The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) was interested in understanding the potential effects of requiring that grantees publish their peer-reviewed research in open access journals.We collected data on more than 2,000 publications in over 500 journals that were generated by GBMF grantees since 2001. We then examined the journal policies to establish how two possible open access policies might have affected grantee publishing habits.We found that 99.3% of the articles published by grantees would have complied with a policy that requires open access within 12 months of publication. We also estimated the maximum annual costs to GBMF for covering fees associated with “gold open access” to be between $400,000 and $2,600,000 annually.Based in part on this study, GBMF has implemented a new open access policy that requires grantees make peer-reviewed publications fully available within 12 months. In recent years, evidence of the benefits of open access (OA) for stakeholders in scientific research has been mounting. OA benefits researchers by increasing visibility of their research  and incrIt is generally agreed that “open access” refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access  and free of many restrictions on use  . Here weThere is evidence that researchers are starting to consider openness in journal selection , howeverIn an effort to increase access to the research results it funds, in 2016 the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) began considering the implementation of an open access policy for all publications produced by its grantees. GBMF funds research in basic science, environmental conservation, patient care improvements, and preservation of the San Francisco Bay Area. With an annual budget of approximately $300 million, GBMF has awarded approximately 2,400 grants since its founding in 2001. Although the foundation’s existing Data Sharing and Intellectual Property Policy generally favors public access to grant outputs, at the time of this study it did not mandate open access.Prior to implementing a new policy mandating open access, GBMF was interested in better understanding its effects on both grantees and the foundation’s spending. GBMF was particularly interested in ensuring any policy did not infringe on the independence and expertise of grantees. That is, GBMF operates on the principle that grantees are most attuned to the needs of their discipline, and most likely to understand how best to disseminate their research to ensure high impact. GBMF carefully considers any policies that might restrict the normal activities of its grantees regarding their career path, scholarship, or results dissemination. An OA policy prohibits grantees from publishing in the journal they believe is best would not be ideal since it assumes we are better informed as to how the grantee should conduct their research endeavors. The current policy of the foundation encourages openness, but does not weigh in on journal choice.We explored the potential costs of a policy change for GBMF that mandated OA, and how this policy may affect journal choice for various types of GBMF grantees. We were most interested in (1) whether grantees would be restricted from publishing in journals they have previously chosen, and (2) the financial ramifications of a policy advocating for and funding gold OA when available. Journals chosen by grantees in the past were not influenced by any GBMF requirements or policies; we may assume that the list of journals we report here may be influenced in the future by such policies. Since this work was completed, GBMF has implemented a new open access policy that requires all peer-reviewed publications be openly available within 12 months of publishing.Although many funding organizations have mandated OA in some form, we are not aware of any that have published results from internal analyses on the effects of such mandates. To explore potential impacts of an open access policy at GBMF, we analyzed 2,650 publications produced by GBMF grantees between 2001 and 2017 . This isBased on information found on journal websites and SHERPA-RoMEO, we classified each journal as either open access, closed access, or hybrid. OA journals provide access to all content immediately online (gold OA). Closed access journals restrict access to their content by requiring that readers log into their website, usually to verify access to an institutional subscription. Hybrid journals are closed access journals that provide authors with the option to opt into OA by paying a fee (gold OA); only those articles that are designated OA are available publicly online. We also determined whether the journal allowed authors to archive post-prints —known as green OA, and the length of the embargo period for archiving post-prints. The number of articles per journal is also included in this article’s corresponding dataset .The potential costs to GBMF for gold OA publishing were of interest, regardless of the policy chosen. This would be particularly relevant if GBMF planned to provide financial support for grantees publishing gold OA in journals with APCs. We therefore calculated an annual estimate of maximum costs for gold OA for 2009–2016. We chose to analyze only a subset of years since our dataset is limited and we have reason to assume the number of publications in years prior to 2009 are vastly undercounted (less than 100 publications were found in years prior to 2009 in our data collection). We multiplied the number of articles published in a year by 0.89, which is the percent of articles from our dataset that were published in hybrid or open journals and could therefore be made gold OA. We then estimated the maximum annual cost for making these articles OA by multiplying the value by $3,000, the high end of the APC estimate from Our study is limited by the availability of consistent, complete data for GBMF grantees. Annual reports are not collected in consistent, machine readable ways that lend themselves to bulk analysis. We also have no data on APCs already paid for using GBMF funds out of grantee budgets. Efforts are underway at GBMF to develop systems for consistent, reliable collection of grantee publication data, however these were not implemented in time to benefit this study.Our data collection yielded a list of 573 journals used by grantees, in which 2,650 articles were published. We were first interested in the percentage of journals chosen by our grantees that are hybrid, open, or closed. We calculated percentages both by journal and by article to ensure that we captured potential effects on authors, however the numbers were quite similar . GBMF grWe were also interested in whether a grantee’s journal choice would be impacted by two possible OA policies being considered. Policy A would require OA within 12 months of publication, either via the green or gold route. Grantees could comply by either publishing in open journals, by publishing OA in a hybrid journal (gold OA), or by publishing non-OA and self-archiving within 12 months (green OA). This policy would preclude grantees from publishing in journals that are closed and restrict self-archiving for longer than 12 months. Policy B would require immediate access at the time of publication (gold OA). Grantees could comply by either publishing in open journals, or by publishing OA in a hybrid journal. In some cases, journals may allow immediate access at the time of publication (no embargoes on post-prints); this route of OA would also be acceptable . Policy B excludes journals that are closed and/or restrict self-archiving at the time of publication.Annual Reviews. These journals are not typical publications since they do not publish original research and are instead reviews of work in various disciplines.Based on these proposed policies, we calculated that the percentage of articles in our dataset that would have been compatible with Policy A is 99.3. The articles that would not have been compatible with Policy A were exclusively from the family of Nature journals (except Nature Communications) and Science, published by AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science).For Policy B, 8.3% of articles in our dataset would not have been compatible. These are primarily high impact journals with no gold OA option that restrict post-print archiving for some period of time. Journals that do not comply include the family of https://www.moore.org/initiative-strategy-detail?initiativeId=data-driven-discovery) in the Science Program began systematically collecting data from its grantees about publications, resulting in the large spike. Such inconsistencies in the data are unavoidable given the absence of methods for collecting data systematically.The estimated maximum cost for implementing Policy B  ranged from $401,835 in 2008 to $2,538,725 in 2015. . This laBased on the data reported here, the OA policies considered by GBMF would not have substantially altered the journals in which the grantees published their work. This is particularly true for proposed Policy A (green or gold OA within 12 months). Only 0.7% of articles published by grantees would not have complied with this policy. If the gold OA policy option were enacted (Policy B), some journals that restrict access to all their content for up to 12 months after publication would not be permissible. Only 8.3% of articles published by grantees in our dataset would not have complied with this policy.Implementing an OA policy at a private foundation has potential implications beyond ensuring grantees make their work open access. It also serves to advocate for a position of openness in research outputs. Such a policy might encourage grantees to select journals with more open policies, or may encourage them to use grant funds to choose gold OA (even without a mandate). Of course, requirements imposed by funders for OA will inevitably result in more accessible work. A study by The potential maximum financial ramifications of paying APCs for all articles were estimated to be between $400,000 and $2,600,000 per year. There are several unknown factors that might influence what amount within this range is likely to be correct for GBMF, most critically how many publications are generated each year by grantees. Our estimates of number of publications per year (and therefore estimated maximum APC costs) rely on either the grantee self-reporting to the foundation, or the grantee including GBMF in manuscript acknowledgements that can be harvested by Crossref. Our range of costs is therefore likely an underestimate for earlier years that have lower publication counts due to the increased difficulty in tracking down data from those years. Potential overestimates at the higher end of the range would result from assuming GBMF would incur costs for all publications generated by grantees.http://www.doaj.org), and therefore the maximum cost for GBMF to fund gold OA would be lower.The estimated maximum cost for implementing Policy B  is the result of several simplifications. First, we account for any potential institutional memberships, wherein publishers charge institutions a fixed annual fee which covers some percentage of article-processing fees for the institution for the year. These memberships may result in discounts, which may result in significantly reducing costs for OA . Second,There are other considerations in OA policy implementation that were not the subject of this research. For instance, some funders have chosen to cease funding APCs for OA articles in hybrid journals, opting instead to use funds to cover costs for fully OA journals only. This strategy is used by the German Research Foundation and the Norwegian Research Council, and is a response to high prices and poor service, and some journals’ tendency to charge for articles where APCs have been paid due to internal error .GBMF announced a new Open Access Policy in 2017 . The newThe foundation requires that a final (post-print) version of all peer-reviewed articles produced as a result of research supported, either in entirety or in part, by the foundation’s funding, be made publicly and freely available  within 12 months of publication. Grantees can accomplish this either by publishing the article OA, by ensuring that the publisher will make the content OA within 12 months, or by depositing a post-print version of the manuscript in an OA repository within 12 months.This is equivalent to Policy A described above. The decision to implement Policy A as opposed to something more prescriptive, such as Policy B, was based in part by GBMF’s policy to allow grantees to make decisions about their research and its dissemination based on their expertise, rather than our policies. GBMF funds a wide breadth of research, and not all grantees will be impacted by an OA policy in the same way. The Environmental Conservation Program and the Science Program both are likely to have grantees that produce peer-reviewed publications, and are likely to be impacted by the OA policy. However even within these two Programs, there are a diversity of disciplines represented that may require different amounts of behavioral changes in publishing habits to comply with the policy. The new policy at GBMF will serve to “level up” the different groups, ensuring that the public can access all peer-reviewed publications generated by its grantees.Another factor in choosing Policy A over Policy B was the potential ramifications of encouraging gold OA without considering how fees will be paid. Some funders have separate budgets for APCs, while others require that this cost be included in the grant budget. GBMF was interested in a more conservative approach, which will result in time to gather data and concerns about implementing a policy that requires gold OA.GBMF plans to revisit the efficacy and impact over time for the newly implemented policy. There are several variables that can be altered to potentially strengthen the OA policy. These may include (1) restricting embargoes on archiving OA versions to six months (compared to 12 months); (2) requiring CC-BY licenses for all publications; (3) setting aside funds for covering grantees’ OA fees (independent of their grant funds); (4) mandating particular repositories for OA archiving; or (5) expanding the policy to include outputs other than peer-reviewed journals .


PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (PLOS NTDs) has celebrated its 10th anniversary! Under the exceptional leadership and guidance of Peter Hotez, Founding Editor, the journal was established in 2007 as a platform for research and advocacy for NTDs, a group of chronic endemic infections that largely affect poor populations in often unseen areas of the world—forgotten diseases of forgotten people [n people . While on people . IncreasPLOS NTDs and our sister journals, is proud to have played a small part in raising awareness, supporting advocacy, and assisting the community in creating a repository of high quality evidence and information to enable maximum impact of discoveries to combat these diseases. The signing of the London Declaration in 2012 and the subsequent WHO Roadmap for Implementation were milestones in efforts to define ambitious goals for NTD control, elimination, and eradication [The Public Library of Science, through dication . We recedication . HoweverPLOS NTDs: to publish and present the most rigorous, well-conducted research within a strong open-access platform while also supporting science that originates among researchers and practitioners working in countries in which NTDs are endemic. As a community journal run by and for the NTD community, we remain committed to the mission and priorities at PLOS NTDs and are focused on improving the editorial process. We seek to actively support authors from disease-endemic countries to ensure that we publish the most relevant research in this field. We are also committed to serving as a resource for the publication of Viewpoint and Opinion pieces intended to identify gaps and suggest solutions where research is limited or lacking. As we move into the next decade, we are excited to launch new initiatives, such as a renewed Review section, in which PLOS NTDs will highlight the implications of cutting-edge research discoveries for control and policy decisions through commissioned articles.We have been driven by dual goals since the launch of PLOS NTDs and to ensure that we identify adequate content expertise to review and respond to submissions to the journal. When PLOS NTDs was launched, the list of “in-scope” diseases was relatively limited. However, over the past decade, the number of diseases and syndromes affecting marginalized individuals in resource-limited settings has continued to expand, ballooning the scope of the journal and occasionally leading to confusion for our authors and reviewers. Working closely with the NTD community, we will continue to publish research that is of direct human public health importance while working to refine and focus the scope of the journal to best meet the needs of our community.In looking back over the past decade, we also a need to clarify the scope of the journal to ensure that our community is clear about the content that will remain in focus for PLOS NTDs has benefited tremendously from the depth and breadth of research submitted to the journal, we recognize the need for a more consistent and rigorous approach to the review process. We are establishing systems to improve the methodologic rigor of published manuscripts in PLOS NTDs, including checklists for reviewers and the inclusion of strong epidemiologic and statistical experts on the review board. We are also working hard to improve our peer review time and encouraging more rapid decision-making through a variety of initiatives, including adapting the post acceptance publication process and facilitating preprint server submissions. Finally, we are actively working to improve the transparency of the review process, including the metrics by which article submissions are evaluated.While PLOS NTDs. We are committed to supporting the involvement of young investigators on our Editorial Board, particularly those from endemic countries and women scientists. Many of our Editorial Board members have participated in PLOS NTDs writing workshops around the globe to disseminate information on best-writing principles and guidelines, an initiative that we will continue. To successfully meet the ambitious targets set for NTD control, elimination, and eradication, we see the need to identify promising scientists early in their careers, including doctoral students, medical students, and postdoctoral trainees, and to expand the community of scientists working on these diseases by welcoming them into the PLOS community and providing them opportunity to contribute.The next decade also offers the opportunity to more intensely focus on the inclusion of a diverse community in the operation of PLOS NTDs is excited to continue our role in disseminating evidence, from basic science through translation and implementation science at scale, and we look forward to continuing to serve as a resource for the NTD community.Unprecedented technological advancements have also led to the accumulation of vast amounts of demographic, geospatial, genetic, and genomic data on the agents of NTDs and their vectors –10. As sPLOS NTDs are relevant to programs and policy makers and play a pivotal role in driving action to reduce the burden of these infections.Now more than ever, there is a convergence of public interest, availability of funding, and improved evidence to support decision-making to address the NTDs. However, the landscape is also threatened by renewed attacks on science and the importance of evidence-based decision-making as political shifts threaten to undermine many of the gains made in recent years. As we enter the next decade, we look to ensure that the research and opinions published in PLOS NTDs for the coming decade remain the same—to publish and present the most rigorous research while also supporting science that originates among researchers and practitioners working in countries in which NTDs are endemic. We welcome your thoughts, your support, and your involvement.As a community journal run by working scientists, our priorities at


In a monthly podcast, the host (ADH) poses clinical questions to guest experts, discussing current controversies and describing evidence-based treatments. Episodes cover broad-based and clinically relevant topics from atrial fibrillation to cognitive decision-making. Eighty-two three-hour podcasts have been produced to date, each accompanied by a written summary, and 46 five-minute ‘Best Case Ever’ capsules.Initially, EMC was offered on a subscription-only basis. As of March 2014, 1,680 health care providers had subscribed to EMC. As demand for free online education increased, however, a free open-access model was adopted in April 2014. To cover the significant ongoing costs of the program, EMC partnered in July 2014 with a non-profit academic institution in Toronto, Canada, dedicated to advancing the care of patients requiring emergency services. The social media presence of EMC was also increased.Since adopting a free model, EMC’s website traffic has increased almost six-fold, with the average number of monthly visitors increasing from approximately 3,000 prior to over 17,000 after the transition. The average number of monthly downloads of podcasts increased from 11,000 to approximately 90,000 over the same period, and is continuously growing. There was also an increase in international listeners, with listeners from Canada, the United States and Australia composing the majority of all listeners.Feedback from listeners suggests EMC is a valued resource, and preliminary data show promising results. In the first four months following the transition to free access, 248 listeners voluntarily filled out a survey on the EMC website. Based on answering ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ on a 5-point Likert scale, 89% of respondents felt that what they learned from an episode would change their practice, 91% felt they would be more confident the next time they saw a patient with the discussed condition, and 99% would recommend the episode to a colleague.EMC’s true impact is difficult to evaluate, but not more so than traditional publications. Citation rate and journal impact factors imperfectly reflect the true impact of a given article or journal. Access to academic journals is often limited by firewalls, and the end-users – clinicians treating patients – may not immediately benefit from the information. This contributes to the very lengthy time from article publication to widespread integration into clinical practice.To our knowledge, EMC is the only free-access EM podcast wholly funded and supported by a non-profit academic institution. The transition to free access has contributed to the increase in EMC’s accessibility, universality and immediacy. The support provided by the academic partnership has enabled EMC to exist as a free resource, as well as to increase its accountability and quality. The significant increase in website traffic, podcast downloads, and international users attest to the increased reach afforded by free access education. Most important, however, is the immediacy of the knowledge translation. The processes required for scholarly article and textbook publications are lengthy, and content is often said to represent how medicine was practiced two and five years prior to their publication, respectively.Bandiera and colleagues have argued that academic medical centers should fund educational programs in order to protect the time of the educators, and thereby increase the reputation of both.Social media constitute an ever-increasing aspect of continuing medical education. There are many advantages for podcasts and educational programs to pursue a free open-access model, such as accessibility, universality and immediacy. In developing novel free education resources, medical educators should consider financial partnership as part of their long-term planning for sustainability. Operating costs pose a formidable barrier to entry for other would-be podcast producers. Most of EMC’s recent success, as well as improvement in quality and accountability, would not have been possible without the financial and consultative support of an academic institution. In the future, the currency for academic advancement may shift from traditional journal publication towards global impact through new venues such as podcasts. In order to ensure that the benefits of free access online medical education are sustained over time however, we must ensure that we fund and support these important innovations. The authors thank their colleagues Drs. Bjug Borgundvaag, Shirley Lee, Rick Penciner, and Ms. Sasha Chapman for their critical review and thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.The authors are the creators, authors and editors of the Emergency Medicine Cases podcast being discussed in the manuscript. ADH receives direct financial support for the podcast from the Schwartz/Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute, of which he is the Education Innovation Lead.


