Tag: scholarly journals

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Pensoft and ARPHA welcome three biodiversity-themed journals in their portfolio

The scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft and its self-developed publishing platform ARPHA welcome three journals to their distinguished and growing portfolio of biodiversity-themed journals. The international, peer-reviewed and open-access journals Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria, Caucasiana and Zitteliana are now fully operable and open for submissions through their new websites and technologically advanced user interfaces.

By moving to ARPHA, the three scholarly outlets will not only revamp their websites and technological backbone, but will also take 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 will use all unique services offered by ARPHA, such as data publishing, linked data tables, semantic markup and enhancements, automated export of sub-article elements and data to aggregators, web-service integrations with over 40 world-class indexing and archiving databases, sub-article-level usage metrics, and more. Published articles are to be available in PDF, machine-readable JATS XML formats and semantically enriched HTML, so that they guarantee better reader experience to ensure they are easy to discover, access, cite and reuse.

Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria

Launched in 1970, Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria (AIeP) publishes research about all aspects of ichthyology and fisheries, concerning true fishes (fin-fishes), including taxonomy, biology, morphology, anatomy, physiology, pathology, parasitology, reproduction and zoogeography. To be accepted, manuscripts need to be based on original experimental data or experimental methods, or new analyses of already existing data. The journal stands against the publication of “isolated” research, linked neither to the “past” nor the “future” of science. Likewise, “salami science” is also discouraged. AIeP is indexed by all major indexers, including Web of Science and Scopus. The journal’s first Impact Factor was released in 2010, and currently stands at 0.629 (2019).

Caucasiana

As a successor of the Proceedings of the Institute of Zoology of the Georgian Academy of Science, the Caucasiana is to give new life to the historical, print-only zoological by becoming a full-fledged, exclusively digital scholarly journal, focused on the still poorly known biodiversity in the Caucasus region and its adjacent areas. Caucasiana‘s aim is to accumulate primary biodiversity data urgently needed to understand the big picture of the biodiversity in the area: from individuals to ecosystems. To support the mission of uncovering the secrets of the Caucasus, the journal operates a no-APCs policy.

While the journal will be considering all biodiversity-related studies, based on their merits and quality of research, Caucasiana places special attention to taxonomic inventories and systematics. Thereby, in addition to traditional research outputs, the journal also publishes data papers, annotated checklists, monographs and conference proceedings, making use of the suite of biodiversity data publishing innovations, tools and know-how available from Pensoft.

Zitelliana

In 2021, Zitelliana is celebrating its 50th anniversary in a brand new gear in an excellent example of tradition working perfectly together with innovation and modernity. Since its launch in 1961, Zitelliana, a scholarly journal devoted to all fields of paleontology and geobiology, and owned by the Bavarian State Collection of Palaeontology and Geology (SNSB), has changed several names (i.e. Mitteilungen der Bayerischen Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie, Zitteliana A (Abhandlungen) and Zitteliana B (Mitteilungen)) and has extended its scope to cover research from outside Bavaria and adjacent regions or materials deposited in the SNSB’s collections.

Today, Zitteliana welcomes both modern and traditional research outputs, including palaeobiology, geobiology, palaeogenomics, biodiversity, stratigraphy, sedimentology, regional geology, systematics, phylogeny, and cross-disciplinary studies. Thanks to the support of the SNSB, authors in Zitteliana publish free of charge.

“At Pensoft, we take pride in our experience and achievements in the field of biodiversity research publishing and dissemination, so we’re particularly pleased to welcome these three wonderful journals and share our know-how with them at all levels: readership, editorship, publication and dissemination,” comments Prof. Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft and ARPHA.

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Open call for papers by the new OA International Journal of Heritage, Memory and Conflict

Launched in collaboration with the Amsterdam University Press and the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM), and hosted on the innovative, high-tech scholarly publishing platform ARPHA, the latest addition to the AUP’s journal portfolio is already inviting contributions. 

The open-access, peer-reviewed International Journal of Heritage, Memory and Conflict (HMC) aims to offer an interdisciplinary space for the rich scholarship within a wide range of studies by crossing academic, artistic and professional boundaries; while also contributing to the better understanding of the extent to which memory sites and discourses operate as vehicles at local, national and transnational levels.

The HMC covers the fields of memory studies, cultural studies, museum studies, Arts and media and performative studies, postcolonial studies, ethnology, Holocaust and genocide studies, conflict and identity studies, archaeology, material culture and landscapes, conservation and restoration, cultural, public and oral history, critical and digital heritage studies. 

The HMC is the third journal by AUP to move to the scholarly publishing platform ARPHA after the Dutch journal of Accountancy & Business Economics (Maandblad voor Accountancy en Bedrijfseconomie), and the Journal of European Landscape. 

