst remaining deliverable by the publishers who are asked to provide these data,

commented Robert Kiley, Head of Strategy at cOAlition S.

Additional information:

About JCS:

Journal Comparison Service is a secure, free-of-charge service that enables libraries, library consortia, and funders to better understand if the fees they pay are commensurate with the publication services delivered. Publishers provide information in a standard format, including information about the publication frequency, the peer review process, times from submission to acceptance, the range of list prices for APCs and subscriptions and more.

About cOAlition S:

On 4 September 2018, a group of national research funding organisations, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), announced the launch of cOAlition S, an initiative to make full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality. It is built around Plan S, which consists of one target and 10 principles

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Pensoft among the first 27 publishers to share prices & services via the Journal Comparison Service by Plan S

In support of transparency and openness in scholarly publishing and academia, the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft joined the Journal Comparison Service (JCS) initiative by cOAlition S, an alliance of national funders and charitable bodies working to increase the volume of free-to-read research. 

As a result, all journals published by Pensoft – each using the publisher’s self-developed ARPHA Platform – provide extensive and transparent information about their costs and services in line with the Plan S principles.

The JCS was launched to aid libraries and library consortia – the ones negotiating and participating in Open Access agreements with publishers – by providing them with everything they need to know in order to determine whether the prices charged by a certain journal are fair and corresponding to the quality of the service. 

According to cOAlition S, an increasing number of libraries and library consortia from Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia have registered with the JCS over the past year since the launch of the portal in September 2021.

While access to the JCS is only open to librarians, individual researchers may also make use of the data provided by the participating publishers and their journals. 

This is possible through an integration with the Journal Checker Tool, where researchers can simply enter the name of the journal of interest, their funder and affiliation (if applicable) to check whether the scholarly outlet complies with the Open Access policy of the author’s funder. A full list of all academic titles that provide data to the JCS is also publicly available. By being on the list means a journal and its publisher do not only support cOAlition S, but they also demonstrate that they stand for openness and transparency in scholarly publishing.

“We are delighted that Pensoft, along with a number of other publishers, have shared their price and service data through the Journal Comparison Service. Not only are such publishers demonstrating their commitment to open business models and cultures but are also helping to build understanding and trust within the research community.”

said Robert Kiley, Head of Strategy at cOAlition S. 

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Journals using the ARPHA Platform as a white-label publishing solution to publish their journal(s) under their own label should note that it is the responsibility of the journal owner publisher to submit journal data to the JCS. This means that it is only journals published on ARPHA and associated with Pensoft that have been automatically featured in the JCS.

However, the ARPHA team is ready to assist journals using the platform’s white-label publishing to provide details to cOAlition S and the JCS.

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About cOAlition S:

On 4 September 2018, a group of national research funding organisations, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), announced the launch of cOAlition S, an initiative to make full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality. It is built around Plan S, which consists of one target and 10 principles. Read more on the cOAlition S website.

About Plan S:

Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing that was launched in September 2018. The plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations. Plan S requires that, from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms. Read more on the cOAlition S website.

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Te Papa’s journal Tuhinga published its first articles on ARPHA Platform

Following its move to ARPHA, a publishing platform developed by the scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft announced in late 2021, the historic journal of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa: Tuhinga has already started publishing on its brand new website.

Dedicated to original collections-based research in the natural sciences and humanities, including museological research, Tuhinga takes pride in being associated with nearly two centuries-worth of scientific knowledge provided by the museum’s curators, collection managers, and research associates across disciplines, from archaeology to zoology. 

Now, if you visit the ARPHA-powered website and start browsing through and within the published articles, you will notice the way the journal utilises the technological backbone and services provided by the publishing platform.

“ARPHA has provided excellent service in helping us establish the new platform, is always available, helpful and responsive to our needs. The copyediting is a particular highlight for us that ensures the finished articles look fantastic,”

comments Tuhinga’s Editor-in-Chief Rodrigo Salvador.