In 2018, the Latin American Journal of Nursing (RLAE) reaches 25 years of uninterruptedpublication of articles, resulting from research developed in Brazil and abroad, thuscontributing to the progress of scientific knowledge on nursing and other sciences of thehealth sector in an effective way.The journal is one of the dissemination vehicles of the Nursing School of Ribeirão Preto,which belongs to the University of São Paulo, and it is a Collaborating Center of the WorldHealth Organization for Nursing Research Development. Its 25 volumes published since 1993were composed of articles, originals and literature reviews, strictly selected by renownedresearchers who, voluntarily, contributed to add greater quality to the content of theevaluated articles. The journal adopts the peer review system and has 734 active advisers,of which 30% are foreigners. In addition to the articles, we have also publishededitorials, enabling the discussion of ideas in the academic community on relevant subjectsfor the health and nursing sectors, and seeking to foster the development of studies withstrong scientific evidence.The adopted editorial management seeks excellence in editorial quality, integrity in thedissemination of knowledge, as well as the sustainability of the journal,internationalization and broadening of its visibility. Among some of the strategies used byus, we should cite: the use of an electronic administrative system for processing articles,the use of a similarity detection tool and guides to improve texts, as well as the adoptionof the continuous publishing system (rolling pass).Ad hoc advisers,and those who work in the technical support ,who focused their efforts on accomplishing the complex and continuous editorial demandsrelated to scientific sources, information technologies, licenses and copyright laws,standardizations, database indexing criteria, storage and digital article transfertechniques, analysis of bibliometric indicators, use of digital identifiers, amongothers.For us, speaking about editorial management is gratifying, as it reminds us of a workdeveloped in partnership with a group of dedicated and skilled professionals who haveparticipated throughout these years and who currently participate in the Board ofDirectors, Publishing Committee and Editorial Board, as We have been honored to take part in the Editorial Committee of RLAE since the publicationof its first issue and, since April 1999, to work as the scientific editor-in-chief of thejournal. It is worth highlighting that we were preceded by the editors: Prof. Dr. OlgaMaiomoni Aguillar (1992-1995) and Prof. Dr. Maria Aparecida Tedesch Cano (1995 - March1999).The journal had Prof. Dr. Marcia Bucchi Alencastre as vice-president of the PublishingCommittee (1993-1995), who was succeeded by Prof. Dr. Maria Helena Palucci Marziale (1996 -March 1999) and Prof. Dr. Isabel Amélia Costa Mendes (April 1999 - August 2009); and, since2009, Prof. Dr. Regina Aparecida Garcia de Lima is the scientific editor.Currently, the Publishing Committee is composed of a scientific editor-in-chief, ascientific editor and thirteen associated editors, of which 40% are linked toteaching/research institutions from abroad. The dynamics adopted by the journal andsupported by the Congregation of the institution, aimed at allowing the continuity of thework of a same scientific editor-in-chief during the last 19 years, enabled the developmentof sequential editorial actions in line with the demands of the field of knowledge and withthe editorial tendencies, besides assigning indicators of quality and visibility of thejournal in the scientific community.Until December 2017, we published 2,725 articles of authors from Argentina, Australia,Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Ecuador,Spain, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Portugal, UnitedKingdom, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey and Venezuela.This journal is indexed in 21 international and national databases and has its articlesdisseminated, in open access, on the website of the journal (magazine) and in national andinternational journal portals, and articles may also be accessed by the RLAE applicationthrough mobile phones (iOS/Android systems).Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia ,Ciência & Saúde Coletiva , Cadernos deSaúde Pública  and Estudos Avançados .RLAE has the particularity of being pioneer on indexing articles in internationaldatabases. When compared to nursing journals published in Brazil and Latin America, it wasthe first nursing journal published in Brazil to integrate the Web of Science and theJournal Citation Reports; the first Brazilian journal of the sector to provide its entirecollection in open access and published in three languages ; and the only nursing journal, published in Brazil, classified in stratum A1 inQualis/Journals/CAPES - nursing sector. In the last available indicators dated 2016, RLAEobtained the impact factor in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of 0.634 in the bienniumand 0.884 in the quinquennium; and in the Scopus/SCIMAGO’s Journal & Country Rank(SJR), it obtained SJR of 0.394 and H-index of 28. The journal heads the SciELO BrazilRanking - Top 10 journals with more hits in the period 2015-2017RLAE is one of the journals with the greatest number of downloads in the JournalsRepository of the University of São Paulo, which is regarded as one of the 50 bestrepositories in the world. Through information provided by the Integrated Library System ofthe University of São Paulo (SIBiUSP) in January 2018, we noted that, in the last fouryears, the RLAE articles had more than one and a half million downloads, which were held bya public from Brazil , United States of America , Mexico ,Portugal , Peru , Colombia , Spain , Germany ,Venezuela , Ecuador , Mozambique , United Kingdom , among othercountries. This data is considered an important indicator of the national and internationalexpression of the journal in question.In We noted that there is a divergence of themes in the articles most searched by readers ofthe journal according to each of the languages, and this data will influence the futurecalls of articles, since the practice of induction of articles about issues relevant to thesector and linked to the national and international research guidelines is part of theeditorial strategies undertaken. We draw attention to the open call for the submission ofarticles about “Human resources in health and nursing”, with priority for the topics“Interprofessional education”, “Practice” and “Skills”.Preprints), which has long beenemployed in the fields of physics and mathematics to advance the pace of dissemination ofinformation, but with resistance of acceptance in the health sector, due to the fact thatthe articles uploaded in repositories do not undergo the evaluation of scientificreviewers; and also that, once published on the Internet, an article is no longer new forthe repository, and this is an important fact for scientific journals that aim to publishnew and reliable knowledge, which may entail scientific advancement. Nevertheless, with theonset of new repositories , itappears that prepresses will no longer be restricted to the physical and social sciences(Currently, the demand for RLAE and other journals of this sector is to decide on theadherence to the repository of prepresses (Accordingly, we celebrate the trajectory covered and continue the relentless pursuit forstrategies capable of enabling us to further improve the editorial management of thisjournal and fulfill the new demands that may arise.


PLoS ONE or the non-profit publisher Open Library of the Humanities. Here content is open to all, and the process of peer review can be made visible and invite a wide range of commenters. In addition, their flexible formats can help us to develop ways to present research in connected, dynamic and updatable ways. While academics will probably continue to maintain a mixed economy, it must be acknowledged that this will be differently accessible to academics depending on field, institution, career stage and individual security and productivity. Now is the time to decide if we would prefer a less divisive future, and to understand that the open model requires action and change.It is clear that we cannot disentangle the question of what the scientific journal will look like in twenty years' time from the question of what the university and academia will look like. The pressures of competitive, individual research assessment, within an increasingly marketized world of higher education, would indicate a future of science publishing that is more closed, more niche, more expensive and more disconnected. We may find, for example, if universities compete for their niche by specializing in certain fields, or in teaching over research, that some journal subscriptions are beyond their means or scope. This would mean that academics as well as other interested publics could lose access to new research. An alternative vision follows the open access models of the science journal Such change requires us to find different ways of assessing what counts in academic careers and of rewarding activities that work against the individualistic tendencies and atomization of modern academia. This includes encouraging open publishing, self-publishing, work that has an impact on colleagues outside particular fields or the wider public, sharing our colleagues' research as well as our own and providing a supportive environment for scholars and scholarship. Such an approach has been described as ‘slow scholarship’, which may involve publishing less, or publishing differently, but is designed to resist division and the move to define careers by publication metrics. It also, crucially, should encourage care and diversity, and has thus been taken up by some as a feminist initiative. It requires imagining a situation very different from that in which most of us find ourselves today. This is where history, including the history of scientific publishing, can be an important tool: it shows that things have been different in the past and indicates that they will change again in the future in ways that we may be able to shape. Historical awareness can help us to notice and reflect on the situation in which we find ourselves, and encourage us to question it and the structures behind it, as well as equipping us to unpick assumptions about what successful science and scholarship ‘should’ look like. Scientific journals have proved to be malleable entities and by exploring what has made and changed them we can think comparatively and, perhaps, ‘outside the box’.