Likewise, HMC will also benefit not only from the signature glossy and intuitive user interface provided by ARPHA, but also from the platform’s distinguished fast-track, end-to-end publishing experience available to the use of authors, reviewers and editors. Within ARPHA’s seamless environment, each manuscript submitted to HMC is carried through the review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving stages without ever leaving ARPHA’s collaboration-centred online environment. 

Furthermore, in order to ensure that HMC’s content is as easy to find, access, cite and reuse as possible, the articles are published in three formats: traditional PDF, machine-readable JATS XML formats, and semantically enriched HTML. The journal is also indexed at major indexers and archivers.

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More information on submission and article processing charges can be found on the journal’s website here.

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Now launched: ARPHA Preprints to fast-track research submitted to ARPHA-hosted journals

Having long considered how to help authors at our client journals get their work out in the open as early as possible, and prompted by the current research ecosystem, we came up with a new landmark feature, the ARPHA Preprints, where the preparation and posting of a preprint would be as much of a hassle as ticking a couple of check-boxes. Posting a preprint is an optional service for both journals and authors. 

ARPHA Preprints in short

ARPHA Preprints is a new platform designed by ARPHA and Pensoft to host pre-review manuscripts submitted to participating ARPHA-hosted journals. The key here is that it only takes a few clicks for the author to submit a preprint, and no more than a few days before the preprint becomes accessible on ARPHA Preprints, thus open to feedback and contribution by fellow scientists.

Once the associated manuscript successfully completes peer review in the ARPHA-hosted journal and gets published, the preprint will be conveniently linked to the formal paper, thus facilitating and prompting citation of peer-reviewed research.

ARPHA Preprints publication workflow in participating ARPHA-hosted journals.

Visit ARPHA Preprints website to see the growing list of ARPHA-hosted journals integrated with ARPHA Preprints to date.

Manuscript submitted to ZooKeys (currently under review) and posted as a preprint (DOI: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e69376) on ARPHA Preprints. If published in the journal, the text will change to “Published in ZooKeys”. If rejected, the preprint will be disassociated from the journal to prevent potential issues with future resubmission.

ARPHA Preprints in practice

During submission at any of the journals that have been integrated with ARPHA Preprints, an author will come to a question asking them whether they wish to post a preprint. If they check that box and agree to the terms and conditions of posting a preprint, the platform will use the files uploaded to compile a preprint in PDF format. Here, the author will be able to preview the file and either agree they are happy with how it looks, or, alternatively, replace it with their own copy. The bottom line is, the manuscript and the preprint are submitted simultaneously.

Having confirmed they wish to post a preprint while submitting to the journal, ARPHA lets the authors review and, if needed, replace the preprint with their own PDF file. This is the version that will be posted as a preprint on ARPHA Preprints in a few days’ time – once it successfully completes the in-house screening.

At this point, it is only one to a few days keeping the preprint away from public knowledge. This time is needed for the submission to undergo a basic screening, meant to verify that it complies with the journal’s focus and scope, and does not contain offensive language, pseudoscience, plagiarism or any other unethical content.

When posted, preprints indicate the name of the journal, where the associated manuscript has been submitted. If published in that journal, this status changes to Published, while a link and citation details to the formal publication are provided via DOI and the Citation tab, respectively. This means that whenever a reader finds information in the preprint he/she would like to cite in their own work, he/she will have easy to spot, intuitive access to the peer-reviewed paper. If the manuscript is rejected on this occasion, the preprint is disassociated from the journal to prevent potential issues with future resubmission.

Preprints are open to public as well as private comments, in order to encourage constructive feedback and contribution well before the formal publication sees the light of the day.

ARPHA Preprints extra perks

Preprints posted on ARPHA Preprints are:

  • Registered with CrossRef and assigned with their own digital object identifier (DOI) to ensure scientific record and permanent availability;
  • Indexed in several indexing services covering preprints to increase findability;
  • Easy to track for viewership (via ARPHA Platform-provided views counting tools), and citation (via integration with Dimensions) rates;
  • Promptly shared on social media to increase visibility and outreach.

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Got further questions about ARPHA Preprints? Visit our FAQs page or email us at info@arphahub.com.

Much like an author of a preprint, we will be happy to hear some constructive feedback from you!

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Follow ARPHA Preprints on Twitter.

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Register with Pensoft to customise your email alerts from ARPHA Preprints and ARPHA-hosted journals by title and/or topic.

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New features in ARPHA to aid journal editors in day-to-day activities and long-term strategic decisions

Recently, at Pensoft, we were delighted to report the positive trends and progress the majority of our journals demonstrated in terms of their citability for 2019. Moreover, this comes as an encouraging pattern where the results have been following the positive progression we’ve been enjoying in recent years. 

Below you can learn about our latest features that address the availability of transparent and dynamic information about the journal’s performance from various perspectives: from authorship and readership to trends in peer review time, and user activity.