Various sorting and search options let the user seamlessly navigate throughout the website and enjoy the articles in either semantically enriched HTML or classic PDF format. Meanwhile, non-regular readers of Tuhinga are now more likely to stumble across the journal’s content, since all publications and their underlying data are being instantaneously exported, indexed and archived at a long list of relevant specialised databases. In their turn, a suite of article- and sub-article level metrics allow for usage of different elements to be tracked in real time.

Further, Tuhinga has evolved on the inside too. Having adopted the package of signature services provided by ARPHA, the journal offers to its authors, reviewers and editors the ease of completing their tasks within the publication process without sending a single file outside of the online environment of the collaborative platform.

Next on the list for Tuhinga and ARPHA is the digitisation of the journal’s legacy content, which has so far been existing only in print. The project is set to conclude with those historic scientific contributions becoming machine-discoverable and convenient for the modern reader. The papers will also be assigned with DOI and registered at CrossRef, while their metadata will be indexed at relevant databases. A full-text search of the article’s content will also be available.

“The decision to use ARPHA as Tuhinga’s new platform brings Te Papa’s peer-reviewed journal into the digital ecosystem of scholarly publishing. ARPHA will also help Te Papa provide access to previously published articles from Tuhinga and other historic journals as we work through our digitisation and rights clearance processes,”

comments Victoria Leachman, Head of Collection Access at the Te Papa museum.

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Visit the new Tuhinga website, subscribe to its newsletter and explore its content to date on: https://tuhinga.arphahub.com/.

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You can follow ARPHA Platform on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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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.

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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.  

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New ARPHA features strengthen journal communities

Long past are the days where a journal’s role was to merely provide a means to getting a piece of research work out of a drawer and into the wide world. Today, a modern journal with demonstrable online presence and a distinct ‘character’ may as well be seen as a social network in its own right, which brings together a community of frequent readers, authors, reviewers and dedicated editors.

At ARPHA, we believe that this is the time to support and give voice to these very special communities by getting to know each other and sharing and celebrating their achievements. After all, it’s strong and active communities that foster collaboration, recognition and real-life impact.

Revamped journal newsletters

Newsletter from PhytoKeys emailed to journal users subscribed for article alerts.

Journal readers subscribe to New Article alerts to stay updated about new research papers as they are published in a trusted scholarly outlet. Yet, having subscribed to notifications from a particular title – or a selection of similar titles – means that those users – typically authors, editors or active researchers in the field – might also be interested in learning about the journal’s latest Scopus CitesCore or Impact Factor; article collections calling for contributions; or new additions to the editorial board. All of these could be extremely useful to consider before submitting a paper, applying for the editorial board or simply updating a “to-read” list.

Thanks to the visually appealing look and clickable section tabs, newsletter subscribers can easily navigate through the email and explore its content at a glance.

Find instructions about how to update your profile and set up your email alerts in the ARPHA Manual.

‘Post your news’ button

Prof Christopher John Topping introduced himself with a meet-and-greet at the time of joining the newly renovated Food and Ecological Systems Modelling Journal as a co-Editor-in-Chief.

As wholesome communication is a two-way experience, we decided to support journals published on ARPHA in setting up the stage for their users to voice their activities. By adopting the Post your news button, many of the journals introduced a simple form accessible to registered users, where they can update the community about basically everything that’s relevant to the journal and its scope. 

Particularly, the feature is useful to introduce new members of the editorial board; seek out collaborators; promote an upcoming scientific event; or celebrate the far-reaching impact and recognition of one’s research work published in the journal. Once approved by a moderator, the news item is featured in the journal’s designated News section on its website’s homepage and its newsletter.

Find instructions about how to submit a news item and how submitted news items are moderated.

Editors’ Choice badges

Every quarter, the Editors-in-Chief at Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) recognise one paper as an “Editor’s Choice”, and an yearly award is presented at the end of each year.

A simple, yet effective way to celebrate the impact of a particular publication is having the journal’s editors pinpoint the paper as an Editor’s choice. While many journals have traditionally been awarding articles and their authors with similar recognitions, it is not often that anyone is aware of those outside of the editorial board and the awardees themselves.

As a practical solution, we introduced customisable badges that can be added next to an article’s title, and allow a journal’s editors to highlight the best contributions.

Find instructions for editors on how to add badges to published articles.

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