Notes for authors. Acta Crystallographica Section E: Structure Reports Online is the IUCr’s highly popular electronic-only structural journal. It provides a fast, simple and easily accessible publication mechanism for the growing number of valuable crystal structure determinations of inorganic, metal-organic and organic compounds. The electronic submission, validation, refereeing and publication facilities of the journal ensure rapid and high-quality publication, whilst key indicator flags are used to provide measures of structural reliability. The journal encourages the publication of routine as well as interesting and difficult structures.         Articles are published in a short-format style with enhanced supplementary materials  format. Details about CIFs are given in et al.Hall  . Guidelines for the preparation and editing of a CIF, the data items required therein, standard data codes and keywords, CIF templates, example CIFs, and data-validation criteria and procedures are available via the online author help page  may be obtained from http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/products/encifer/index.html; both editors are available free of charge. The Section Editors, Co-editors and Editorial Office staff are also available to assist any author with any technical CIF problems. Please note that this help does not include rewriting articles which do not reach the standards specified in §1.10All articles must be submitted in checkCIF service at http://journals.iucr.org/services/cif/checking/checkfull.html. All validation alerts returned by checkcif should be considered carefully and corrected as far as possible. Sometimes these alerts relate to simple omissions or errors in the CIF. If the report contains validation alerts about the consistency, adequacy or quality of the data or the refined model, these will need to be addressed, or, if the authors consider there are specific valid or unavoidable reasons for these alerts, the validation response form (VRF) supplied by checkCIF should be completed and included in the submitted CIF, preferably with the addition of appropriate explanatory text in the deposited experimental section of the CIF.Before submission, authors are required to check their CIF and associated structure factors using the printCIF service at http://journals.iucr.org/services/cif/printcif.html or by using publCIF. We strongly encourage authors to make use of this facility for checking the formatting of the supplementary materials.The text and tables of an article may be previewed by sending the CIF (after completing the pre-check) to the Section E publishes two categories of articles. The requested category must be specified in the submitted CIF as _publ_requested_category, using one of the codes listed below.               a) Short structural articles describe the determination of a single structure. The submitted CIF is validated using checkCIF and database checks are applied using the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database or the Cambridge Structural Database. The CIF, the checking results and associated files are then passed to a Co-editor for peer review. Once accepted, the article and associated graphics, together with the CIF and structure factors, will be accessible electronically from the Crystallography Journals Online service at http://journals.iucr.org. The category codes used to identify these articles are EI for inorganic, EM for metal–organic, and EO for organic compounds.(b) Addenda or Errata are short articles describing additions to, comments on, or errata to existing Section E publications and are not intended for interim reports of work in progress. The text should not exceed 1000 words. Addenda and Errata are peer reviewed. The category code for these articles is AD., with the two letters identifying the assigned Co-editor; the refcode should be used in all subsequent communications with the Editorial Office and Co-editor.data-validation criteria are available via the online CIF help page  are made to the submission, the journal reserves the right to reset the date of receipt of the article to the date of resubmission. If a manuscript is not acceptable after two revisions it will not be considered further. An article that has been rejected must not be resubmitted to any IUCr journal unless the reasons given for the rejection have been fully addressed in the revised version.Failure to respond to a communication from either a Co-editor or the Editorial Office staff Section E standards; in the unlikely event of significant changes being required at this stage, the authors will be contacted promptly.Once an article is accepted, it is the responsibility of the Managing Editor to prepare the article for publication and to correspond with the authors and/or the Co-editor to resolve publication ambiguities or inadequacies. The Section Editors review all accepted articles and reserve the right to request or make appropriate changes to ensure conformity with via the web interface only in response to a specific request from a Co-editor; these files should be uploaded at the web address provided by the Co-editor.After initial submission, any revised or new files should be uploaded e.g. a preprint server or newsletter, does not preclude publication in an IUCr journal.The submission of an article is taken as an implicit guarantee that the work is original, that it is the author(s) own work, that all authors are aware of and concur with the submission, that all workers involved in the study are listed as authors or given proper credit in the acknowledgements, that the manuscipt has not already been published (in any language or medium), and that it is not being considered and will not be offered elsewhere while under consideration for an IUCr journal. The inclusion of material in an informal publication, The co-authors of an article should be all those persons, and only those persons, who have made significant scientific contributions to the work reported, including the ideas and their execution, and who share responsibility and accountability for the results. Other contributions should be indicated in the acknowledgements. An administrative relationship to the investigation does not in itself qualify a person for co-authorship (but it may be appropriate to acknowledge major administrative assistance). Changes to the list of authors will normally require the agreement of the editor and all authors.Acc. Chem. Res. (2002), 35, 74–76 and Graf et al. . Authors are expected to comply with these guidelines.Important considerations related to publication have been given in the ethical guidelines published in Acta Crystallographica Sections B or C. Articles in a series should cross-reference each other. To allow handling of articles to be automated, all submissions should report single structures only. Series of single structure articles on closely related materials should not be merged. It is possible for submissions reporting related structures to be handled together and published as adjacent articles. Authors should select the same Co-editor for each article during submission. However, such studies may be more appropriately reported as a single article in Abstract must briefly state the changes and/or improvements attained.If a structure has been redetermined correctly and the result adds significantly to the information already in the public domain then the article can be considered for publication. Redeterminations that report a small improvement in precision or are merely carried out at a different temperature to previous studies will not normally be considered for publication. Unless they lead to significant insight, for example into reaction mechanisms or biological processes, determinations of the second enantiomer of a published first enantiomer of a structure will not be considered for publication. Redeterminations must cite the previous structure(s) and the The languages of publication are English, French, German and Russian. Submissions in English may use either British or American spelling, but must do so consistently throughout.http://journals.iucr.org/services/languageservices.html.            Articles must be clearly written and grammatically correct. If the Co-editor concludes that language problems would place an undue burden on the referee(s), the manuscript may be returned to the authors without review. Details of language-editing services can be found at Creative Commons Attribution Licence.            Authors will not be asked to transfer copyright to the IUCr, but will instead be asked to agree during article submission to an open-access licence. This licence is identical to the An author who believes that an article has been unjustifiably treated by the Co-editor may appeal initially to the Section Editors for a new review and, finally, to the Editor-in-chief of IUCr Journals if the author is still aggrieved by the decision. The initial appeal must be made within 3 months of rejection of the article. The decision of the Editor-in-chief is final. Any resubmission to another Co-editor will be forwarded to the Section Editors.data items required for submission is available via the online CIF help page  and a set of Frequently Asked Questions are also given. Note that in the shorter article format the Related literature section ’, ‘(neutron study)’ or ‘(synchrotron study)’, respectively. The full first name of each author is preferred. Note that the data items _publ_section_title_footnote and _publ_author_footnote are available, if required, for inserting footnotes to the title and to individual authors. If the article describes the redetermination of a previously reported structure, this should be indicated in the title. Part numbers for a series of related articles are not permitted in the title, but may be given as a title footnote.The Abstract must be written in English, be informative, and should summarize the most important aspects of the study. It is expected to be no more than 250 words and should be capable of being understood on its own without access to the text or figures. It should not contain the crystal data or, usually, the space group. The systematic IUPAC name and the chemical formula should be given here, if they are not included in the Title. The Abstract should include mention of any crystallographically imposed symmetry or the presence of more than one molecule (or formula unit) in the asymmetric unit of the structure. Principal structural geometry results can be given here. Literature references should be avoided if possible; if required, they must be given in full, e.g. .The Related literature section. Essential references  should be cited in this section, with appropriate very brief explanatory text, for example ‘The synthesis of the complex is described by Jones (2001). The anhydrous complex has essentially the same coordination geometry .’ In addition, all references included in the supplementary materials, but not elsewhere in the published article, should be given here. It is most useful for readers if the Related literature section is sub-divided, so that, instead of just "For related literature, see… ." it gives, for example, "For background to this class of compound, see… . For related structures, see… ." etc.All articles must include a Crystal data, Data collection and Refinement. Some numerical items may be formatted so that a standard number of decimal places is published. The full set of data in the CIF, as well as the content of the text sections _publ_section_exptl_prep, _exptl_special_details, _publ_section_exptl_refinement and _refine_special_details, will be provided in the supplementary materials. Authors should place a copy of their refinement instructions file(s), where available, in the _iucr_refine_instructions_details section and publCIF may be used for this purpose. This will facilitate the review of the manuscript, particularly when special refinement strategies, such as the use of restraints, have been employed Co-editors may request any additional experimental data or material they feel necessary to complete a full review of the article.Principal experimental data are extracted automatically from the CIF and are tabulated under the sub-headings Acknowledgement should be given for any assistance provided to the study  must be included for all but inorganic materials. Authors are required to submit such diagrams electronically in one of the formats listed in §5The chemical structure diagram should show only the compound whose structure is being reported. Chemical reaction schemes or schemes showing more than one compound should be supplied as supplementary figures and should have appropriate captions included in _publ_section_figure_captions  files of reported structures with their articles. These files will be made available as part of the supplementary materials for each article and will be used to provide InChI  keys for the article, making the structures easier to find in the chemical literature.http://journals.iucr.org/services/cif/powder.html.Authors of powder diffraction articles should consult the notes provided at The standard uncertainty  should be expressed as a number in parentheses following the numerical result and should be on the scale of the least significant digits of the result. The s.u. value should preferably be in the range 2–19. Note that s.u. values should not be appended to parameters which are fixed by symmetry, geometry or other constraints.Section E provides extensive supplementary materials for each article. They include the supplementary data files , as well as (a) HTML and PDF representations of the deposited CIF and (b) the crystallographic diagrams. All supplementary materials will be available from Crystallography Journals Online , the inclusion of which is encouraged. Additional details [e.g. lengthy synthetic descriptions and long lists of spectroscopic  data] supporting the crystallographic study should be placed in the _exptl_special_details section of the CIF. The text item _publ_section_exptl_refinement should be used to provide details of how H atoms were treated and report the ranges of X—H dimensions. Any unusual aspects of the data collection, space-group identification, data processing, structure determination and refinement (including any restraints used and the treatment of disorder) should also be given here. Routine material should be placed in _refine_special_details.The content of the text sections _atom_site_ coordinate and atomic displacement parameters (as ijU) must be supplied with standard uncertainty values (see §6.1_refine_ls_number_restraints). Note that only U or ijU values are acceptable for atomic displacement parameters. The atom numbering should follow some recognized scheme  should be avoided.Crystallographic diagrams will be available as part of the supplementary materials. Diagram requirements are given in §5Chemical reaction schemes or schemes showing more than one compound will be available as part of the supplementary materials. They should be supplied as supplementary figures and should have appropriate captions included in _publ_section_figure_captions  methods, the primary diffraction data, h, k, l, Y               meas, σY               meas, Y               calc  must be supplied as an electronic file in CIF format during the submission process. Note that in the case of structures determined from twinned crystals, the reflection data file used as input to the refinement program (e.g. the HKLF5 format file used by SHELXL) may be requested.The reflection data data required for submission is available from the online CIF help page  are acceptable. Corrections are usually unnecessary if μx is below 0.1. Refined absorption methods are discouraged except in special circumstances. The experimentally determined transmission-factor limits _exptl_absorpt_correction_T_min and _max should be consistent with those expected for the crystal shape and size, and μ.Permitted e.g. by using SADABS), authors are also encouraged to measure a multiplicity of observations  of at least 4. The algorithms used in such programs work best and produce the highest quality data only when the multiplicity of observations or coverage of the full sphere of reflections is high.Whenever a multi-scan type absorption correction is being employed . It is expected that all possible unique reflections out to at least the above specified minimum θ limits are measured. This provides the minimum number of reflections recommended for an average structural study. If intensities are consistently weak at the recommended θmax, low-temperature measurements may be needed unless a study at a specific temperature (or pressure) is being reported.The θ_diffrn_measured_fraction_theta_max                     _diffrn_reflns_theta_max. Ideally, this should be as close to 1.0  as possible.This is the fraction of unique (symmetry-independent) reflections measured out to _diffrn_reflns_theta_full                     _diffrn_measured_fraction_theta_max is less than 1.0 because of some missing high-angle reflections, θfull is the diffractometer angle at which the measured reflection count is close to complete. The fraction of unique reflections measured out to this angle is given by _diffrn_measured_fraction_theta_full.When _diffrn_reflns_av_R_equivalents                     after the corrections are applied to the intensities). See also _exptl_absorpt_correction_type.Sufficient symmetry-equivalent reflections must be measured to provide a good estimate of the intensity reproducibility. This is particularly important when absorption corrections are applied .Note that this value is _refine_ls_number_reflns                     _refine_ls_number_parameters by at least a factor of 10 if the structure is centrosymmetric, or by a factor of 8 if it is not. Omission of outlier reflections should be avoided unless there is good reason and, in such cases, details of the omitted reflections and the reasons for doing so should be included in the _publ_section_exptl_refinement section.The number of reflections used in the refinement should be as large as possible, and should, if possible, be greater than the number of refined parameters _refine_ls_number_parameters                     This is the number of coordinate, atomic displacement, scale, occupancy, restraint, extinction and other parameters refined independently in the least-squares process. It is possible, and sometimes desirable, to reduce this number by the appropriate application of geometric constraints._refine_ls_number_restraints                     _refine_special_details section of the CIF.This gives the number of applied restraints. Concise details of what these restraints were, including any target values applied and the effective standard deviation of the restraint, should be included in the _refine_ls_hydrogen_treatment                     codes which identify the treatment of H-atom parameters are listed in the online CIF help page  will not have s.u. values associated with them.The _refine_ls_weighting_scheme                     Weighting schemes for refinements should be based on the standard uncertainties in the measured reflection data._refine_ls_shift/su_max                     _publ_section_exptl_refinement.This is the largest ratio of the parameter shift to standard uncertainty after the final round of refinement and is typically within ±0.01 if sufficient least-squares refinement cycles have been employed. A value above ±0.05 is considered unusual and values beyond ±0.1 are a sign of incomplete refinement, unaccounted-for disorder or high correlation between parameters that should be constrained. Authors should explain the reasons for a high value in _refine_diff_density_min                     _refine_diff_density_max                     _publ_section_exptl_refinement.These values are expected to be small, especially for light-atom structures. If their magnitudes are such that a validation alert is generated, the label and the distance of the closest atom site should be reported in _geom_                     _atom_site_fract_ values. Only geometry values of significance to the structure will be published. These must be identified with a _geom_..._flag value of yes in the submitted CIF. Note that dimensions involving H-atom sites which have been fixed or constrained by geometry will not have s.u. values associated with them. Details of all bond lengths and angles involving H atoms must be included in the CIF, even if they have been constrained.All geometry values must originate from the submitted _atom_site_                     _atom_site_occupancy should be 1.0 except for disordered or non-stoichiometric atom sites. Atom sites constrained to model disorder must be indicated by _atom_site_disorder_group. The overall packing in the structure will be checked for significant vacant regions (i.e. voids) indicating omitted solvent molecules. Note that s.u. values should not be appended to parameters which are fixed by symmetry, geometry or other constraints. In systems with hydrogen-bonded networks, it is expected that the asymmetric unit will be chosen so that the minimum number of symmetry operators is required to specify the hydrogen-bond network.Atomic coordinates for molecular structures should be supplied as connected sets. Whenever structure geometry permits, it is normally expected that the set of connected coordinates which specify the asymmetric unit will lie within the basic unit cell. Values of _atom_site_aniso_U_                     e.g. disorder), exceed 5.Checks will be made for non-positive-definite anisotropic atomic displacement parameters. The ratio of maximum to minimum eigenvalues should not, except in special circumstances (_refine_ls_abs_structure_details                     e.g. _refine_ls_abs_structure_Flack). If the structure is non-centrosymmetric, an absolute structure parameter is expected. The reliability of this parameter increases with the number of Friedel-related intensities, and the use of a large fraction of the complete set of Friedel pairs in the refinement is strongly recommended. Even if the atomic composition and the choice of X-ray wavelength mean that the f′′ terms of the atomic scattering factor expressions are very small, and the value of the absolute structure parameter is inconclusive because of its large s.u. value, it is not necessary to merge Friedel-pair reflections. If authors do merge Friedel-pair reflections before final refinement, they should mention that fact in the _publ_section_exptl_refinement section and not report a value for the Flack parameter in the CIF. Authors are strongly advised to consult articles by Flack & Bernardinelli  and by Flack, Sadki, Thompson & Watkin . For pertinent comments on the determination of absolute structure authors are also referred to the articles by Acta Cryst. (1986), A42, 57Jones  and et al. .This item should describe the method applied, with a literature citation if necessary, and the number of Friedel pairs used in the determination of the absolute structure parameter  and the cell origin (labelled O) marked thereon or given in a legend at the side.Atom site labels in supplementary crystallographic diagrams should not contain parentheses and should match labels used in the atom site lists and text. The labels should not overlap or touch ellipsoids or bonds. Descriptive matter should be placed in the caption. Packing diagrams should show the unit-cell outline, with the cell-axis directions .Authors should follow the general recommendations produced by the IUCr Commision on Crystallographic Nomenclature . Label numbers should not be placed in parentheses. Chemical and crystallographic numbering should be in agreement wherever possible. Crystallographically equivalent atoms in different asymmetric units should be identified in the text with lower-case Roman numeral superscripts appended to the original atom labels and the symmetry operators defined .Robinson, P. D. (2012). Acta Cryst. A64, 112–122.Sheldrick, G. M. (2008). Chem. Rev. 88, 149–182.Smith, J. V. (1988). Smith, J. (2000). Private communication (refcode: PYMTLI01). CCDC, Cambridge, England.Am. Mineral. 