According to annual review of Iran J Public Health, in this issue a brief review is presented in terms of analyzing the number and kind of papers submitted and published during the year 2017. Besides, this editorial will compare the trend of whole publication process during 2014–2017.The total number of manuscripts received during 2017 was 2187 from 53 countries. Of course, only the country of corresponding author was considered, so altogether much more countries we had in the panel. Again, Iran had the highest rate of submission, followed by China and Turkey. Fig. 1 Out of total submission of 2187 articles during 2017, 1754 articles were rejected after initial in-house evaluation or later peer review. Therefore the acceptance rate for this year was 13.6%.As previous years, some cases of plagiarism were detected and were treated according to the policy of the journal. Normally, authors of minor cases of plagiarism are given a chance to amend their manuscripts precisely but major cases are rejected. Unfortunately, the dilemma of plagiarism still occurs in a portion of submitted articles mostly sent from non-English native countries.The Journal follows a policy of in-house evaluation followed by double blind peer review system. As for foreigner authors we try to exert an open peer review system. The reasons for rejecting a manuscript during in-house evaluation are various but the most important cases are out of scope cases, poor outcome, local studies, clinical contents etc. A critical point is that due to high rate of receiving articles from different countries, up to now nearly 260 articles are in the queue of lay outing and we have no choice but to delay the date of publication.The types of articles published during 2014–2017 are shown in Due to high flow of submitted manuscripts, in many cases, the authors were requested to change the format of “Original Article” to “Letter to the Editor”, which of course the merit of both formats remains the same.http://www.scimagojr.com/, the H index of the journal is 23. Besides SCOPUS has reported the Site Score of the journal as 0.85 for 2016. According SJR 2016 is 0.372 in addition to SNIP 2016 as 0.613.According to


Dear friends and colleagues,eNeuro to publish your research. What impresses me most is the quality of the science that eNeuro publishes. Many papers made it to the news this year, both in top scientific magazines and in the general media.We are now three years old, and still growing! We recently published our 500th article, doubling the 2016 score, and the number of submissions is on the rise as compared to last year. Thank you, fellow neuroscientists, for choosing eNeuro has found its mark in the publishing landscape. The readership has more than doubled in a year. Given the plethora of scientific journals, it is impossible to read all the tables of contents. Most of us focus on the journals we trust, and where we know we will find the most relevant and reliable scientific information. It is particularly gratifying to see that eNeuro is such a journal. Both authors and readers make our success, so, thank you, all of you.eNeuro’s articles with an additional 1,500 article views from over a 1,000 new visitors. Thus, your papers will have a greater exposure.Note that our audience will continue to increase. We have teamed up with TrendMD, which recommends articles to readers based on what the person is reading at the moment, what they have read in the past, and the behavior of similar readers across the network. And this works well to draw in new readers as our journal articles are recommended in other journals with related articles. In just 6 weeks, TrendMD has helped increase traffic to As a society journal, we are here to serve the community. This is why, in addition to publishing classical research papers, we encourage the publication of papers in other categories such as “negative studies,” “failure to reproduce,” and “confirmation.” Surprisingly, we receive a comparatively low number of these. Perhaps, this is due to a lack of awareness that such categories exist. So, do not hesitate to send such papers; they are as important to the community as the more conventional ones.eNeuro actively participates in reshaping the publishing world, for the better. Did you notice that at least one commercial publisher of the main scientific generalist journals is experimenting with what eNeuro started: double blind review + consultation + synthesis? With other noncommercial journals, like eLife, we are leading the way, and we are constantly striving to innovate to improve the whole system.As you now know, Let’s have a look at the past year’s achievements.Enhancing scientific rigor. We have adopted a new policy regarding modeling/theoretical papers, which now must include the computer code. We also strongly encourage including codes for in-house analysis software. This is not compulsory yet, but it makes sense to impose it. One step at a time. We may think that this is a constraint. But this is the only way to insure transparency and rigor.Extended data. Extended data can be linked to figures and tables of the paper. They can take several forms, including large datasets. Extended data are not supplementary figures, they must convey an important message, without disrupting the logical flow of the paper. I think that it is an important addition.Improving the reviewing process. We are both authors and reviewers. Yet, as authors, we always complain about the review process, in particular unnecessary experiments, unfairness, etc. The review system of eNeuro, consultation and synthesis, constitutes one way to solve these issues. A complementary approach is via a proper education of future reviewers. This year, we have released the 2nd webinar for Training reviewers, focusing on modeling papers. Both webinars are freely available for viewing. More webinars will come in the future.Acknowledging our work as reviewers. We get more and more pressure to review papers, grants, etc. Such work is an integral part of Science, and we always feel that we are not appropriately acknowledged about it. This is the reason why whenever you perform a review for SfN journals (and others), it is integrated in your ORCID account. This information can then be used to assess objectively your reviewing work by committees for recruitment, promotion, etc.Evaluating the evaluator. At eNeuro, we are very proud of the system we set up (double blind and synthesis of reviews). We constantly receive positive, unsolicited, feedback from authors and reviewers. But it does not mean that we are perfect. Far from it. After all, this is a human endeavor. We accept, as authors, to be evaluated by a journal. But the reverse should exist. Hence, eNeuro will offer authors the possibility to evaluate our peer review process! Why? Because we need your feedback to constantly improve. I believe that it will highly contribute to the transparency of the review process. Stay tuned for that.Registered reports. Several scientific journals offer the possibility to register a study before doing experiments. The study is evaluated for its potential scientific interest, and for the validity of the experimental protocol. This nearly guarantees publication, whatever the outcome of the experiments . We will soon implement registered reports.Communication. We are hiring a features editor to help expand content. This will provide better exposure to the work you publish in eNeuro. We are also developing a blog page that will provide a place for communication about science between me and my editorial board, and you, the readers. As I mentioned above, this is a human endeavor, with much room for improvement. I rely on your help, suggestions, and feedback.eNeuro@sfn.org.As you can see, we are doing well and we are still full of ideas to improve the way Science is done, evaluated, and published. But always remember: we are here to serve you and Neuroscience. This is our only purpose. Never hesitate to communicate with us at Cheers,


Forbes asked why academics had not embraced open access. After all, according to Leetaru, the academic community had been at the forefront, over the past two decades, of populating, using and promoting the spread of the Internet. The Internet, of course, is the medium for open access, yet it appears that open access regarding research findings is still not entirely accepted. This is despite the fact that academics want to share their research findings. The barriers may not, of course, rest entirely with the academics. The predominant model of academic publishing takes place by the traditional route of free submission of manuscripts and publication of articles by refereed journals. The articles are then read on a pay to view basis, mainly through collective agreements by, for example, university libraries to which employees and students have access. Rarely, individuals pay to view articles.A recent article by Leetaru  in ForbeProviding pay to publish open access options for articles accepted by the traditional route (the ‘gold route’)Developing pay to publish open access online journals Agreeing to allow final accepted manuscripts to be available on repositories, with an embargo period (the ‘green route’).Recent years—approximately a decade or so—have seen the rise of the open access movement. This is a broad movement which includes mavericks or folk heroes—depending on your perspective—who have ‘broken ranks’ and made their own work available freely, ignoring the copyright restrictions of the major publishers. Others have made vast amounts of literature—their own and others—available open access. The arguments for this usually revolve around the nature of research being publicly funded and the ‘excessive profits’ of the major publishing houses Watson, . This isOptions 1 and 2 above cost money in the form of an APC (article processing charge) and these can be expensive. They are expensive to offset the profits publishers may have made from pay to view. To obviate ‘double dipping’ whereby the publishers make money from selling open access on articles also available pay to view, major publishers have agreed to publish additional copy at no additional charge, to compensate. Option 3, the ‘green route’ is the only option free to the author and the reader but requires institutions to maintain repositories. The main driver for open access is making research outcomes more widely available and for academics there is also evidence—probably for selected outputs—that it may increase citations Moed,  to articIdentify your goal before trying to pitch under three pointsExplain what you doCommunicate your USPEngage with a questionGiven the cost of open access and the availability of the green route, why would an author pay an APC? As the elevator reaches its destination and you have to explain this to an author, what would you say? According to Mind Tools  there arIf ‘tasked’ with an elevator pitch on open access I think my response would be:My goal is to convince an author that publishing open access by the pay to publish route is worthwhile. Adapting the above slightly my three points, would be:We provide gold route open access options for authors to make their work freely available on the Internet.Open access by the gold route is the only way that your material can become instantly and freely available to read from the point of publicationOpen access can improve the impact of your research and citations to your articles; can you afford not to consider open access for your next publication?