Even more statistics to provide key insights into the journal’s performance

Our system already provides plenty of statistics, in order to inform the editors about:

  • manuscript submissions at any moment and their status;
  • publications and submissions for any period of interest; 
  • publications by article type for a period of choice; 
  • international representation based on lead author’s country for a period of choice;
  • article views for a period of choice.

Now, in the Statistics tab, the editors can find even more data, including the average time the manuscripts submitted over a defined period have spent at each stage (e.g. reviewer or editorial decision). Also, the editors have access to a record of all online mentions from across the Internet (data available from our partners at Altmetric), including traditional and new media, blogs, Wikipedia, policy documents and many others. 

See how to access all available statistics on an ARPHA-host journal here.

… all of this brought straight to your inbox with our:

Biannual journal performance report

For further convenience for our managing editors, we will be emailing a journal performance report twice a year, starting in July 2020. In this report, the editors will be receiving graphics on the journal’s performance for the current year and how the results fare against the previous one. The statistics provided include:

  • current submissions and their status;
  • submissions, publications and rejections by quarter;
  • acceptance rate;
  • turnaround time at different processing stages;
  • average review invitations, declines and review rounds per article;
  • top 10 countries represented by lead authors;
  • article views by format (PDF, HTML and XML) and in total;
  • number of online article mentions (data available from Altmetric);
  • Journal Impact Factor and CiteScore trends over the last five years.

Extended annual journal performance report

Citations trends available from Dimensions are reported on an annual basis for journals using the Standard and Premium packages provided by ARPHA Platform.

An extended annual report will be emailed to those who have opted for the ARPHA’s Standard and Premium package of reporting services. There, the editors will also have access to further and more exhaustive insights into the citability, outreach, readership and scholarly impact of their journals and their content. For journals that benefit from the Premium package of reporting services, we will be providing reviews and analyses meant to support the future strategy and progress of their journal.


*See all Journal performance reporting services provided by ARPHA Platform.

Statistics on reviewers’ and editors’ workload and activities

We know that it is the exception rather than the rule that a subject editor is certain about whom out of the lists of names in the system’s database will be most likely to provide a peer review at his request, especially when the task is due time. This is why before the editor selects a particular reviewer, he/she will be able to see the number of tasks (if any) the user is currently working on, in order to find out their current availability. In addition, the subject editor will be able to see how many reviews the user has provided so far, as well as how many times he/she has been invited to do so in the past.

Likewise, the same functionality is available for managing editors when they look to assign a manuscript to a subject editor.     

Review ratings

To further assist subject editors in their choice of appropriate reviewer, and also motivate reviewers, we have also implemented a 5-star rating system, where upon editorial decision on the acceptance/rejection of a manuscript, a subject editor is able to rate each of the provided reviews. The average result for a particular user will be visible in the system for the next subject editor who considers to assign him/her as a reviewer.

See how to rate a review here.

Keeping user expertise up to date

It’s fully understandable that users seldom think of the personal information visible on their accounts once they’ve completed their registration, as they don’t normally need to go back to it afterwards. However, their expertise details determine whether their name will show up in the lists of suggested reviewers and/or subject editors whenever an editor considers an assignment to the manuscript he/she is managing.

Here’s why we’ve introduced a regular reminder for users to review and, where necessary, update their expertise on their ARPHA account. This system message will come up once a year upon login and will straight away offer users a text box, where they can update their saved expertise. By means of free text, they will also be able to narrow it down even further.

As a result, not only are users not going to be bothered by irrelevant invitations – such as those received on the basis of their saved expertise being too broad, thereby saving time to the editorial team, but will also ensure that manuscripts will be indeed handed into the right hands for the sake of quality science.


Subscribe to our blog’s newsletter and follow us on Twitter (@ARPHAPlatform and @Pensoft) to keep yourself posted about the next features and updates coming to ARPHA!

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Plant Sociology renewed: Does an open access society journal about vegetation still make sense in 2020?

In a new editorial, Plant Sociology’s Editor-in-Chief Daniela Gigante and Co-editors Gianni Bacchetta, Simonetta Bagella and Daniele Viciani reflect on the current position and outlook of the official journal of the Italian Society of Vegetation Science (Società Italiana di Scienza della Vegetazione or SISV), now that it has completed its first issue since transitioning to the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft and ARPHA Platform earlier this year.

Homepage of the new website of Plant Sociology
(visit: https://plantsociology.arphahub.com/)

The Editorial board briefly analyses the issues around the inaccessibility to scholarly research and suitable scholarly outlets still persisting in our days that impede both readers and authors across branches of science. Naturally, they go on to focus on the situation in vegetation science, where, unfortunately, there are rather few outlets open to original research related to any aspect within vegetation science.