66, 777–788.Smith, J. V. & Bennett, J. M. (1981). Textbook of Practical Organic Chemistry, 4th ed. London: Longman.Vogel, A. (1978). inclusive page numbers must be given, except when the cited article has only one page, and that all computer programs given in the relevant _computing_..._ entries must be referenced and included in the reference list. Note that version numbers should not be given for computer programs. Identification of individual structures in the article by use of database reference (identification) codes should be accompanied by a full citation of the original literature in the reference list. The CIF editor, publCIF . ] to show the features of the short-format style articles.An example CIF submission can be found at http://journals.iucr.org/services/status.html.Authors may obtain information about the current status of their article at Section E standards; any remaining problems will be referred back to authors.Proofs will be provided electronically as PDF files, and the contact author will be notified by e-mail when the proofs are ready for downloading. Any proof corrections must be returned within two days. Proofs will have been checked by the Section Editors, who reserve the right to make minor changes for consistency and conformity to After publication, the contact author will be able to download the electronic reprint of the published article, free of charge.via                Crystallography Journals Online;                http://journals.iucr.org/. All IUCr journals are available on the web Acta Crystallographica Section E is an open-access journal. The costs of peer review, of journal production, and of online hosting and archiving will be met by charging an open-access fee to authors.            Authors will be asked to pay an open-access fee upon acceptance of their article for publication. Authors from developing countries may apply for their open-access fees to be waived. Waiver requests must be made before submission of an article to the journal.Acta Crystallographica Section C are eligible for a discount on the open-access fee. In addition, discounts are available for advance payment of open-access fees.Authors whose institution has a full subscription to http://journals.iucr.org/services/oa/openaccess_e.html.Full details of the open-access arrangements for Section E are available at


European Journal of Medical Research has joined BioMed Central's portfolio of journals in January 2012, converting to the open access publishing model. Since its launch in 1995 the journal has been a print-only publication; from now on, it continues as an open access, online-only journal. The conversion to open access opens up the potential for the journal to become a leading, globally visible title in the field of general medicine over the coming years.The well-established  The change in the publishing model awards this well-established title with an opportunity to develop into a leading general medicine journal over the coming years.As of today, at the outset of its 17Founded by the Munich-based publishing house Holzapfel Verlag in 1995, the journal soon became a respected and broadly indexed resource. Until the end of 2011, however, the journal remained a print-only publication. While many other aspects of the journal will continue without change, the publishing 'format' is now changing, from print-only to online-only and from subscription-based economics to the open access model with article processing charges borne, after peer review and upon acceptance, by authors' home institutions or research funders. The rapid growth of high-quality open access publications is rooted in the fact that an increasing number of universities, funding agencies and governmental agencies support or even mandate open access, in different ways and through different means.Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica, which has seen its impact factor quadruple since its move to BioMed Central in 2006, and Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, another long-established society publication, which has seen its impact factor almost treble to 4.3 three years after it became an open access title [The journal's new publisher, BioMed Central  has over recent years accumulated a wealth of experience with journal transfers and conversions to open access. A rapidly growing number of journals in BioMed Central's portfolio moved there from other publishing arrangements. In such cases, a clear trend has emerged that shows an increase of these journals' impact factors after two to three years when the open access articles start forming the basis of the calculations. Higher visibility and unrestricted access lead to increased impact , of whicEuropean Journal of Medical Research, and the Editorial Board and BioMed Central as the publisher will work together to achieve this. As a first step towards this aim, the new publisher has converted the technical format of all articles published in the journal in 2010 and 2011 to make them freely available for a global readership.We are optimistic that we can achieve a similar effect for While the scope of the journal remains unchanged, with continued focus on clinical research, there is from now on unrestricted 'space' to publish articles from across the full spectrum of medical disciplines, with no restrictions set by page budgets. With regard to acceptability of research that falls into the journal's scope, the only restricting factor is quality, and the guardians of quality are the members of the Editorial Board. Future changes of the size and composition of the board will reflect a number of factors, such as the overall growth of the journal, the 'share' of articles from the diversity of medical subjects, and the objective to build a truly pan-European base for the journal.European Journal of Medical Research lies in open access. What further changes will we see as a result of its re-launch as an open access journal? Which new audiences will it find, and which medical disciplines will be most represented among the publications? We are curious to find out over the coming years, and this curiosity is based on our confidence that the conversion to open access and online publishing puts the journal in a strong position to continue its success story. We look forward to work with 'old' and 'new' colleagues on this new chapter in the story entitled 'European Journal of Medical Research'.The journal's success story since its launch 17 years ago is the achievement of its founders and editors, Ferdinand Holzapfel, Monika Ortner-Bach, and Professor Nepomuk Zöllner as the first Editor-in-Chief, together with so many colleagues who contributed and continue to contribute as authors, editors, and reviewers. The future of


Leslie Chan and colleagues discuss the value of open access not just for accessto health information, but also for transforming structural inequity in currentacademic reward systems and for valuing scholarship from the South. Unequal access to and distribution of public knowledge is governed byNorthern standards and is increasingly inappropriate in the age of thenetworked “Invisible College”.Academic journals remain the primary distribution mechanism for researchfindings, but commercial journals are largely unaffordable fordeveloping countries; local journals—more relevant to resolvingproblems in the South—are near-invisible and under-valued.Donor solutions are unsustainable, are governed by markets rather thanuser needs, and instil dependency.Open access is sustainable and research driven and builds independenceand the capacity to establish a strong research base; it is alreadyconverting local journals to international journals.However, as open access becomes the norm, standards for the assessment ofjournal quality and relevance remain based on Northern values thatignore development needs and marginalise local scholarship.There is growing recognition that the capacity to conduct research and to share theresulting knowledge is fundamental to all aspects of human development, fromimproving health care delivery to increasing food security, and from enhancingeducation to stronger evidence-based policymaking. Today, the primary vehicle fordisseminating research is still the peer-reviewed journal, which has retained muchof its traditional form and function, although now it is largely digital. Butdespite improved access to the Internet, researchers in the developing worldcontinue to face two problems—gaining access to academic publications due tothe high cost of subscriptions, and getting their research published in“international” journals, because their work is either considered to beonly of local or regional interest or does not meet the quality standards requiredby the major commercial indexes. The cartographic representation of the worldaccording to the volume of publications from each country in early 2000 starklydepicts a world of highly unequal contribution and participation in science .http://www.research4life.org/). The Research4Life program is thecollective name for three journal access programs–HINARI, AGORA, andOARE—and comprises a public–private partnership between major commercialpublishers and three United Nations (UN) agencies  is managedby the World Health Organization [WHO] in partnership withYale University Library and the program provides free or very lowcost online access to the major journals in biomedical and relatedsocial sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in qualifiedlow income countries.AGORA  is managed bythe Food and Agriculture Organization in partnership with CornellUniversity and provides access to over 1,200 international journalscovering agriculture, fisheries, food, nutrition, veterinaryscience, and related biological, environmental, and social sciences.It also includes several important databases and indexes.OARE (Online Access to Research in the Environment) is coordinated bythe United Nations Environment Programme at Yale University andprovides access to more than 2,000 scientific journals in a widerange of disciplines contributing to our understanding of thenatural environment.The recent announcement by the commercial publisher Elsevier (a HINARI foundingpartner) of withdrawal of access to their journals from Bangladeshi institutions,and the subsequent announcement that Bangladesh is in transition towards a paidlicensing scheme Coming as these programs do with the blessings of the UN agencies and powerfulcommercial publishers, it has been hard to wean research communities off dependencysystems and onto true open access (OA) resources. These resources include thegrowing number of OA journals and institutional repositories worldwide that are nowaccessible free of cost to anyone with Internet access. The growing volume of OAresources provides a far greater degree of freedom for researchers to exchange andcollaborate, for knowledge to be translated into useable forms by frontline healthworkers, and for emerging technologies such as text mining and semantic tagging forfaster knowledge discovery to be used. It must be underscored that such usages andredistribution are not permitted by donated content included in the Research4Lifeprograms, even though users are free to read such content. Further, while the”free access” programs purport to be providing essential articles toresearchers in poor nations (excluding countries such as India where the publishershave an existing market), access is not country-wide, but is only available if theresearchers work in the registered institutions.For scholarly publishers and researchers in the South, OA is particularly importantbecause it provides an unprecedented opportunity for South–South exchange