Materials science is one of the key disciplines in modern society because only materials-oriented scientists can provide the necessary tools, building blocks, components, and processes that are needed for an ever growing and aging society. Moreover, supplying the world with energy has become a major issue both for materials scientists and engineers (as well as for politicians). Materials research is, by its very nature, a highly interdisciplinary field, where chemists, physicists, biologists, engineers, and others meet to explore the structure, properties, and applications from the single atom or molecule all the way to complex structures such as nano- and microscale devices. Ultimately, at the larger end of the spectrum, no plane will fly without the work of materials scientists. The wealth of questions that arises when dealing with problems in the materials field has required the development of sophisticated new equipment and procedures like electron tomography, a technique our colleagues would have loved to have in the 50s to study, for example, defects or grain boundaries. Similary, NMR spectroscopy seems to have evolved in gigantic leaps over the last years. Nowadays, NMR spectroscopy provides a virtually unlimited amount of highly specific information on a material of interest. Similarly, new synthetic methods, including genetic engineering and other biotechnological approaches, now allow for the synthesis of molecules and materials that have not been accessible before. Ionic liquids have been one of the key players in the advanced materials field, superconductors keep attracting attention, and carbon nanomaterials have generated tremendous attention. They have also triggered a wave of startup companies focusing on different aspects of carbon nanomaterials around the world. Around the world, more and more researchers are engaged in materials research, from simulation to synthesis, from metals to soft matter and the medical field. As the field is ever broadening, more and more specialized journals have appeared. However, in order to enable fruitful interactions between very different fields, there is a need for journals and conferences that cover all aspects of materials research. Furthermore, with a rapidly growing research community all over the world, including countries that have not historically been very active in this area, there is a need to provide easy and cheap access to high quality research for as many scientists as possible.While in biology and physics, there is already a certain “tradition” of Open Access publishing, chemistry has been rather slow in picking up the concept. This is interesting, because Open Access does have several advantages: free access for anyone interested, color figures can easily be included at no cost , publication is rapid, and, as the journals can be read by many scientists, including those that do not have access to the expensive subscriber journals, the long term impact is expected to be high.Materials should be of interest to anyone working in the general area of materials synthesis, characterization, and application. I therefore invite you to submit your original, high quality research to Materials and hope that with time, Materials becomes a premier publication for interdisciplinary materials research worldwide. To achieve this goal, we will work hard and try to provide you with the best service we can. But we also depend on you, the authors, to submit high quality original research that attracts attention. As a result, the new Open Access journal


Plant Biotechnology Journal. I would like to start this editorial by announcing the successful transition of PBJ from a subscription‐based journal to an open access journal supported exclusively by authors. This resulted in enhanced free global access to all readers. I applaud the PBJ management team for offering free open access to all articles published in this journal in the past 14 years. As the first among the top ten open access plant science journals, based on 2016 citations, PBJ is very likely to be ranked among the top three journals publishing original research. PBJ is now compatible with mobile platforms, tablets, iPads, and iPhones and offers several new options to evaluate short‐ and long‐term impact of published articles, including Altmetric scores, article readership, and citations.Welcome to the first issue of the fifteenth volume of PBJ in achieving its very high standing among the plant science and biotechnology journals. With the dedication of a highly committed team of Editors and excellent contributions from our authors and critical evaluation by our reviewers, PBJ has moved up two notches in ISI ranking (11th of 209) among plant science and (13th of 161) biotechnology/applied microbiology journals in 2015. The journal continues to advance in all key categories including immediacy index, cited half‐life, and article influence score. This success is reflected in an increased interest for the journal, culminating in a 176% increase in the submission of manuscripts between 2012 and 2015, while sustaining a healthy submission rate in 2016, from most geographical areas around the globe. PBJ more than doubled the number of external reviewers between 2012 and 2016, and we are thankful for their thoughtful and critical reviews. Doubling the number of reviewers did not increase the average turnaround time (15 days), rewarding our authors with timely decisions on their submissions. Considering PBJ is still a very young journal, these are impressive accomplishments.I want to thank the current editors and editorial staff for their continued commitment to high‐quality science, ethical standards, and for helping to lead PBJ, to further improve its standing among academic/industry researchers and regulatory agencies, and to increase awareness of this research among the public. While PBJ currently publishes full‐length articles encompassing in depth studies, I realized the need for brief timely reports of new inventions. Therefore, I introduced ‘PBJ letters’ for publication of three printed page articles with <1500 words, ten citations, and one illustration.I am firmly committed to increasing the impact of PBJ Altmetric scores of high impact articles are as high or higher than those published in Science or Nature journals. To further engage the public or policymakers in scientific discussions, PBJ is requesting authors to provide Twitter titles at the time of manuscript submission. In addition, authors are encouraged to share news releases on their articles with the PBJ editorial office so that they are included in Wiley Plant Science tweets @PlantSciNews, which has ~9000 followers.PBJ will continue to publish special issues covering topics of current interest to our readership. PBJ published special issues on editing plant genomes  and a focus issue on plant genomes . In 2017, we anticipate publishing special issues on proteomics and synthetic biology.PBJ will continue to publish high‐quality articles in its established areas of strength, as well as expanding into emerging new areas. The number of Associate Editors and Editorial Board members continues to increase to represent several new areas and different continents, not previously represented. We welcome new associate editors Dr Martin Parry (Lancaster University) and Nicola Patron (Norwich Research Park). I convey my sincere thanks for the excellent service offered by all our Associate Editors, especially editors of special issues, new Editorial staff  and the Production team .In addition to special issues, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291467-7652) to take advantage of open access, keep up to date with the latest developments and to sign up for our automated e‐alerts in order to receive emailed notifications when new issues or Early View articles are published. Please note that readers should ‘opt‐in’ to receive e‐alerts, by visiting the journal homepage and registering at the ‘Get Content Alerts’ area.I encourage all readers to visit the journal homepage (PBJ will continue to serve the plant research community and offer a platform to publish exciting research findings and new developments.Finally, with these and other exciting changes, I firmly believe that


For the purposes of these rules, a preprint is defined as a complete written description of a body of scientific work that has yet to be published in a journal. Typically, a preprint is a research article, editorial, review, etc. that is ready to be submitted to a journal for peer review or is under review. It could also be a commentary, a report of negative results, a large data set and its description, and more. Finally, it could also be a paper that has been peer reviewed and either is awaiting formal publication by a journal or was rejected, but the authors are willing to make the content public. In short, a preprint is a research output that has not completed a typical publication pipeline but is of value to the community and deserving of being easily discovered and accessed. We also note that the term preprint is an anomaly, since there may not be a print version at all. The rules that follow relate to all these preprint types unless otherwise noted.In 1991, physics  began a tradition of making preprints available through arXiv , the avaA recent analysis highlighted that the median review time—the time between submission and acceptance of an article—is around 100 days, with a further 25 days or so spent preparing the work for publication . HoweverIn principle, preprints can be text and data mined to better comprehend and utilize the knowledge presented. This assumes that copyright, licensing, and format permit such use. Maximizing accessibility and reuse is not necessarily the default currently offered by preprint services. Consequently, when posting a preprint, authors are encouraged to use licenses and formats that facilitate reuse while retaining copyright to their work. Details of copyright, licensing, and format are beyond the scope of this article, but licensing your work as CC-BY  and providing a text-accessible version covers most situations. Software tools that facilitate the comprehension of accessible content  are in their infancy but are likely to become mainstream in the next 5–10 years. Better still is the promise that the traditional content of research articles can be integrated with the underlying data, analytics, and commentary to create a new learning experience. To the community, this represents an opportunity to accelerate discovery in ways that are not currently offered by traditional publishers to the contributing authors. Such an offering would presumably provide new opportunities for an author’s work to be used and cited.There are a number of resources that provide preprint services to the biosciences . The notion that preprints leads to scooping is covered in some detail by ASAPbio , and onlIn addition to our formal publications, as scientists, we have scholarly outputs that we are willing to stand behind but may not have an outlet: a graduate student leaves, gets tied up in a new position, and the paper never gets that final polish yet contains meaningful results and conclusions; a project yields negative data or data that simply does not come together into a coherent story yet has value to the community; replication of a study (or not) represents a useful outcome but is not innovative enough for journal publication. In summary, preprints offer a way of sharing important scholarly output that would otherwise disappear after much time and expense.Some might argue that work that has not passed peer review should be disregarded. To those, we say, “How much useful information do you get from discussions of unpublished data at meetings, in blogs, and via other forms of non-peer-reviewed content?” We would argue that this type of useful information is growing in both volume and importance. The same naysayers will then likely say, “There is too much misinformation as well as useful information on the internet.” We agree that filters are needed. Human filters will not be able to cope with the volume, hence the need for software tools as described in Rule 2.Given that preprints have not been peer reviewed, does that imply low quality? Certainly, the peer review process can add significant value to the work, pointing out errors or areas for improvement. Nevertheless, authors must stand behind their submitted preprint, because it is a public disclosure (and hence a citable entity), albeit a non-peer-reviewed one. Even without peer review, their scientific colleagues will be reading and judging the work, and the authors’ reputations are at stake. Thus, scientists will be careful to disclose their best work that reflects their scientific abilities and expertise, so work of low quality would not be expected. This has been true of arXiv over the years, and the high-quality factor also seems to apply to bioRxiv . To illuScience is, by its nature, iterative and self-correcting. Through preprints, the time to correction can be much reduced. Experience with arXiv has shown that claims concerning, for example, superluminal neutrinos  or bicepSherpa/Romeo  tracks tThe lack of a substantive body of work in support of a particular grant application or academic promotion can be a substantial obstacle to career advancement, particularly for young scientists.First, consider grant applications to funding bodies. Papers submitted (or even accepted) but not yet published do not help, since the grant reviewer cannot judge the work. By contrast, the availability of preprints can provide a reviewer with the evidence they need to substantiate recent productivity, as well as support the work being proposed in the grant application. It can be argued that this creates more work for the reviewer, but this work results in the ability to perform a more informed review. How individual funders currently treat preprints is variable, and thus, their value to scientists in the way described is also variable. NIH has recently encouraged the inclusion of preprints in grant applications and reports . The WelNow consider academic advancement. At the time of academic promotion, a significant body of a scientist’s work could be tied up in the journal review and publication pipeline. Certainly, submitted papers can usually form part of a promotion file, but this carries less weight and credibility than a preprint, which is an acknowledgment by the author that the work is worthy of public viewing and dissemination to the entire scientific community. Moreover, if a knowledgeable reader has significant thoughts on the preprint, those could be posted as commentary, at least on some preprint services. This has wider ramifications, since commentary on preprints may provide the opportunity to improve the final published paper.bioRxiv, which is the fastest-growing preprint repository for the life sciences, does not accept preprints that, if posted, could have a damaging effect on human health. This makes sense. Since submissions to bioRxiv only undergo a cursory human review before being posted, there is the possibility that potentially harmful information  or perhaps private and personal information may be revealed. This has ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI). Such arguments flow into issues of intellectual property (IP) associated with the content of a preprint (noting that IP runs counter to Rule 2), wherein there is the risk of undesirable public release of information. It should be noted that this is not an issue restricted to preprints but one that can apply to talks, posters, etc. too. For research articles, professional editors and reviewers provide additional layers to safeguard from sensitive content being inadvertently released. Currently, preprints have only cursory safeguards, though a future preprint service could enable more rigorous review.With open content from preprint services available through application program interfaces (APIs), there is the exciting opportunity for researchers to develop tools to better automatically or semi-automatically flag potential ELSI and IP issues. If those tools were open, they would benefit the publishing industry as well.What should be apparent from these ten simple rules is that the provision and use of preprints in the biomedical sciences is still evolving, but there are clear benefits to the individual and the community. ASAPbio is in the process of developing a governance structure that includes all stakeholders to recommend how best to move forward with the further use of preprints. We invite you to contribute your next paper as a preprint and join the movement.The original version of this article, prior to peer review, can be found as a preprint here .