By telling their own experience, but also citing the stories of other similarly positioned society journals, including other journals that have moved to Pensoft’s self-developed ARPHA Platform over the past several years (e.g. Journal of Hymenoptera Research, European Science Editing, Italian Botanist, Vegetation Classification and Survey, Nota Lepidopterologica), the editors present an example how to address the challenges of securing the long-term sustainability and quality for a journal used to being run by a small editorial staff in what they refer to as a “home made” method.

Other society journals that have moved to Pensoft’s self-developed ARPHA Platform over the past several years

In this process, the SISV supported its official scholarly outlet to be published as a “gold open access” journal and ensured that the APCs are kept to a reasonable low in line with its non-profit international business model. Further discounts are available for the members of the Society.

Then, the journal management also reorganised its Editorial Board and welcomed a dedicated Social media team responsible for the increased outreach of published research in the public domain through the channels of Twitter and Facebook. 

Besides making the publications publicly available as soon as they see the light of day, the journal strongly supports other good open science practices, such as open data dissemination. In Plant Sociology, authors are urged to store their vegetation data in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD). Additionally, the journal is integrated with the Dryad Digital Repository to make it easier for authors to publish, share and, hence, have their data re-used and cited.

The team behind Plant Sociology is perfectly aware of the fact that it is only through easy to find and access knowledge about life on Earth that the right information can reach the right decision-makers, before making the right steps towards mitigating and preventing future environmental catastrophes.

Access the article from: https://doi.org/10.3897/pls2020571/05

“A journal focusing on all aspects of natural, semi-natural and anthropic plant systems, from basic investigation to their modelisation, assessment, mapping, management, conservation and monitoring, is certainly a precious tool to detect environmental unbalances, understand processes and outline predictive scenarios that support decision makers. In this sense, we believe that more and more OA journals focused on biodiversity should find space in the academic editorial world, because only through deep knowledge of processes and functions of a complex planet, humankind can find a way to survive healthy,”

elaborate the editors.

To take the burden of technical journal management off the shoulders of Plant Sociology’s own editorial team, the journal has entrusted Pensoft to provide a user-friendly and advanced submission system, in addition to the production, online publishing and archiving of the accepted manuscripts. Thus, the editorial team is able to focus entirely on the scientific quality of the journal’s content.

“The renewal of Plant Sociology is a challenge that we have undertaken with conviction, aware of the difficulties and pitfalls that characterize the life of a scientific journal today. Entrusting the technical management of the journal to a professional company aims to improve its dissemination and attractiveness, but also to focus our efforts only on scientific content,”

explain the editors.

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About Plant Sociology:

Plant Sociology publishes articles dealing with all aspects of vegetation, from plant community to landscape level, including dynamic processes and community ecology. It favours papers focusing on plant sociology and vegetation survey for developing ecological models, vegetation interpretation, classification and mapping, environmental quality assessment, plant biodiversity management and conservation, EU Annex I habitats interpretation and monitoring, on the ground of rigorous and quantitative measures of physical and biological components. The journal is open to territorial studies at different geographic scale and accepts contributes dealing with applied research, provided they offer new methodological perspectives and a robust, updated vegetation analysis.

Find all pre-2020 issues and articles of Plant Sociology openly available on the former website.

Follow Plant Sociology on Twitter and Facebook.

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Streamlined import of omics metadata from the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) into an OMICS Data Paper manuscript

By Mariya Dimitrova, Raïssa Meyer, Pier Luigi Buttigieg, Lyubomir Penev

Data papers are scientific papers which describe a dataset rather than present and discuss research results. The concept was introduced to the biodiversity community by Chavan and Penev in 2011 as the result of a joint project of GBIF and Pensoft.

Since then, Pensoft has implemented the data paper in several of its journals (Fig. 1). The recognition gained through data papers is an important incentive for researchers and data managers to author better quality metadata and to make it Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable (FAIR). High quality and FAIRness of (meta)data are promoted through providing peer review, data audit, permanent scientific record and citation credit as for any other scholarly publication. One can read more on the different types of data papers and how they help to achieve these goals in the Strategies and guidelines for scholarly publishing of biodiversity data  (https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e12431). 

Fig. 1 Number of data papers published in Pensoft’s journals since 2011.

The data paper concept was initially based on the standard metadata descriptions, using the  Ecological Metadata Language (EML). Apart from distinguishing a specialised place for dataset descriptions by creating a data paper article type, Pensoft has developed multiple workflows for streamlined import of metadata from various repositories and their conversion into data paper a manuscripts in Pensoft’s ARPHA Writing Tool (AWT). You can read more about the EML workflow in this blogpost.

Similarly, we decided to create a specialised data paper article type for the omics community within Pensoft’s Biodiversity Data Journal to reflect the specific nature of omics data. We established a manuscript template to help standardise the description of such datasets and their most important features. This initiative was supported in part by the IGNITE project.