andfor local research to become an integral part of the global knowledge commons. Moreimportantly, research findings from regions with similar socioeconomic conditionsmay be far more relevant than research from the richer countries. This isparticularly true with health care and medical treatments.African Health Sciences, edited byDr. James K. Tumwine and published by the Faculty of Medicine at Makerere Universityin Uganda. This 10-year-old journal is thriving on the Web (http://www.bioline.org.br/hs) and gaining international recognitionand global usage, showing that OA is not only viable, but with time will become thenorm. The journal is one of a small number of African-based journals indexed byMedline, and the journal content is also archived in PubMedCentral , ensuring thelong-term accessibility of the growing body of knowledge recorded in the journal andby the growing community of researchers from the region. It is encouraging to knowthat across Africa, the number of journals that are becoming OA is growing, as isawareness about institutional repositories, thanks to the efforts of organizationssuch as the Electronic Information for Libraries (http://www.eifl.org/) and theElectronic Publishing Trust for Development (http://www.epublishingtrust.org/), the latter of which all threeauthors are trustees.Take, for example, the journal Another major potential of OA is the correction to the current structural problem ofthe academic evaluation and reward system, which has been dominated by a set ofnarrowly defined citation measures, most notably the journal impact factor (JIF),owned and controlled by the information conglomerate Thomson Reuters. Theconsolidation of the JIF as a global yardstick for measuring the quality of journalshas created a highly competitive landscape of journal ranking and citation gaming,with journals from the developing countries being consistently marginalized This structural inequality has resulted in a citation and reputation divide in thedeveloping world, with a sub-community of authors who publish almost exclusively in“international” journals indexed in the Thomson Reuters (formerly ISI)Web of Knowledge, while others are oriented towards research and publication in“local” journals on topics of interest to “local” audiencesAcceptance of new forms of metrics for measuring research impact and adoption by thefunding agencies would require a substantial cultural shift, but this is a greatpotential of OA that must be heeded. At the same time, there needs to be afundamental shift from thinking of knowledge as private property for nationalcompetitive advantage, to the collective thinking of knowledge as a Global PublicGood But the financing of a global knowledge commons and its governance remains one of themost intractable problems today, because there is no world body that possesses theauthority to tax globally in order to finance the production of global public goodsBut there are already important lessons we can learn from the success of OA so far,and from the world of open source software and what Benkler The advent of the Web and the shift from “Big Science” to networkedscience creates unprecedented opportunities for developing countries to tapOA's potential and contribute on an equal footing. Rather than investing scarceresources in retrograde efforts to mimic or duplicate the scientific institutionsand practices of the past century, developing country policymakers can leveragenetworks by creating incentives for scientists to focus on research that addressestheir concerns and by finding ways to mobilize knowledge for local problem solving.As network accessibility across Africa and other developing regions continues togrow, it is important that researchers begin to take full advantage of the newnetworking tools and collaborative opportunities to address local issues as well asto attain international research opportunities on limited resources. We are all partof what Caroline Wagner called the “New Invisible College”, a globalnetworked college based on mutual interests and open sharing of knowledge, and freefrom market control of public goods The OA movement, driven as it is by the Invisible College, is an opportunity tore-think not only the equal distribution of all research knowledge, but toreconsider the way in which knowledge is valued and measured.


International Journal of Tryptophan Research (IJTR)—a new peer reviewed open access journal published by Libertas Academica.I am pleased to announce the launch of International Journal of Tryptophan Research is an international, open access, peer reviewed journal, which covers all subjects related to Tryptophan research. There is no suitable journal that focuses on Tryptophan, and the IJTR aims to fill this void and provide a forum for those with interests in this area.The The journal also covers related precursors and metabolites such as serotonin, melatonin, niacin, tryptamine, kynurenine, and studies related to enzymes such as indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase and tryptophan hydroxylase. Topics include isolation, functionality, interactions, analysis, synthesis and industrial production, as well as supplementation and role in diet, physiology, neurological disorders and immune response. However all articles related to Tryptophan are welcome.The journal will be competing head-on with a number of existing subscription-based journals. However, there is clearly a niche for the new journal. The reason for this is because all journal articles will be accessible without any access boundaries to all internet users throughout the world. Another major benefit of open access online journals is that anyone can contribute, and not only those in major institutions. These freedoms are coupled with rigorous, fair and prompt standards of peer review.International Journal of Tryptophan Research is published exclusively online. Articles will follow a consistent format so that the visual impact will be high and equal to that of the best hard-copy publications. In contrast to paper-based journals, however, the electronic format allows the full use of digital technologies and permits the inclusion of large data sets, from field and laboratory studies, links to other web pages, animations, slide shows, video clips and unlimited colour, all at no additional charge. Open access means that all articles are freely available to all, worldwide, and at no cost to the reader. Authors retain copyright of their work and can grant anyone the right to reproduce and disseminate it, provided that it is correctly cited and no errors are introduced, under the Creative Commons “CC-BY” licence.International Journal of Tryptophan Research, as in other open access journals, these costs are borne by the author in the form of a publication processing fee. Many grant-awarding bodies recognise the value of open access publishing by allowing their funds to be used for PPFs. Fee waivers and discounts are available on a case-by-case basis, and we shall make every effort to ensure that lack of funds does not impede the overall objective of publishing the best science, irrespective of authorship or country of origin.In hard-copy journals, the costs of publication are met by subscriptions, paid by the reader. In I do not foresee that open access, online journals will totally replace the traditional print format in the immediate future, although this may be an increasing trend with time. I am certain, however, that the benefits of online publication, and the extra opportunities that digital technologies give to authors, will be increasingly recognised. Open access is of huge benefit to the researchers working in institutions around the world where institutional libraries are unable to afford subscription fees for a full range of journals.International Journal of Tryptophan Research will attract manuscripts of the highest quality which are of the greatest possible benefit to readers. Peer review is undertaken by at least two leading experts in the area of the manuscript.I expect that For further information on what we hope will be an exciting and highly useful new journal, please click on the “about this journal” links on the journal’s web page.


Microbiome is a tale of two subdisciplines finding philosophical common ground fueled by substantial technological advancements in DNA sequencing and analysis. Until recently it was possible to neatly divide microbiology into two largely exclusive subdisciplines: clinical microbiology and environmental microbiology. Guided by Koch’s postulates for more than a century [The backstory to the motivation for launching  century ,2, clini century  is clearThe new appreciation of microbial diversity and the tree of life was driven by molecular phylogenetic analysis of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene . Save thWhile environmental microbiologists were shaping and pressing forward the new discipline of microbial ecology, clinical microbiologists were shaping the genomics revolution through shotgun DNA sequencing and computational assembly of whole bacterial genomes . Access It's difficult to credit a singular event to the recent philosophical push for clinical microbiologists to investigate how host-associated microbial communities may influence the health and disease states of plants and animals, and as a consequence adopt the community scale approaches developed by environmental microbiologists. Certainly, the $115 million National Institutes of Health investment in the Human Microbiome project ,8 helpedMicrobiome will facilitate the cross-fertilization of ideas, research methods and analyses, and theory between clinical and environmental microbiologists exploring the emergent impacts of microbial communities on the ecosystems they inhabit. A focus on microbial communities will therefore be the glue connecting the studies published in Microbiome. Topics covered in the journal will address all aspects of the study of microbial communities, including (but not limited to): marker gene surveys; ‘-omics’ surveys , bioinformatic and other analytical tools, and community theory. To help facilitate data sharing within the microbiome research community, we have developed a new article type – Microbiome Announcement – designed for initial reporting of datasets in advance of the more expansive bioinformatics analyses required of in-depth studies. Although brief in terms of text and figures, Microbiome Announcements will emphasize detailed reporting of research methodologies and metadata through supplemental materials. We feel strongly that such detailed methods reporting will help advance the field and enhance the scientific value of meta-omics data.Our hope is that Microbiome. Once accepted, all articles published in Microbiome will be freely available through the journal web portal and within the major research publication databases such as PubMed Central in due course. Also, because authors, not the publisher, will hold the copyright to their work, they will be free to distribute published articles. The scientific and societal benefits of open-access publication are clear — open access allows for the fastest and broadest possible dissemination of new findings, features critical in a journal focused on such a rapidly advancing research field.Further aiding the advancement of microbiome research will be the open-access publication polices of To help realize our core goal of bringing together environmental and clinical microbiologists who share interests in studying microbial communities, we have assembled an editorial board of scientists who span a broad range of research interests within environmental science, computational biology, medicine, and agriculture. We hope that you will join us in this exciting and novel endeavor to promote scientific cross-fertilization between clinical and environmental microbiology and advance fundamental understanding of microbial communities in all corners of the biosphere.