A team of stakeholders in biomedical publishing recently proposed a set of core competencies for journal editors, as a resource that can inform training programs for editors and ultimately improve the quality of the biomedical research literature. This initiative, still in its early stages, would benefit from additional sources of expert information. Based on our experiences as authors’ editors, we offer two suggestions on how to strengthen these competencies so that they better respond to the needs of readers and authors – the main users of and contributors to research journals. First, journal editors should be able to ensure that authors are given useful feedback on the language and writing in submitted manuscripts, beyond a (possibly incorrect) blanket judgement of whether the English is “acceptable” or not. Second, journal editors should be able to deal effectively with inappropriate text re-use and plagiarism. These additional competencies would, we believe, be valued by other stakeholders in biomedical research publication as markers of editorial quality. We commend this initiative to help journal editors work responsibly and accountably, and offer suggestions on areas that might benefit from additional input.Journal editing cannot be learned in higher education, and alternative training opportunities are not readily available. To guide such training and ultimately improve the quality of published research, Moher and colleagues defined core competencies (CC) for editors of biomedical journals. They did a literature reviewet al. do not use the term “journal editor” but rather “scientific editor”, defined as someone “who make[s] decisions on the content and policies of a journal — including editors-in-chief and associate/academic editors”2. This definition excludes other editors who contribute to the quality of research publications, in contrast to the broader meaning of “science editor” used by two stakeholder groups in the consensus initiative . To avoid confusion regarding who the CC are intended for, a term such as “decision-making editor” might be helpful. For simplicity’s sake, here we use “journal editor” to refer to the type of editor we assume the CC are intended for.Moheret al. concede, “time and resource constraints … limited inclusion of perspectives of other relevant groups ” in developing the CC3. We believe input from authors is fundamental to efforts to define competencies of journal editors, and suggest that insights into authors’ (sometimes less than satisfactory) experiences with journals can be provided by another type of editor, namely authors’ editors10. These editors help researcher-authors prepare manuscripts for publication by reading drafts and suggesting changes to structure and content (substantive editing), language and style (language editing), and appearance and format 11. In addition, many authors’ editors train researchers in publication skills17 and help authors navigate editorial processes21. Authors’ editors’ knowledge of the publication process and their close interactions with the producers, distributors and consumers of research information make them qualified to help define CC for journal editors and identify deficiencies in current practices8.As MoherAuthors’ editors are often more familiar with researchers’ local circumstances and challenges than journal editors are. Although the writers of the consensus statement and their informants are themselves researchers and therefore authors, they were perhaps not representative of the wider population of “real-world” researchers who have limited contact with English-speaking opinion leaders in biomedical publishing. In contrast, many authors’ editors work with researchers whose first language is not English or who are based outside the global North and West. Familiarity with other languages and cultures gives authors’ editors insights into the types of competencies researchers from diverse geographical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds would value in journal editors.9 facilitates knowledge transfer to colleagues in different settings. PhD degrees have been awarded to authors’ editors for applied linguistics research based on their work practices in the Netherlands22, Spain23 and China . Continuing professional development for authors’ editors is available through national and international associations  or delegate this responsibility to an appropriately skilled reviewer or editorial staffer. Relying solely on blanket “acceptable/unacceptable” assessments of the writing contributes, in our experience, to cynicism among authors regarding the fairness and quality of peer review, and to the proliferation of poorly written articles. Although we realize that skills in “dealing with language issues” and knowledge about the “fundamentals of editing” were considered but then excluded from the CC2, we believe that inclusion of a competency in this area would be welcomed and perceived as a marker of editorial quality. To start with, journal editors should have a basic understanding of different types of editing services, including those proposed by their own journals, so that they can refer authors to a suitable service whenever necessary.In our experience, reviewers and journal editors increasingly cite “problems with the English” as a reason for rejection, even of manuscripts free from language errors. Meanwhile, biomedical journals publish an ever-increasing proportion of articles that were judged by reviewers to have “acceptable English” but which contain awkwardly worded statements that defy comprehension and undermine reproducibility2. While working with authors on manuscripts, authors’ editors sometimes encounter re-used text and inadequate citation, and use these opportunities to explain why these practices may be inappropriate and how to avoid them25. But these individual efforts are not enough to stop the global spread of plagiarism in published research, which journal editors may inadvertently facilitate if they do not check manuscripts carefully enough before publication. Journal editors should be able to interpret the results of “plagiarism-detection” software and deal sensitively with the manuscripts these tools single out . Setting a maximum allowable percentage of text overlap, without considering the context of the non-original text, may send inconsistent messages about appropriate and inappropriate text re-use. Manuscript rejection based solely on the percentage of non-original text can, in our experience, alienate well-meaning authors from journals that use this criterion.Another competency researchers would appreciate is the ability of journal editors to deal effectively with inappropriate text re-use. This omission from the CC is surprising, especially since plagiarism featured in two of the 23 highly ranked statements in the Delphi process28 , the CC may indeed help gatekeepers meet researchers’ and readers’ expectations for editorial practices that ultimately improve the quality of published research.These are just two of the areas where authors’ editors can provide valuable input for future efforts to define and refine CC for biomedical journal editors. Alongside earlier efforts to support professional and ethical practices  et al (2017).  They aptly argue that the perspective from authors is essential to define journal editor CC and thus inappropriate to be overlooked. Then they indicate that authors’ editors can give insights on authors’ behalf when reliable author opinion is not readily available by calling attention to the work of authors’ editors and their advantage over journal editors in familiarity with authors in different contexts.In this correspondence, two well-known European authors’ editors, Dr. Valerie Matarese and Ms. Karen Shashok, raise two very interesting points to enhance the core competencies (CC) list for biomed journal editors in Moheret al (2017) are not only insightful but also very caring for most EAL  scholars who often struggle to publish in a language they do not have much control. The first one is that the CC list should re-include journal editors’ competence to give useful feedback on language and writing to authors instead of relying on standardized reviewer reports where this aspect is simply judged “acceptable” or “unacceptable”. In a highly globalized academic community where biomedical journals are at the very forefront of globalization, it is unrealistic to expect most reviewers to give concrete language and writing feedback to researchers, particularly EAL ones. Therefore, it seems incumbent on journal editors to possess this as a core competence. What I am thinking here is that journal editors may also need more knowledge of authors’ editors. This is because EAL researchers need to be referred to the right authors’ editors for support when fixing the language and writing problems goes beyond their own capacity. The two points they suggest to be added to the CC list of Moher The second competence Matarese and Shashok suggest to add is that journal editors should be able to interpret results of plagiarism-detection software sensibly and sensitively rather than simplistically relying on arbitrarily set maximum-text-overlap percentages. As is known to writing researchers and authors’ editors, text re-use is an important, if not the most, way for EAL scholars to learn academic writing and compose papers in English. Journal editors’ lack of ability to tell the difference between plagiarism and well-meant text re-use can render them to punish the innocent and alienate EAL scholars from their journals, as convincingly argued by the two authors of this piece.et al (2017), in a well-crafted text. Their effort to support EAL scholars in ways beyond working on manuscripts should be commended. Therefore, I recommend that this correspondence be indexed as soon as possible. If they would like to add that journal editors also need to have the ability to refer EAL scholars to proper authors’ editors, I would appreciate this piece even more. Overall, I find the suggestions of Matarese and Shashok very useful to refine the CC list for journal editors, as given in MoherI have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard. We concur with Dr. Luo’s understanding of language and writing in the current globalized context of research publishing, including some EAL scholars’ recourse to text re-use to produce acceptable English. We also agree that suggestions by journal editors on where authors could obtain help is a competency that researchers are likely to value, and have noted this in version 2. Many journals already list commercial editing service providers on their websites, but the scope and quality of these services vary. Journal editors have differing criteria for “acceptable” English or writing, but as the ultimate arbiters of when the language and writing are “good enough” for publication in their journal, they should, for the sake of transparency and fairness, let authors know what criteria they use to decide which texts are publishable and which need improvement. et al.’s use of the term “scientific editor”, instead of “journal editor” or “decision-making editor", might raise confusion about the type of editor to which the CC apply. They also argue that when refining the CC, authors’ experiences with journals provide useful insights into the CC needed by journal editors.Written by two long-standing, respected professional biomedical authors’ editors, this article responds to the proposal to create core competencies (CC) “for scientific editors of biomedical journals”. Although