How can authors publish omics data papers?

There are two ways to do publish omics data papers – (1) to write a data paper manuscript following the respective template in the ARPHA Writing Tool (AWT) or (2) to convert metadata describing a project or study deposited in EMBL-EBI’s European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) into a manuscript within the AWT.

The first method is straightforward but the second one deserves more attention. We focused on metadata published in ENA, which is part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) and synchronises its records with these of the other two members (DDBJ and NCBI). ENA is linked to the ArrayExpress and BioSamples databases, which describe sequencing experiments and samples, and follow the community-accepted metadata standards MINSEQE and MIxS. To auto populate a manuscript with a click of a button, authors can provide the accession number of the relevant ENA Study of Project and our workflow will automatically retrieve all metadata from ENA, as well as any available ArrayExpress or BioSamples records linked to it (Fig. 2). After that, authors can edit any of the article sections in the manuscript by filling in the relevant template fields or creating new sections, adding text, figures, citations and so on.

An important component of the OMICS data paper manuscript is a supplementary table containing MIxS-compliant metadata imported from BioSamples. When available, BioSamples metadata is automatically converted to a long table format and attached to the manuscript. The authors are not permitted to edit or delete it inside the ARPHA Writing Tool. Instead, if desired, they should correct the associated records in the sourced BioSamples database. We have implemented a feature allowing the automatic re-import of corrected BioSamples records inside the supplementary table. In this way, we ensure data integrity and provide a reliable and trusted source for accessing these metadata. 

Fig. 2 Automated generation of omics data paper manuscripts through import and conversion of metadata associated with the Project ID or Study ID at ENA

Here is a step-by-step guide for conversion of ENA metadata into a data paper manuscript:

  1. The author has published a dataset to any of the INSDC databases. They copy its ENA Study or Project accession number.
  2. The author goes to the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ) webpage, clicks the “Start a manuscript” buttоn and selects OMICS Data Paper template in the ARPHA Writing Tool (AWT). Alternatively, the author can also start from the AWT website,  click “Create a manuscript”, and select “OMICS Data Paper” as the article type, the Biodiversity Data Journal will be automatically marked by the system. The author clicks the “Import a manuscript” button at the bottom of the webpage.
  3. The author pastes the ENA Study or Project accession number inside the relevant text box (“Import an European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) Study ID or Project ID”) and clicks “Import”.
  4. The Project or Study metadata is converted into an OMICS data paper manuscript along with the metadata from ArrayExpress and BioSamples if available. The author can start making changes to the manuscript,  invite co-authors and then submit it for technical evaluation, peer review and publication. 

For a detailed description of authoring an OMICS data paper, please refer to the Author Guidelines: https://bdj.pensoft.net/about#OmicsDataPapers

Our innovative workflow makes authoring omics data papers much easier and saves authors time and efforts when inserting metadata into the manuscript. It takes advantage of existing links between data repositories to unify biodiversity and omics knowledge into a single narrative. This workflow demonstrates the importance of standardisation and interoperability to integrate data and metadata from different scientific fields. 

We have established a special collection for OMICS data papers in the Biodiversity Data Journal. Authors are invited to describe their omics datasets by using the novel streamlined workflow for creating a manuscript at a click of a button from metadata deposited in ENA or by following the template to create their manuscript via the non-automated route.

To stimulate omics data paper publishing, the first 10 papers will be published free of charge. Upon submission of an omics data paper manuscript, do not forget to assign it to the collection Next-generation publishing of omics data.

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Pensoft to publish the paleontology and geobiology journal Zitteliana on behalf of SNSB

Following the recent contract between the State Natural History Collection of Bavaria (Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns or SNSB) and the scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft, the scholarly peer-reviewed, open-access journal on paleontology and geobiology Zitteliana will be published on the technologically advanced scholarly publishing platform ARPHA.

Expected later in 2020, Zitteliana will not only benefit from its own sleek-looking and user-friendly website, but will also enjoy a long list of services and high-tech features and human-provided services delivered from ARPHA’s signature fast-track, end-to-end publishing system. 

One thing that will greatly appeal to submitting authors, editors and reviewers is that the collaboration-focused ARPHA Platform supports manuscripts all the way from submission, peer review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving within its online environment. On the other hand, to the benefit of readers, after publication, the articles are made available in PDF, machine-readable JATS XML formats, and semantically enriched HTML, which prompts discoverability, accessibility, citability and reusability. In addition, the journals will use all unique services offered by ARPHA, such as data publishing, linked data tables, semantic markup and enhancements, automated export of sub-article elements and data to aggregators, web-service integrations with more than 40 world-class indexing and archiving databases, sub-article-level usage metrics, and more.