The journal is dedicated to expedite rapid publication of manuscripts that significantly advance the knowledge of nutrition and metabolism related to exercise physiology, diabetes, obesity, lipidemias, metabolic syndrome, atherosclerosis, cancer etc. Nutrition & Metabolism also publishes manuscripts pertaining to biochemistry of metabolism, cell signaling, molecular and cellular biology of nutrients, nutrient gene interactions and other areas that have implications for human nutrition and medicine. Current, but not exclusive, interests are metabolic effects of diet composition, interactions of macronutrients, effect of nutrients on gene expression, metabolic control and compartment models, nutritional effect of hormones, and genomic analysis of dietary phenomena.Nutrition & Metabolism was co-founded by Drs. Feinman and Hussain in 2004 as an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal to keep readers up-to-date on recent developments in important areas of nutrition, exercise physiology, clinical investigations, and molecular and cellular biochemistry of metabolism. Nutrition & Metabolism publishes approximately 36% of the submitted articles. The journal received an impressive first impact factor of 3.00 in 2009 indicating that published papers were highly cited soon after their publication  determines the suitability of the manuscript for publication in Nutrition & Metabolism. Articles of low perceived importance or poor quality are immediately returned to authors with no further review. If the manuscript is deemed suitable for further evaluation, it is sent for peer-review. The first priority is given to anonymous, unbiased peer-reviewers suggested by the computer based on their publications related to the subject of the article. In addition, we solicit opinion from at least one member of the editorial board. Further, consideration is also given to the reviewers recommended by the authors. Hence, every paper undergoes a stringent peer review process to evaluate objectively the quality, originality, and scientific merit of the papers. After publication, the papers are open to comments by the scientific community. The comments are first reviewed by the editors for their validity and correctness and then sent to the authors for their response. Both comments and responses are published online and have open access.Every paper undergoes a two-tier, quality control, evaluation process. First, Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, or an Associate Editors (Nutrition & Metabolism your first choice to disseminate your precious data.Besides the dedication and expertise of the Editorial Board members and reviewers, the success of the journal depends on the valuable contributions from investigators. Hence, we solicit comments from all the authors about the integrity and timeliness of the review process, authenticity, clarity and appropriateness of the reviews, and any other comments that would make Nutrition & Metabolism is published by BioMed Central, part of Springer Science+Business Media. BioMed central is committed to ensuring open access peer-reviewed biomedical research. This means that published material is freely and universally accessible online. It is archived in at least one internationally recognized free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and license agreement. Nutrition & Metabolism’s articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine’s full-text repository of life science literature, and also at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands’ digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library’s e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.Nutrition & Metabolism is the identification and publication of timely and important contributions to the field of nutrition & metabolism. We invite potential authors to visit the journal homepage http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com, and submit their new and exciting papers online.One of the major goals of Ahmed Bakillah, Managing EditorM. Mahmood Hussain, Editor-In-ChiefJanuary 1st, 2013


Looking forward to an exciting 2014Journal of Children’s Orthopaedics) will become open access (OA) as of January 2014.We would like to announce that our journal, JCOR  for JCOR will be paid by EPOS on behalf of all authors regardless of society membership.JCOR will be operated in the same way as before. Authors, readers and editors will continue to use the same online-system for manuscript submission and peer review. Any article submitted to JCOR will continue to be subjected to the journal’s thorough peer-review process and will be accepted or rejected based on the reviewers’ evaluation, article’s quality and relevance. Only articles that have been formally accepted for publication according to JCOR’s high standards will be published. Articles will instantly be freely available to read, download and share from the moment they are published.Springer will use its best practice to ensure the widest possible visibility and dissemination of the Journal, including immediate access to journal articles via PubMed Central and PubMed without embargo.All articles published in the Journal will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY), which is industry ‘best practice’ and meets requirements by research funders such as RCUK, Wellcome Trust, US NIH and many academic and clinical institutions.We are looking forward to your continuous support in our journal.Happy New Year!Looking forward to an exciting 2014.


Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA), the American Heart Association's new Open Access journal. The Scientific Publishing Committee created JAHA to align the American Heart Association with recent trends in the publishing industry as readers have moved away from the print version of journals and increasingly seek rapid electronic access to scientific articles. In addition, JAHA was conceived as a novel publication forum to represent the collective interests of the 16 Scientific Councils .6 This paper is important because of the need for more comparative effectiveness research to guide the management of peripheral arterial disease and the importance of publishing both positive and negative studies. Fonarow et al showed that the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) provides strong prognostic information about 30-day mortality risk in Medicare beneficiaries with acute ischemic stroke.7 The forthcoming editorial by Dr Edward Jauch, Chair of the American Heart Association Stroke Council, explains how these findings may be used to better evaluate the performance of centers that manage patients with ischemic stroke.8 Finally, Barkoudah et al provide an interesting analysis of published clinical trials in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus providing new information about the increasingly recognized links between renal disease and cardiovascular mortality.9Our launch includes a number of outstanding papers that exemplify our goal to publish a broad range of cardiovascular science. A translational study by Ammirati et al links a specific T-lymphocyte subset to the extent of atherosclerosis in human subjects and a murine dyslipidemia model.JAHA. The editors believe that the open access format represents the future of scientific publishing and we are excited and honored to oversee the American Heart Association's first open access journal. We look forward to working with our authors to speed the dissemination of high-quality science to our readers with the ultimate goal of increasing our understanding of the underlying mechanisms and improving the management of patients with cardiovascular disease and stroke.Our first articles and editorials demonstrate our commitment to publish a wide range of cardiovascular science in


Peer review is the major method used by biomedical journals for making the decision of publishing an article. This cross-sectional survey assesses views concerning the review system of biomedical journals among academics globally.A total of 28,009 biomedical academics from high-ranking universities listed by the 2009 Times Higher Education Quacquarelli Symonds (THE-QS) World University Rankings were contacted by email between March 2010 and August 2010. 1,340 completed an online survey which focused on their academic background, negative experiences and views on biomedical journal peer review and the results were compared among basic scientists, clinicians and clinician scientists.Fewer than half of the respondents agreed that the peer review systems of biomedical journals were fair (48.4%), scientific (47.5%), or transparent (25.1%). Nevertheless, 58.2% of the respondents agreed that authors should remain anonymous and 64.4% agreed that reviewers should not be disclosed. Most, (67.7%) agreed to the establishment of an appeal system. The proportion of native English-speaking respondents who agreed that the “peer review system is fair” was significantly higher than for non-native respondents (p = 0.02). Similarly, the proportion of clinicians stating that the “peer review system is fair” was significantly higher than that for basic scientists and clinician-scientists (p = 0.004). For females, , the frequency of encountering personal attacks in reviewers’ comments  and the frequency of imposition of unnecessary references by reviewers  were independently and inversely associated with agreement that “the peer review system is fair”.Academics are divided on the issue of whether the biomedical journal peer review system is fair, scientific and transparent. A majority of academics agreed with the double-blind peer review and to the establishment of an appeal system. Female academics, experience of personal attacks and imposition of unnecessary references by reviewers were related to disagreement about fairness of the peer review system of biomedical journals. For centuries, peer review has been the major method to determine the fate of an article submitted to biomedical journals. The process involves inviting reviewers to evaluate an article . They thAnonymous reviewers may also exhibit undesirable behaviors such as unreasonable delay, low quality critiques, personal attacks, abuse of position or breach of confidentiality concerning reviewed articles. The conventional peer review system may not be good enough in scrutinizing the best biomedical science for publication and can be improved . There hvice versa, are commonly adopted in biomedical journals. Proponents of an open review system emphasized the restoration of a balance between privilege and responsibility of reviewers. An open system, which identifies the reviewers to the public, may reduce the abuse of anonymity, as well as encouraging reviewers to provide fair and constructive comments, thus enhancing the transparency of any COI amongst the reviewers [A double-blind review system in which the identities of both authors and reviewers are blind to each other, or a single-blind system where authors are blind to the identities of the reviewers but not eviewers . Some bieviewers  and reseeviewers . Ultimateviewers . Double-eviewers ,16. In aeviewers . In manyeviewers .Currently, little information exists on the views and experiences of academics concerning the biomedical journal peer review system . The PubThe aim of this study was to assess views about the peer review system of biomedical journals among academics from high-ranking universities as determined by the Times Higher Education Quacquarelli Symonds (THE-QS) World University Rankings globally. The primary hypothesis was that most academics would agree that the current peer review system of biomedical journals is fair, transparent and scientific. The secondary hypothesis was that native English-speaking academics would be more likely to agree with the primary hypothesis. In addition, we hypothesized that there would be no significant difference in the agreement with the primary hypothesis between basic scientists, clinician-scientists, and clinicians. Finally, we hypothesized