commending the proposal, Matarese and Shashok point out that Moher Matarese and Shashok point out that some scientific editors do not work for a publisher or journal but instead work closely with researcher-authors, helping them to produce publishable papers – a service particularly helpful to authors writing in their second (or third) language or living in the Global South. These “authors’ editors” can also help their author clients to deal with reviewer comments and journal-related correspondence, thereby accumulating valuable information on authors’ experiences with journal editors. Authors’ editors are thus well-placed to contribute to formulating certain CC, especially in relation to assessing the quality of the English and providing clear, constructive feedback to authors. Drawing on their extensive knowledge of journal–author intercommunication, Matarese and Shashok plead for reversal of the decision not to include competence to deal with language issues and knowledge of the “fundamentals of editing” from the CC. They also express surprise at another omission: competency in plagiarism detection. Again, they point out relevant insights that authors’ editors can supply. Matarese and Shashok’s case for expanding and refining the CC with the help of authors’ editors is convincingly argued. They have underpinned it with references to relevant publications by authors’ editors that are probably unfamiliar to editors of science journals. The table of editors’ associations indicates that there are professional associations providing CPD that committed, principled authors’ editors may join. All this helps broadcast the actual and potential usefulness of authors’ editors to researcher-authors, journals, journal reviewers and journal editors. However, to avoid creating the impression that all authors’ editors are suitably trained, optimally competent in all the editing they undertake, involved members of appropriate associations and proactive in undertaking CPD, Matarese and Shashok should acknowledge that there are no CC for authors’ editors, nor are authors’ editors required to have certain academic or professional qualifications. Matarese and Shashok are currently among the most respected and high-profile biomedical authors’ editors; their plea to involve authors’ editors in developing CC for journal editors should be placed in that context.I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard. We appreciate Dr. Burrough-Boenisch’s cautionary note on the variations in authors’ editors’ skills, practices and commitment to continuing education, which are to be expected for any profession that does not have defined entry qualifications or agreed-upon CC. The author editing literature contains several proposals for key skills and tasks , but although they overlap to some extent, they also tend to reflect the particular circumstances of different authors’ editors’ professional settings, clients and disciplinary focus. Although several professional associations offer formal certification, these programs do not cover all facets of author editing, such as the interpersonal aspects of working with researchers and the value of multilingualism. Like journal editors, authors’ editors with different skills, strengths and specialist knowledge can provide valuable services in some areas, but may have shortcomings in other areas. Our impression is that authors’ editors are likely to be transparent about their strengths and limitations, in order to help researchers decide whether they are able to provide the right types of support. We have noted the lack of universally agreed-upon professional qualifications for authors’ editors in version 2. Burrough-Boenisch J: Editing non-native English: reflections from a Netherlands-based editor on those who do it and the skills they should have. The 21st Century Text. July 30, 2013. Lang TA: A curriculum for biomedical writing and editing: a second volley. CBE Views. 1999; 22(1): 3–5. Matarese V: Editing research: the author editing approach to providing effective support to writers of research papers. Medford: Information Today; 2016.


Nursing Open continues to grow, submissions are frequent and regular, and we are putting ever larger issues online. Naturally, the volume of submissions to Nursing Open does not match those to my other journal JAN, but the latter is long established, has a relatively high impact factor and an international reputation. Nursing Open is still new and along with growing the volume of submissions and the size of our issues, reputation takes longer. Another difference I find between Nursing Open and JAN is that finding reviewers for manuscripts is much easier for JAN. My JAN team say that it takes six to eight attempts to find reviewers for JAN manuscripts. At Nursing Open it takes many more and this can contribute to delays in returning reviews to authors. If you are an author who has, or is, experiencing a delay in waiting for a decision on your manuscript then I not only apologize but also want to assure you that the team of associate editors is aware and we do all we can to recruit new reviewers, find suitable reviewers from our pool and to follow‐up with reviewers where they are slow and to replace reviewers who have declined to review.Nursing Open. If so, I would like to draw to your attention a service that ensures you receive credit for your reviews in a way that is recordable and presentable, for example, at appraisals by academic managers. Publons makes visible your activities as a reviewer, and Wiley—who publish Nursing Open are partners with Publons and fully committed to what it offers. According to the webpage:“Publons helps you get the recognition you deserve for keeping watch over science and research. Easily import, verify, and store a record of every peer review you perform and every manuscript you handle as an editor, for any journal in the world, in full compliance with all editorial policies.”Perhaps you are a reluctant reviewer, you may even have declined to review manuscripts for So, if you have been reluctant to review for Nursing Open, or for any of the journals from publishers partnered to Publons then I would encourage you to visit the Publons webpage and register, Thereafter, you will be prompted, during the review process of partnered journals to record your review with Publons or this step can be automated. What results is a personalized webpage to which you can provide a link on your CV or in your employer appraisal documents to demonstrate your important contribution to your scholarly community. And, just in case you were wondering, it is the fact that you performed the review for a specific journal that is recorded—no other details such as the title of the manuscript or the recommendations or comments you made are recorded.


Archives of Physiotherapy is a new journal dedicated to the publication of scientific papers in the field of rehabilitation particularly physiotherapy. It is the continuation of the Italian Journal of Physiotherapy (It J Physiother), the scientific journal of the Italian Society of Physiotherapy  that has been published by the Italian publisher Minerva Medica since 2011. The change goes far beyond the name of the journal, in that it also involves also the publisher, the type of publishing and the associations and institutions that acknowledge it as their official scientific journal. Before addressing the innovations, it is necessary to answer the question as to why one would launch a new journal in the field of physiotherapy, when the number of physiotherapy journals already exceeds far more than a hundred? The list available on the website of the International Society of Physiotherapy Journal Editors (ISPJE), (http://www.wcpt.org/ispje/membership) a network supported by the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT), includes 117 physiotherapy journals worldwide, with the Asia Western Pacific region having the highest number  followed by Europe with 28 (23.9 %). The same question also presented itself at the time when the SIF board members decided to create the It J Physiother.The answer to this question can be found in the determination to promote the scientific development of physiotherapy in countries where this discipline does not receive the credit it surely deserves, as for example in Italy, where physiotherapy is still considered the Cinderella of biomedical sciences. The SIF was in fact founded in 2010 with the declared purpose of advancing scientific activities within the physiotherapy field in Italy and supporting the dissemination of knowledge and clinical evidence-based practice (EBP) among Italian physiotherapists. Results have been encouraging, and the national congresses of the society, held yearly since its foundation, have given the opportunity to demonstrate the increasing level of Italian physiotherapists’ research activities [http://www.physio-europe.org/download.php?document=69&downloadarea=18), and therefore do not have direct or easy access to a scientific journal published in the English language. Since the language of publication is a crucial feature for the dissemination of findings, as demonstrated by the fact that systematic reviews frequently include only articles in English, there was an evident void before the launch of the SIF journal, that became the 10th English language physiotherapy journal published in Europe.Journals are generally considered to be the most important instrument for dissemination of research results and the promotion of EBP . As for It J Physiother (44 %) than in other long-standing European physiotherapy journals. Results of one such RCT [Since its start in 2011, the journal adopted a double-blind peer reviewing model and favoured the quality, rather than the quantity, of published articles. In this regard, results have been encouraging. A survey on the first three years of activity  found thysiother 4 % than such RCT  – notablthe It J Physiother adopted a delayed open-access model: the journal's contents were accessible only to SIF members and to subscribers, but the full text was free in the case of articles over one year old. This model is used by many scientific journals and is a partial solution to the visibility problem. Many potential readers only saw the full text of It J Physiother contents one year after publication, unless they made the payment. The restricted access and the national perspective of the journal – inherent in the journal name itself – were, in the board's opinion, among the factors that were limiting the journal diffusion and development. Nonetheless, the last issues of the It J Physiother included a major number of articles from non-Italian authors, showing that it was beginning to attract researchers working in other European and even in non-European countries [The number of submissions, and even more the quality of submitted articles, is a rather challenging matter for all novice journals, with limited visibility and lack of indexation in important biomedical databases. To enhance its visibility, visibility, ountries .Early in 2014, the SIF board decided to bring about a radical advancement to the journal, in order to give it a more international perspective, increase its circulation and achieve indexing in important biomedical databases.Archives of Physiotherapy, abbreviated to Arch Physiother – does not refer to a particular country or geographical area. However, the journal is primarily intended for physiotherapists working in Europe, in Southern and Eastern Europe in particular. It aims at becoming the future reference