Zitteliana is a scholarly journal covering all fields of paleontology and geobiology by the Bavarian State Collection of Palaeontology and Geology (SNSB): a research institution for natural history in Bavaria, comprising five State Collections. Initially limited to publications studying either the materials deposited in SNSB’s own collections, or topics related to the geology and palaeontology of Bavaria and adjacent regions, these days, Zitteliana welcomes articles in all fields of paleontology and geobiology. Encouraged are submissions on paleobiology, numerical paleontology, paleobiogeography, paleogenomics, palaeooceanography, biosedimentology, multiproxy and sequential stratigraphy, biodiversity research, and actuopaleontology, as well as contributions to the journal’s traditionally well-represented topics, such as paleontological taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny, and regional geology.

“It’s a great delight for Pensoft to be partnering such a prominent natural history institution like the SNSB and publish this particular journal of theirs. With our joint expertise and devotion, I am certain that we will successfully address major needs of the research community: readers, authors and their affiliates alike.”

says Pensoft and ARPHA’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev.

The SNSB is the latest major German research institution to collaborate with Pensoft and choose ARPHA Platform for its journals. Since 2014, the Natural History Museum Berlin has trusted the publisher with its historical titles: Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Zoosystematics and Evolution. In 2017, Evolutionary Systematics, another prominent journal with a legacy in the field of zoology by the University of Hamburg followed suit. In 2020, we will be also seeing the move of three journals by the Senckenberg Nature Research Society: Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Vertebrate Zoology and Geologica Saxonica.


About SNSB:

The Bavarian Natural History Collections (Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns, SNSB) are a research institution for natural history in Bavaria. They encompass five State Collections (zoology, botany, paleontology and geology, mineralogy, anthropology and paleoanatomy), the Botanical Garden Munich-Nymphenburg and eight museums with public exhibitions in Munich, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Eichstätt and Nördlingen.

Research conducted by over 30 permanent and 30 third-party funded scientists, currently employed at the SNSB, focuses mainly on the past and present bio- and geodiversity and the evolution of animals and plants. To achieve this, the institution keeps large scientific collections (more than 30,000,000 specimens). The collections and museums also play an instrumental role in public and academic education.

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Seven journals moving to ARPHA in early 2020 showcase the versatility of the publishing platform

A full-featured, open access publishing platform for journals, books and data, which comes with an extensive list of services and features – both automated and human-provided – to adapt to the individual needs of any client journal. But how does that translate into practice? 

The latest scholarly titles to join the ranks of ARPHA might just provide a perfect example of the capabilities of the platform to accommodate the specificity of scholarly journal across sciences, audiences, geographies and languages.

Amsterdam University Press strengthens partnership with ARPHA by launching two brand new journals

Journal of European Landscapes (JEL) and Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal (HMC) add up to the partnership between ARPHA and Amsterdam University Press (AUP), which started in early 2018 with the transfer of the only Dutch-language open-access journal focussing on accountancy, business economics and related areas: Accountancy and Business Economics, or Maandblad voor Accountancy en Bedrijfseconomi (MAB).

Homepage of Amsterdam University’s journal Accountancy and Business Economics (Maandblad voor Accountancy en Bedrijfseconomi), using the white-label publishing solution of ARPHA Platform.

Not only was MAB the first journal on the platform that publishes articles exclusively in a language other than English, but also became an impressive precedent with its nearly 100-year content that got successfully dusted off and fitted into the user-friendly digital environment of today. All papers ever issued in MAB since its launch in 1923, were re-published, so that each could be assigned with a DOI; have its metadata registered on CrossRef; and its article content fully searchable within the PDF copy.

All three make use of ARPHA’s white-label publishing solution, which allows for AUP to carry its recognisable logo through a unified banner across the websites of the journals. Unlike MAB, however, JEL and HMC are to have their articles published exclusively in English to further promote their international scope and focus.

Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal (HMC)

Homepage of the new Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal published by Amsterdam University Press via ARPHA Platform.

Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal is a brand new journal launched to trace back the remnants of the past – be it physical or anecdotal – back to their roots in the days of old. How do memory sites and discourses operate as vehicles at local, national and transnational levels and what indeed is the ‘cargo’ they carry? This is the type of questions authors from across disciplines – academic, artistic and industrial – will be trying to answer when preparing their manuscripts for HMC. 

Journal of European Landscapes (JEL) 

Homepage of the new Journal of European Landscapes published by Amsterdam University Press via ARPHA Platform.

Similarly, the second newly launched Journal of European Landscapes is to turn to history and cultural heritage, in order to understand the present use of the past when it comes to landscape. JEL’s founders point out that while Europe’s landscapes have so far enjoyed quite a lot of scientific attention, there isn’t a journal to address its indisputable and critical connection to heritage, even though the latter is what connects historical research with modern planning and management.

Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS)

Homepage of the new Vegetation Classification and Survey journal published by the International Association for Vegetation Science via ARPHA Platform.