that most academics would support the establishment by journals of an appeal system for article submission. In addition to the above hypotheses, we also examined factors associated with agreement with the primary hypothesis.The authors developed a 28-item anonymous online questionnaire with items under four major themes: 1. Demographic characteristics , 2. Academic background , 3. Negative experiences with biomedical journal peer review , and 4. Positive aspects of the peer review system of biomedical journals . In addition, open and qualitative comments on peer review systems were collected. The responses to the items of negative experiences and positive aspects of the current peer review system were constructed as 5-point Likert scales. Higher scores indicate higher frequency of occurrence or stronger agreement.To better represent the geographical distribution and involvement of scientists and clinicians with adequate publishing experiences in international peer-reviewed journals, the following procedures were implemented. Academics from high-ranking universities were chosen, as these universities have been more heavily involved in research than teaching. The inclusion criteria of universities were 1) being listed in the top 200 universities of the THE – QS World University Rankings (2009), 2) having a school of medicine in the university, 3) the school of medicine having both basic science and clinical departments, 4) the school of medicine having a website which provides email addresses of academic staff. Based on the THE-QS World University Rankings 2009, we then identified a representative sample of universities within different countries across the five continents using a multistage stratification method. At the initial stage, a limit of 5 universities per country and a maximum of 15 countries per continent were set to ensure a representative sample. The universities were first stratified by global ranking and by country, and then further by within-country ranking (i.e. top 5). Where 4 or fewer universities met the criteria from a single country, all of the universities were included. At the final stage of stratification, the universities were chosen according to their countries (a maximum of 15 countries per continent). In case 14 or fewer countries ranked in one continent, all of the universities were included in the study.This was a closed survey and an invitation with a cover letter explaining the purpose of the survey was sent via e-mail to 28,009 biomedical academics from 65 universities worldwide during the period of March to August 2010. A link to the online survey was provided in the email for interested participants to complete the survey. All responses were voluntary and anonymous. There was no advertisement and no incentive for participation. No personal data, such as name of the academics or affiliations were collected in the survey as a measure to protect personal information. Only completed surveys were accepted. All the data were collated via the online questionnaire and stored in a database, which was continuously updated during the survey period. Ethics approval was sought from the ethics committee of School of Medicine, Shandong University and all procedures are in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration.The response rate was calculated by dividing the number of forms completed during the study period by the number of invitations sent. Descriptive statistics of the characteristics of respondents and responses to each question are presented. As non-respondents had refused to participate in the survey, no attributable demographic information is available for comparison with respondents. Analyses are based on the respondents’ current working locations (continents), occupations ; first languages (English as their first language or English as their second language), with individual data aggregated by calculating proportions per category. Normally distributed data were presented as a mean and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) or standard deviation (SD), whereas data that were not normally distributed were presented as a median and 95% CI. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted separately to assess the individual associations of demographics and academic backgrounds, with attitudes towards fairness of the peer review system of biomedical journals. Variables that were found to be significantly associated with the agreement of fairness of the peer review system in the univariate ANOVA (p < 0.05) were included in the final models. We have referred to the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES) in our presentations of results .We received 1,340 responses from 28,009 invitation sent via emails with an overall response rate of 4.8%. Figure Table Table Table 2 = 11.0, p = 0.004) and imposition of unnecessary references  was significantly higher than that among native English-speaking respondents.Table 2 = 7.8, p = 0.02) and to the establishment of an appeal system  was significantly higher than for non-native counterparts. The proportion of native English-speaking respondents who disagreed that reviewers should be exempted from declaring COI , editors should give an article a fair hearing and be free from personal bias  and they should screen for unfair comments  was significantly higher than for non-native English speakers. In contrast, the proportion of non-native English-speaking respondents who agreed that journal peer review is scientific  and remained neutral about the competency of reviewers  was significantly higher than for native English-speaking respondents.For the views on biomedical journal peer review, the proportion of native English-speaking respondents who agreed that peer review is fair , breach of confidentiality by reviewers , unauthorised use of an article’s information by reviewers after rejection of the article , and imposition of unnecessary references by reviewers  was significantly higher than for basic scientists and clinician-scientists.Table 2 = 15.2, p = 0.004) and to the anonymity of authors  was significantly higher than for basic scientists and clinician-scientists. The proportion of clinician-scientists who agreed that journal peer review is free from interference  was significantly lower than for basic scientists and clinicians.As for views on biomedical journal peer review, the proportion of clinicians who agreed that journal peer review is fair , Australia and New Zealand , North America  and Europe . No significant difference was found in South America and Africa. For the frequencies of unauthorised use of articles’ information by reviewers after rejection of articles, 85.7% (95% CI: 83.9% to 87.6%) reported rare or infrequent occurrences , Australia and New Zealand , North America , but no significant difference was found in Europe, South America and Africa. For the frequencies of imposition of unnecessary references by reviewers, 67.6% (95% CI: 65.1% to 70.1%) reported rare or infrequent occurrences  and North America  but not in Asia, Europe, South America or Africa.Figure Figures We undertook a univariate ordinal regression analysis, considering the degree of agreement with fairness in journal peer review as the ordinal dependent variable while considering demographics, academic background, personal experiences and views to peer review as independent (explanatory) variables as listed in Table We received comments from 493 respondents (36.8%). We could classify 168 comments into the following common themes: authors should remain anonymous (n = 47); peer review should be transparent and open (n = 41); the current journal peer review is supported (n = 21); reviewers should be rewarded or receive financial enticements (n = 20); reviewers should be experienced and professional (n = 13); journal peer review should be more efficient (n = 12); there is no better option than the current journal peer review system (n = 10) and training should be required for reviewers (n = 4).Journal peer review is a process in which the work of an academic is subject to an examination by other experts in the same field . AlthougThe proportion of native English-speaking respondents agreeing that journal peer review is fair was significantly higher than for non-native respondents. It is not surprising because the frequencies of non-native English-speaking respondents encountering personal attacks and imposition of unnecessary references were higher compared to native respondents. Nevertheless, there was no significant difference between the two groups on their views of transparency. Interestingly, the proportion of non-native English speaking respondents who agreed that journal peer review is scientific was significantly higher than for native respondents. This result may reflect a higher expectation about journal peer review adopted by native English-speaking biomedical academics. This interpretation is further supported by the results of this survey, as there was a significantly higher proportion of native English-speaking respondents who urged the editors to give an article a fair hearing without personal bias and to screen for unfair comments, for the reviewers to declare COI, as well as for the journals to establish an appeal system.Our survey classified the respondents according to type of academic and medical speciality. The proportion of clinicians who agreed that biomedical journal peer review is fair was significantly higher than for basic scientists and clinician-scientists, thus contradicting our hypothesis. A possible explanation for this result is that the proportion of basic scientists and clinician-scientists who reported the occurrence of peer review misconduct such as personal attacks and imposition of unnecessary references was significantly higher than clinicians. Academics involving in basic science research may need more safeguards from journal peer review misconduct when publishing their results. The result concerning our final hypothesis, that most academics would support the establishment of an appeal system within the journal to handle unfairly rejected articles, is supported. About 7 in 10 respondents agreed to the establishment of an appeal system.The results of this study may generate further discussion to improve biomedical journal peer review. The roles of editors involve assessing the external validity of the article with considerations of the appropriateness of the research to the readership of the journal and appointing experienced experts from the same field to review articles . It is iThe roles of reviewers include assessing the internal validity of an article, such as accuracy and correctness with considerations of the study design, research methodology, statistical analysis and interpretation of results. Reviewers are also expected to provide constructive feedback to enhance scientific quality of the articles and stimulate further consideration by the authors . FindingTo the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the few examining the views on and experiences with biomedical journal peer review among academics. The study has collected important information which identifies directions for improvement of journal review systems. Nevertheless, our study has some limitations. First, it was not based on random selection of medical schools and academics, it mainly focused on the respondents from high-ranking universities with extensive publication experience. Our study may lead to selection bias because we could not identify academics working in low-ranking universities who may encounter more difficulty in publication and it is difficult to set criteria to define ‘low ranking’. As a result, our findings cannot be generalized to academics with relatively less publication experience, academics working in medical schools which only focus on teaching and academics working in a research institute not affiliated with a university. Second, the medical schools were selected based on the THE-QS World University Rankings which have been criticized for their