journal in these areas for professional associations, scientific societies and institutions concerned with the development of physiotherapy. A first step in this direction has been achieved by including the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland  in the project directed at the renewal of the SIF journal. In fact Arch Physiother, will be the official journal of this institution too.The desire of bringing the journal out of a merely national perspective explains the change of name. The new name – Switzerland, like Italy, is a country where physiotherapy is taking big steps forward, with regards to both education and the promotion of scientific research. Between 2002 and 2006, the education for Swiss physiotherapy students was moved to a tertiary educational level and, in addition to SUPSI, physiotherapy is taught at present in three other Universities of Applied Sciences (UASs): Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Bern University of Applied Sciences and University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland. These institutions are therefore now responsible both for providing physiotherapy education and for boosting physiotherapy research with the aim of developing the profession. A first networking action bringing together UASs, hospitals, associations, policy makers, patients, clinicians and researchers has been promoted in order to increase the output of coherent research projects and to gain accountability within the Swiss healthcare system. Thanks to the UASs and the cooperation of various stakeholders, it has been possible to pinpoint research priorities for Swiss physiotherapists .Arch Physiother and hopefully others will do the same in the future.Different strategies can be identified to enhance the visibility of the contribution of physiotherapists to the healthcare system. A recognized route is without doubt the dissemination of research results via peer-review publications. For this reason a new physiotherapy scientific journal supporting the profession's development was welcome and the SUPSI has joined the SIF in this challenging editorial project. Colleagues from the other UASs – along with internationally-renowned scholars in physiotherapy research – have accepted to enter the Editorial Board of Arch Physiother articles are freely available immediately on publication. Indeed, with a full open-access model, the need of charging authors a fee to publish their articles is a major obstacle to receiving manuscript submissions, particularly for a new journal. The launch of a new open-access journal requires a solid business plan and a reliable budget to cover the costs of publication in the initial period, usually lasting several months, when articles are kept free for authors. Although the SIF is making an economical a contribution, the burden for the launch of Arch Physiother is being largely borne by the SUPSI which has obtained sufficient financing from the Thim van der Laan Foundation. Thanks to this foundation, authors will not need to pay an article-processing charge in the first four years of publication in Arch Physiother.The cooperation of the SUPSI in this project has allowed to undertake full open-access publishing – and, as a consequence, to choose the “open-access publisher” by definition, i.e. BioMed Central, signifying that all Arch Physiother and hope that in the future the cooperation of other partners and the involvement of physiotherapy associations and/or institutions in other European countries will allow to maintain this model in the coming years.The open-access model is rather rare among physiotherapy journals, due likely (or at least in part) to the limited funding usually available to physiotherapy researchers. A notable exception is the Journal of Physiotherapy which, in January 2014, ushered in an innovative model where the journal content is free for readers and its publication is free for authors, by virtue of a strategic plan of the Australian Physiotherapy Association . SIF andArch Physiother does not arise merely out of a need to ensure suitable visibility of the journal. Indeed, there is a growing awareness of some weakness in the traditional subscription model [Open-access articles are more widely read  and are on model  as demonon model .It has been shown that mortality rate among journals is quite high as is the birth rate . Happily


In an Essay, Michael Johansson and colleagues advocate the posting of research studies addressing infectious disease outbreaks as preprints. Preprints—manuscripts posted openly online prior to peer review—offer an opportunity to accelerate the dissemination of scientific findings to support responses to infectious disease outbreaks.Preprints posted during the Ebola and Zika outbreaks included novel analyses and new data, and most of those that were matched to peer-reviewed publications were available more than 100 days before publication.Despite the advantages of preprints and the endorsement of journals and funders in the context of outbreaks, less than 5% of Ebola and Zika journal articles were posted as preprints prior to publication in journals.With broader adoption by scientists, journals, and funding agencies, preprints can complement peer-reviewed publication and ensure the early, open, and transparent dissemination of science relevant to the prevention and control of disease outbreaks.Emerging public health threats, such as infectious disease outbreaks, require swift and evidence-based responses informed by science. However, the communication of scientific research is notoriously slow . When raOn February 10, 2016, more than 30 of the world’s largest and most prestigious public health journals and funding agencies issued a landmark statement on the importance of preprints and data sharing in public health emergencies such as the Ebola and Zika epidemics [http://www.biorxiv.org/), arXiv , F1000Research , PeerJ Preprints , and the World Health Organization Zika Open repository , which was established explicitly for the Zika epidemic  of the preprints to PubMed-indexed journal articles, and for Zika, 84 (48%). Four additional Zika preprints were matched to “Review” (1) or “Comparative Study” (3) publications in PubMed. Unmatched preprints may be preprints that were never submitted for peer-reviewed publication , were never accepted for publication, or were still in peer review at the end of the selected time periods.Preprints were increasingly used to disseminate new data during the Zika outbreak. Among the subset of preprints matched to journal articles described above, the proportion of preprints including original data increased substantially from 7% for Ebola to 46% for Zika . While a minority of preprints contained new data, the majority of preprints in both outbreaks included novel analyses, 84% for Ebola and 94% for Zika . The remainder were comprised of opinions, proposals for new lines of study, or research indirectly related to Ebola or Zika. The increase in data sharing between epidemics appears to represent a shift away from waiting for peer review and towards rapidly reported, open science. This shift should enable other researchers to build upon those findings and recognize the high value of data sharing (academic and otherwise), a common challenge in the midst of outbreaks.Preprint posting also led to earlier access to those data and analyses. Excluding manuscripts in F1000Research, which uses the preprint posting date as the publication date, the median delay between preprint posting and publication was approximately 150 days for both outbreaks, and less than 25% of the manuscripts were published within 100 days of posting. Notably, this delay, which may include submission to multiple journals, is quite similar to normal publication timelines [The successes of preprints in the Ebola and Zika epidemics belie a more complex story about preprint use during these outbreaks. While the number of preprints increased, data sharing was more common, and scientific findings were available earlier, adoption remained extremely low. Publications with preprints represented a small minority of all PubMed-indexed journal articles, at approximately 3.4%. The proportion was slightly higher for Zika compared to Ebola (3.8% versus 2.7%), likely indicating a small increase between outbreaks . Among signatory publishers, who represented approximately 25% and 29% of the publications for Ebola and Zika, respectively, this proportion was approximately 6.1% (95% CI 4.3% to 7.9%) higher than for nonsignatory publishers (7.8% versus 1.7%) . This suAlthough preprint adoption in both outbreaks was very low, 4 important advances were clear. First, the relatively higher preprint usage for signatory publishers both before and after the statement indicates that policy supportive of preprints can encourage their use. Second, the number of preprints posted increased between the 2 outbreaks, likely reflecting changing attitudes towards preprints in the life sciences and changing policies, including the data sharing statement . Third, Preprints also bring new challenges to outbreak responses . By defiFurther adoption of preprints also requires changes in how funders, scientists, and publishers value scientific contributions. All stakeholders agree that the best science should be brought to bear against outbreaks, yet they are also keenly aware of the importance of peer review and the scientific accolades that come with publishing novel, impactful research in prestigious journals. In the context of outbreaks, the goal of impacting the epidemic by immediately sharing important scientific findings conflicts with career goals tied to the slower, traditional, peer review-centered publication process. The low adoption of preprints during the Ebola and Zika epidemics is a symptom of uncertainty about preprints and this conflict of incentives. The signatory funders and publishers clearly endorsed preprints, but the majority of scientists did not realize that they could or should post preprints or thought that posting a preprint would jeopardize publication opportunities.http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php and Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_journals_by_preprint_policy). Second, all publishers should endorse preprint posting for research related to outbreaks. This would send a clear signal to all scientists that preprints are integral to scientific communication and help nonscientists identify preprints as a distinct form of communication compared to peer-reviewed publications [We advocate 4 steps to improve the adoption of preprints and speed the dissemination of science in the context of outbreaks. First, scientists should promote preprints by posting them and choosing to submit manuscripts to journals that accept preprints; many journals have policies that explicitly allow preprint posting . “journal” and “pub_type” are from the PubMed entry. “publisher” indicates the publisher if the publisher signed the data sharing statement. “new_data” and “new_analysis” indicate whether the authors judged the manuscript to contain new data or analysis, respectively (1 = True).(CSV)Click here for additional data file.S2 Dataset“pub_date” is the journal publication date as indicated by PubMed or the entry creation date if a specific journal publication date was not supplied. “pmid” and “journal” are the PubMed identification number and journal indicated by PubMed for the article. “publisher” indicates the publisher if the publisher signed the data sharing statement.(CSV)Click here for additional data file.