Adding up to the landscape topic is the Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) journal. This is the latest outlet launched by the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS): a worldwide union of scientists and other aficionados of theory and practice concerning the study of vegetation. 

With its transfer to ARPHA, VCS fulfils the mission of the union to move to Open Access. Interestingly, the journal supports two permanent sections: Ecoinformatics and Phytosociological Nomenclature. There, authors can submit certain unique article types: Review and Synthesis and Short/Long Database Reports. 

Devoted to plant community ecology, VCS publishes original research that works toward the development of novel vegetation classifications, as well as applied studies that use such typologies. Particularly encouraged are methodological studies that design and compare tools for vegetation classification and mapping. 

Plant Sociology 

Homepage of the new Plant Sociology journal published by Società Italiana di Scienza della Vegetazionevia ARPHA Platform.

Another modern botany journal still awaiting its first issue since its transfer to ARPHA, is Plant Sociology, brought to life by the “Società Italiana di Scienza della Vegetazione” (SISV) with the aim to succeed the historical journals of the society: Fitosociologia (1990-2011) and Notiziario della Società Italiana di Fitosociologia (1964-1989).

The editorial management opted to have the journal co-published with Pensoft: the academic publisher and technology provider standing behind ARPHA. Thus, by default, the journal receives some extra perks as a result of Pensoft’s partnerships with leading innovators in the scholarly communication domain.  An excellent example would be the indexing and addition of each Plant Sociology article by the research discovery platform ScienceOpen in the “Pensoft Biodiversity” collection, following a recent strategic collaboration between the two Open Science champions.

With a wide scope covering vegetation studies from plant community to landscape level, Plant Sociology puts a special focus on topics such as plant sociology and vegetation survey for developing ecological models, as well as plant classification, monitoring, assessment, management and conservation, as long as the studies are based on rigorous and quantitative measures of physical and biological components.

Caucasiana

Adding up to the well-pronounced biodiversity theme in ARPHA’s and Pensoft’s journal portfolios, as well as the “Pensoft Biodiversity” collection on ScienceOpen, is the first Georgian journal to join the lines of the publishing platform. Caucasiana is to be co-published by the top biodiversity research centre in the region: Ilia State University in Tbilisi and Pensoft.

The scholarly outlet that we’ll soon see on ARPHA Platform is in fact a successor of an earlier journal launched by the Institute of Zoology of the Georgian Academy of Science that has been revamped top-to-bottom. Transformed into a technologically advanced publishing venue, Caucasiana’s task is to handle the growing research interest in the incredible, yet surprisingly overlooked animal, plant and fungal life of Caucasus and adjacent regions. 

Research published in Caucasiana will be well-positioned to bring this hotspot of biodiversity and endemism into focus for the global conservation movement.

The EASE Journal: European Science Editing (ESE)

The quarterly journal of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE): European Science Editing (ESE) is a key news source for all actors involved in scholarly publishing.

For the first time, ESE will open up its content to the public from day one of its publication, thanks to its move to ARPHA. While digital and print subscriptions used to be included as part of the association’s membership packages, other readers would have had to wait six months after print publication to receive free access.

Launched in 2003, ESE’s aim has been to keep editors posted about everything they need to know concerning scholarly communication. To do so, the journal publishes research articles, meeting reports, essays and viewpoints, as well as book and website reviews. Especially for members of the association, ESE takes care to highlight upcoming events and provide resources and publications, considered to be of their interest. 

Bulgarian Journal of Cardiology

In 2020, ARPHA will also welcome the third Bulgarian-born academic journal and the fourth covering the field of Medical Sciences to its open-access portfolio: the journal of Bulgaria’s National Cardiac Society, which is part of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

For the first time, the Bulgarian Journal of Cardiology will make use of the soon-to-be-released English-Bulgarian bilingual publishing solution from ARPHA. Similarly to the English-Russian approach to journal publishing, which was presented in Moscow in early December, ARPHA will allow for users of the Bulgarian Journal of Cardiology to not only publish papers in both English and Bulgarian, but also enjoy a top-to-bottom Bulgarian user interface.

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Learn more about ARPHA’s key features and achievements from 2019 in our yearly recap.

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ARPHA Platform’s content integrated into ScienceOpen to take advantage of novel streams of science communication

The research discovery platform ScienceOpen and Pensoft Publishers have entered into a strategic collaboration with the aim of strengthening the companies’ identities as the leaders of innovative content dissemination. The new cooperation will focus on the unified indexation, the integration of Pensoft’s ARPHA Platform content into ScienceOpen and the utilization of novel streams of scientific communication for the published materials.

Pensoft is an independent academic publishing company, well known worldwide for bringing novelty through its cutting-edge publishing tools and for its commitment to open access practices. In 2013, Pensoft launched the first ever, end-to-end, XML-based, authoring, reviewing and publishing workflow, now upgraded to the ARPHA Publishing Platform. As of today, ARPHA hosts over 50 open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journals: the whole Pensoft portfolio in addition to titles owned by learned societies, university presses and research institutions.