construct validity and possible selection biases of peer reviewers . Third, We conclude that academics are divided on the issue of whether biomedical journal peer review is fair, scientific and transparent. Undesirable experiences such as personal attacks and breach of confidentiality by reviewers are infrequent. Native English-speaking academics are more likely to agree that biomedical journal peer review is fair when compared with non-native speaking academics. Similarly, clinicians are more likely to agree that journal peer review is fair when compared with basic scientists and clinician-scientists. Our findings suggest that a majority of biomedical academics support anonymity of both authors and reviewers, and the establishment of an appeal system within the journal to handle unfairly rejected articles. Establishing an appeal system or a channel for authors to express concern may be a good step forward in devising strategies to promote fairness in biomedical journal peer review. Further study is required to assess journal editors’ view of developing an appeal system. The female gender, frequency of encountering personal attacks in reviewers’ comments and frequency of imposition of unnecessary references by reviewers are the most significant factors associated with disagreement that biomedical journal peer review is fair. Biomedical journals may consider issuing publication ethics guidelines, offering courses for reviewers, providing authors with channels to expressing their concerns and the adoption of multi-stage open peer review.The authors declare that they have no competing interest.RCH drafted and revised the article and designed the statistical analysis. KKM revised the article with scientific insight. RT sent out the email invitation and prepared the dataset for analysis. YXL revised the article and references. JRD revised the article and improved the language. FP sought ethics approval and revised the article. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/13/74/prepub


AbstractWe describe a method to publish nomenclatural acts described in taxonomic websites (Scratchpads) that are formally registered through publication in a printed journal (ZooKeys). This method is fully compliant with the zoological nomenclatural code. Our approach supports manuscript creation (via a Scratchpad), electronic act registration (via ZooBank), online and print publication  and simultaneous dissemination (ZooKeys and Scratchpads) for nomenclatorial acts including new species descriptions. The workflow supports the generation of manuscripts directly from a database and is illustrated by two sample papers published in the present issue. PageBreakrecent debate, but this is only one dimension of how the scholarly communication process might be transformed. Today’s electronic publications are typically presented either as HTML Web pages or as static PDF documents, with the Internet used primarily as a convenient distribution medium for the text. As the electronic embodiment of the static printed page, these articles are directly comparable to the first scholarly articles printed in the seventeenth century, but are antithetical to the spirit of the Web, which can support the constant updating and improvement of published information on a continual basis. Critically publishers have not kept pace with revolutionary changes in research practices, although recently solutions for publication of dynamic content were proposed  and EDIT  projects. These efforts support the compilation of large distributed datasets and descriptions of biota, and have found common cause with the ‘Open Access’ and ‘Open Science’ movement , a Web 2.0 Virtual Research Environment (VRE), that enable communities of taxonomists to collaborate in the production of websites documenting the diversity of life. These websites share a common database and system architecture (One of the tools developed in association with the EDIT initiative are the Scratchpads (itecture  that serhttp://iczn.org/content/availability-electronic-publication) and if ratified might recommend ZooBank registration for all nomenclatural acts but, for the moment, ZooBank has not yet been officially recognised in the zoological code. Furthermore, there are no comparable efforts for the botanical community.Since their release in 2007, Scratchpads have proven to be a popular and flexible taxonomic tool, currently attracting almost 2,000 users across more than 150 sites. The software is designed to help describe taxa, and in principle could be used to publish the description of new species and other taxonomic acts on the Web. However, like any publication that does not exist in the form of printed hard-copy, such efforts are thwarted since the botanical and zoological codes of nomenclature do not formally acknowledge web-only publications. At present any new taxon name described in a Scratchpad would not be considered ‘available’ or ‘nomenclaturally valid’ for taxonomic ranks governed by the codes. A proposal to allow electronic publication of zoological acts is currently under discussion (http://pensoftonline.net/zookeys), facilitating parallel publication of structured, discoverable data on a Scratchpad website and on printed paper, as well as registration of nomenclatural acts with ZooBank. This is an example of a procedure to validate nomenclatural acts made online, generating manuscripts from a database.In this paper we describe a new way to publish zoological taxonomic acts on Scratchpads through the ZooKeys journal (1. An author creates a Publication project within a Scratchpad to which only a restricted set of users have access. The author(s) also provide additional information required by the article .PageBreak2. The author(s) prepare species pages  within the Scratchpad (ratchpad . In caseratchpad . Additioratchpad . When thratchpad .http://sourceforge.net/projects/taxpub/). This document is automatically sent to the journal ZooKeys.3. Author(s) submit the manuscript, which creates an archive of the manuscript components. The submission process automatically generates an XML representation of the document according to the TaxPub extension of the NLM/NCBI Journal Archiving DTD (4. ZooKeys organises the peer review (see discussion on peer review). The reviewed paper, including reviewer’s comments, is sent by e-mail back to the corresponding author.PageBreakPageBreak5. Author(s) revise their manuscript and supporting data on their Scratchpad in response to the reviewers’ comments.6. Author(s) re-submit the manuscript, which generates an updated XML file that is automatically sent back to ZooKeys. The publisher parses the final accepted XML document, adding additional XML mark-up for nomenclatural acts required by ZooBank registration, in addition to other semantic enhancements .7. ZooKeys publishes the paper adding DOIs for the paper and supplementary material. The printed published paper includes a link back to the accepted manuscript on the Scratchpad. The Scratchpad version of this article also includes link(s) to the dynamic descriptions of each taxon page showing versions of updated descriptions if they have been edited after publication . New tax8. The manuscript and all supplementary data are unlocked on the Scratchpad and made public on the day of printed publication. At this time the placeholder taxon names are automatically substituted by the final published taxon name.PageBreakBy default all Scratchpad data concerning the ZooKeys publication are kept private for steps 1 to 8 and made public at step 9, although the original taxon pages are normally public. However, the author(s) have the capacity to make all these data public from the outset.http://svn.scratchpads.eu/svn/scratchpads/trunk/modules/publication/) along with other Scratchpad project written dependencies. Software dependencies include the Drupal community’s Organic Groups module  and Content Construction Kit  modules, in addition to the Scratchpad project’s Species Profile Module (SPM) and Taxonomy Tree modules. The Publication module provides a new Drupal content-type  that is set to be an “Organic Group”. This enables an author to assign other users to a publication object and optionally restrict access to content associated with that publication. The Publication module creates three other simple content types that are used to provide additional sections for the publication. The first of these supports general sections common to most publications  and taxon specific sections that allow users to add sections to each taxon treatment . The second of these enables users to control which data fields appear in each taxon treatment and their relative order in the text. Finally, an image caption content type is provided to enable users to annotate their images.A single Drupal module  has been written to support the technical implementation of this workflow within the Scratchpads. This is available from the Scratchpad Subversion repository . Thus for example, a single image can be used in many publications, and a single publication can have many images. The module also supports the communication between the user’s Scratchpad and the publisher transferring the TaxPub XML representation of the manuscript to ZooKeys during submission, revision and final acceptance. TaxPub is an extension of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) / National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Journal Archiving Document Type Defi nition (DTD) for the markup of taxonomic treatments.http://sciaroidea.info) for a paper describing a new genus and a new species of Lygistorrhinidae  and on the Milichiidae online Scratchpad (http://milichiidae.info) for a paper describing a new species of Milichiidae . Both papers appear in this issue of ZooKeys  for specimen and observation data, and the Encyclopedia of Life (http://www.eol.org) for species page information. More importantly, for the authors of taxonomic datasets Scratchpads support social collaboration and cooperation amongst stakeholders in a way that exceeds the potential for collaboration through traditional printed research articles. Because these articles are on the Web there are (within reason) no limits placed on the volume of supplementary data published in support of the original publication.A central benefit of publishing through this method is that the underlying data can be corrected and expanded upon at any point after publication without distorting the original published version. This original is preserved by the publisher and archived on the source Scratchpad. New versions of the document can be produced at the click of a button at any time, should a further taxonomic revision be required, enabling new data and corrections to be formally published in the same manner as the original article. In addition these data are readily and freely accessible to all stakeholders through the source Scratchpad under an explicit Creative Commons licence. The fact that the source data are structured within the Scratchpad, according to standards appropriate to the underlying data, allows them to be shared with other biodiversity initiatives aggregating these types of information, e.g. GBIF  that can be re-used and re-purposed within publications. Although the underlying data requires considerable investment, use of the Scratchpads facilitates efficient re-purposing of these data at the touch of a button. In addition, repeated use of the workflow facilitates the long-term compilation of large aggregated datasets that can be published in small accretionary steps. This enables authors to rapidly realise the value and impact of their work through a series of small publications, rather than necessitating the compilation of extensive monographs that may require many years (sometime decades) of effort.Reviewers can access data linked to a publication directly on the Scratchpad. It is possible to make the data visible only to selected reviewers, and ZooKeys editors, even to the point of granting them comment and editing rights. As usual for paper publications, the editor of the journal can act as moderator of the discussion, and accept or reject the paper based on comments from the reviewers. As part of further developments to the journal submission module we are planning to integrate a system of peer review, which would allow reviewers automatically to have editing and comment rights within the source Scratchpad without compromising integrity of the original data. Side by side comparison of versions will allow authors and editors to accept or reject comments and changes in addition to making further adjustments to the manuscript.In principle our workflow can be adapted to work with the editorial practices of any journal and represents a phase-shift compared to the traditional practice of publishing static scientific articles that age from the moment of their initial publication. By providing the means to rapidly revise and expand data from existing static publications, we effectively remove redundant, out-dated information from the reader‘s immediate attention. This is predicated on the changing practice of primary access to information being on-line rather than on paper. Additional information about the taxon can be added to the Scratchpad without the need to trigger a new version of the print publication, the primary purpose of which is to validate nomenclatural acts. Central to this philosophy is the use of existing citation and discovery systems that provide access to the static print version but simultaneously give access to the latest update from the on-line source. A new print version is required only when a new nomenclatural act is perpetrated on the taxon concerned, for as long as the codes of nomenclature maintain their current embargo on e-publication.PageBreakutions. In addition to non-textual materials, which are generally regarded to be add-ons rather than essential parts of the publication, other small accretionary advances like comments and corrections need to be registered and rewarded within a future system of scholarly communication. Ultimately this communication system itself should closely resemble, and be intertwined with the scholarly endeavor itself, rather than being its after-thought or annex. To this end we are planning further incremental developments to this workflow with EU FP7 funding  that will allow us to develop the workflow to support the following enhancements:Within the traditional scholarly communication system, the concept of a journal publication dominates our definition of a unit of communication. However the development of this system and the changing nature of taxonomic research practice highlights the need to acknowledge and reward a much wider range of scientific contrib• Accommodate new journals by implementing plug-in submission modules for alternative publishers. One obvious immediate extension is the forthcoming botanical journal PhytoKeys.• Implement features that allow the publisher to automatically trigger public release of manuscripts and corresponding data on the Scratchpad. Currently the manuscript’s corresponding author must trigger this manually.• Implement an open review policy through the Scratchpads enabling every member of a professional community to publish open comments and corrections about a manuscript. • Couple open review systems with an online metric that indicates and rewards levels engagement by reviewers for their contributions. Through this we hope to increase the quality and quantity of peer-review, in addition to discouraging vindictive or anti-competitive reviews.• Develop greater collaboration with ZooBank and International Plant Name Index IPNI , supporting the mark-up required for automatic registration of new nomenclatural acts.


Selective publication of studies, which is commonly called publication bias, is widely recognized. Over the years a new nomenclature for other types of bias related to non-publication or distortion related to the dissemination of research findings has been developed. However, several of these different biases are often still summarized by the term 'publication bias'.As part of the OPEN Project (To Overcome failure to Publish nEgative fiNdings) we will conduct a systematic review with the following objectives:- To systematically review highly cited articles that focus on non-publication of studies and to present the various definitions of biases related to the dissemination of research findings contained in the articles identified.- To develop and discuss a new framework on nomenclature of various aspects of distortion in the dissemination process that leads to public availability of research findings in an international group of experts in the context of the OPEN Project.We will systematically search Web of Knowledge for highly cited articles that provide a definition of biases related to the dissemination of research findings. A specifically designed data extraction form will be developed and pilot-tested. Working in teams of two, we will independently extract relevant information from each eligible article.For the development of a new framework we will construct an initial table listing different levels and different hazards en route to making research findings public. An international group of experts will iteratively review the table and reflect on its content until no new insights emerge and consensus has been reached.Results are expected to be publicly available in mid-2013. This systematic review together with the results of other systematic reviews of the OPEN project will serve as a basis for the development of future policies and guidelines regarding the assessment and prevention of publication bias. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of high-quality randomized controlled trials provide a valid summary of the available research findings, and are therefore crucial to evidence-based decision making. It has The public perception cannot only be distorted by the non-publication of an entire study, information may also be partially lacking or presented in a way that influences the take-up of the findings, such as selective reporting of outcomes or subgroups or 'data massaging' . Thus, over recent years a new nomenclature for other types of bias related to the non-publication or distortion in the dissemination process of research findings has been developed, such as 'outcome reporting bias', 'time lIn terms of the above mentioned controversies regarding the definition of 'publication bias', we will conduct a systematic review with the following objectives:• To systematically review highly cited articles that focus on non-publication of studies and to present the various definitions of biases related to the dissemination of research findings contained in the articles identified.• To develop and discuss a new framework on nomenclature of various aspects of distortion in the dissemination process that leads to public availability of research findings in an international group of experts in the context of the OPEN Project (To Overcome failure to Publish nEgative fiNdings).This systematic review will be part of the OPEN Project which was developed with the goal of elucidating the scope of non-publication of studies through a series of systematic reviews .We will search Web of Knowledge on a givWe will include the 50 most frequently cited articles that focus on biases related to the non-publication or distortion in the dissemination process of research findings from any source and addressed to any audience. We chose the number 50 arbitrarily and will not exclude self-citations because we are interested in the absolute number, independent of the people that cited the work. In order to be included, articles must include the term ‘publication bias’ and provide some form of definition of this phenomenon. We will only include fully published articles.Two reviewers will independently and in duplicate screen titles and abstracts of search results. If a title or abstract cannot be rejected with certainty by both reviewers, the full text of the paper will be retrieved and assessed for eligibility. Any disagreement among the reviewers will be resolved by discussion and consensus or, if needed, by third-party arbitration.A specifically designed information extraction form will be developed and pilot-tested. Two reviewers will independently extract all relevant information from each eligible article. The following information will be collected:o Baseline data o Number of citations in Web of Knowledge and ranko Definitions of biases related to the dissemination of research findingso Methods to detect, quantify and adjust for publication biaso Suggestions to minimize publication biaso Impact of publication biasAny disagreement will be resolved by discussion and consensus or, if needed, arbitration by a third reviewer.Data synthesis will involve a descriptive summary of the range of definitions given to describe various forms of biases related to the dissemination of research findings. We will report the study according to PRISMA  guidelines.We will propose a draft capturing the ideas and experiences of the core group of authors. This draft will be complemented by our findings from the 50 most frequently cited articles in Web of Knowledge. We will then circulate a draft to an international group of experts that are part of the OPEN consortium. Each expert will review the draft and provide feedback regarding the issues we identified or contribute with other insights. We will continue this process until no additional ideas emerge.At the end of this process we aim for consensus regarding the range of mechanisms that can distort the dissemination of research findings, its nomenclature and related definitions. We endeavor to provide a framework which focuses on the responsibilities of all players on the various stages of the dissemination process.The Helsinki Declaration states clearly that 'Authors, editors and publishers all have ethical obligations with regard to the publication of the results of research. Authors have a duty to make publicly available the results of their research on human subjects and are accountable for the completeness and accuracy of their reports. […]. Negative and inconclusive as well as positive results should be published or otherwise made publicly available'. HoweverThis systematic review seeks to give a broad overview of the various definitions currently used to describe biases related to the dissemination of research findings. Based on our findings, together with reflections from an international group of experts (the OPEN consortium), we aim to propose a new framework on nomenclature of various aspects of distortion in the dissemination process of research findings which focuses on the responsibilities of all players. We hope that this player-based framework will help to clarify responsibilities for publication and related bias.Being part of the OPEN Project this systematic review, together with the results of other systematic reviews of this subject, aims to raise awareness of the significance of bias related to the non-publication or distortion in the publication process of research findings and the complexity of this issue. In addition, these reviews will also provide a foundation for a recommendations workshop, which will enable key members of the biomedical research community  to develop future policies and guidelines to minimize non-publication and related biases.OPEN: To Overcome failure to Publish nEgative fiNdings; PRISMA: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses.We declare that all authors and contributing members have no competing interests.DB and JJM conceived of the study. DB and KFM designed the search strategies. KFM drafted the manuscript with the help of DB. KFM, MB, AD, JK, AM, EW, GA, EvE, BL, EM, VG, GS, DA, JJM, and DB critically reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content. KFM, MB, JK, AM, EW, EvE, DA, JJM and DB will develop the new framework. All authors read and approved the final version before submission. KFM and DB are guarantors.