As part of the strategic collaboration, all Pensoft content and journals hosted on ARPHA are indexed in the ScienceOpen’s research and discovery environment, which puts them into thematic context of over 60 million articles and books. In addition, thousands of articles across more than 20 journals were integrated into a “Pensoft Biodiversity” Collection. Combined this way, the content benefits from the special infrastructure of ScienceOpen Collections, which supports thematic groups of articles and books equipped with a unique landing page, a built-in search engine and an overview of the featured content. The Collections can be reviewed, recommended and shared by users, which facilitates academic debate and increases the discoverability of the research.

The Pensoft Biodiversity collection on ScienceOpen.

“It is certainly great news and a much-anticipated milestone for Pensoft, ARPHA and our long-year partners and supporters from ScienceOpen to have brought our collaboration to a new level by indexing the whole ARPHA-hosted content at ScienceOpen,” comments Pensoft’s and ARPHA’s CEO and founder Prof. Lyubomir Penev. “Most of all, the integration between ARPHA and ScienceOpen at an infrastructural level means that we will be able to offer this incredible service and increased visibility to newcoming journals right away. On the other hand, by streaming fresh and valuable publicly accessible content to the ScienceOpen database, these journals will be further adding to the growth of science in the open.”

Stephanie Dawson, CEO of ScienceOpen says, “I am particularly excited to add new high-quality, open access biodiversity content from Pensoft Publishers to the ScienceOpen discovery environment as we have a very active community of researchers on ScienceOpen creating and sharing Collections in this field. We are looking forward to working with Pensoft’s innovative journals to support their open science goals.”

The collaboration reflects not only the commitment of both Pensoft and ScienceOpen to new methods of knowledge dissemination, but also the joint mission to champion open science through innovation. The two companies will cooperate at a strategic level in order to increase the international outreach of their content and services, and to make them even more accessible to the broad community.

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About ScienceOpen:

From promotional collections to Open Access hosting and full publishing packages, ScienceOpen provides next-generation services to academic publishers embedded in an interactive discovery platform. ScienceOpen was founded in 2013 in Berlin and Boston by Alexander Grossmann and Tibor Tscheke to accelerate research communication.

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Bulgaria’s publishers and scholars gathered to discuss the move of the national scientific journals to the global scene

The event was co-organised by Pensoft and the Bulgarian National Science Fund (BNSF) at the Ministry of Education and Science

Over one hundred representatives of Bulgarian scholarly journals and academic institutions attended a seminar, organised by the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft and the Bulgarian National Science Fund (BNSF) at the Ministry of Education and Science of Bulgaria. The meeting, themed “The Bulgarian scholarly journals in the global scientific environment – advancements in the publishing model, technological modernisation, indexing, dissemination and promotion,” took place in Sofia in September. 

In his speech, Prof. George Vaysilov, Director of the BNSF, highlighted the crucial role of scholarly publishing reformation in Bulgaria. He also answered various questions concerning the funding available to scientific journals.

“These events are useful for the Bulgarian scientific journals and the Bulgarian National Science Fund” will continue to participate in their organisation,” he said.

Prof. George Vaysilov gave a welcome speech before answering various questions from the attendees.
Photo by Pensoft.

In their talks, the Pensoft team addressed key topics and innovations related to journal publishing, management, dissemination and marketing in the digital era. They also showcased how these challenges are approached at the journals published via the scholarly Pensoft-developed ARPHA Platform. 

Main topics in the discussions were „Plan S”, the ongoing initiative for a global transition to immediate Open Access (Gold Open Access); exclusive digitisation; interoperability, findability and accessibility to online research items and data; traditional and alternative metrics for tracking journal impact; as well as the specifics about journal indexing. 


“Technological modernisation of the publishing process in an Open Access and Open Science environment” was the theme of Prof. Lyubomir Penev’s presentation. 
Photo by Pensoft.

Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Director and founder of Pensoft and ARPHA, added:

“In our own lifetimes, we’ve been the witnesses of a tremendous technological breakthrough on a global level. Not only does academia need not be left behind – its place is at the very forefront of such a revolution. This is exactly what we intend to do with ARPHA: to provide an all-rounded platform coupled with all the associated services, in order to provide the technological backbone needed by historical, as well as recently launched journals to make a stand on the international scene. Having listened to the questions and concerns of the Bulgarian publishers, I am able to confirm that the situation is not that different to what we see everywhere: there is the evident understanding of the situation and desire for a change. What is necessary is only a bit of practical know-how.”

The revolution in scholarly publishing in recent years. A part of Prof. Lyubomir Penev’s presentation.
Photo by Pensoft.