Peer review is fundamentally a cooperative process between scientists in a community who agree to review each other's work in an unbiased fashion. Peer review is the foundation for decisions concerning publication in journals, awarding of grants, and academic promotion. Here we perform a laboratory study of open and closed peer review based on an online game. We show that when reviewer behavior was made public under open review, reviewers were rewarded for refereeing and formed significantly more cooperative interactions . We also show that referees and authors who participated in cooperative interactions had an 11% higher reviewing accuracy rate (P = 0.016). Our results suggest that increasing cooperation in the peer review process can lead to a decreased risk of reviewing errors. Peer review is the foundation for decisions concerning publication in journals, awarding of grants, and academic promotion. Anonymous peer review plays a major role in decisions concerning publication in journals, awarding of grants and academic promotion. However, the anonymous nature of peer review is increasingly under scrutiny Despite its central role in the scientific process, the underlying social dynamics and accuracy of peer review under alternative systems are difficult to study. It is perhaps not surprising that there are few reliable studies of peer review. Conclusive randomized controlled studies require cooperation and coordination of journals, editors and authors within an academic community. It has been argued that many studies are inconclusive or suffer from methodological defects, primarily due to the robustness of author or review blinding Here we develop a theoretical model for peer-review which can be described in terms of payoffs for author and referee behavior. We analyze the theoretical model to determine the properties of optimal strategies under both open and closed peer review. We then develop a model system in the form of an online game launched from the Amazon EC2 cloud to collect data to both support our theoretical model and evaluate accuracy and social dynamics under peer review. Using our model system, we perform experiments to collect quantitative data about the social behavior of referees in anonymous (closed) and non-anonymous (open) peer review. These data represent the first direct quantitative measurements of peer review accuracy under alternative peer reviewing systems. Using these data we show that: (1) under open review peer reviewers are rewarded for refereeing in contrast to closed review, (2) reviewers and authors are significantly more likely to cooperate under open review versus closed review, and (3) cooperative peer reviewing behavior leads to higher review accuracy.In our model there are The payoff is proportional to the number of accepted solutions, which reflects the commonly held belief of “publish or perish” in academia. So the expected payoff for player An alternative is a competitive payoff where the payoff function is proportional to the difference between a player's number of accepted solutions and the maximum of all the other player's payoffs. In this case, the expected payoff is:Under closed peer review, the model for the acceptance probability for solution At any given time point a player can choose between three different strategies: (1) solve and submit a problem, (2) review a problem and reject, or (3) review a problem and accept. The first strategy has the potential to improve a player's payoff, by increasing the number of submitted solutions. If a player chooses either of the first two strategies, no other player's score will increase. If the player chooses strategy (3), then another player's score will increase. However, that person will not know who accepted their solution. Under CPR, if a player chooses strategy (2) or (3) they will reduce the amount of time they spend solving a problem and will reduce their expected payoff. However, no other player will be aware of this choice since reviews are anonymous and only the cumulative accepted solutions for each player is known. In this game, there is no increase to the payoff function for reviewing. Therefore, each player maximizes their expected payoff by always choosing strategy (1) and never reviewing, so this solution is the Nash equilibrium Under OPR the model for the acceptance probability for solution Under the OPR it is possible that a player may incur some benefit by reviewing for other players. Specifically if a player has previously accepted solutions for player Under OPR, a player still has the same three strategy choices at any given time point: (1) solve and submit a problem, (2) review a problem and reject, or (3) review a problem and accept. However, under OPR a player may incur some increase in their probability of acceptance if they choose strategy (2) or (3). They are particularly likely to incur increases in their acceptance probability when choosing strategy (3). Under this mode, additional Nash equilibria may be possible. To calculate these equilibria, substantial additional assumptions are required about the benefit of reviewing, the time it costs to perform a review, and the timing of additional reviews. Since the payoffs functions now depend continuously on the number of accepted and reviewed at each time point, the game must be modeled as a continuous game. Theoretical analysis of OPR represents a potentially fruitful area for future research.It is not difficult to argue that in science, the payoff for solving problems is significantly greater than the payoff of reviewing submissions. The only way to change this ordering is to decrease the payoff for solving problems or to increase the payoff for reviewing problems, or both. The former might be achieved in situations where the information available to the community causes the community to punish a player by reducing the acceptance rate of the player's submissions Our model system for peer review was an online game launched from the Amazon EC2 cloud played by 7–10 individuals over a fixed period. Players were graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research scientists or principal investigators, all of whom are members of a single research laboratory. The game was designed to replicate several components of editorial peer review: (1) most reviewers know the authors of the papers they referee, (2) peer review is usually performed within relatively small communities of individuals Individual games were played in either a closed mode, or in an open mode. In the closed mode, the reviewers were anonymous . Our theoretical analysis suggested a similar potential increase in probability for helpful reviewing behavior. Under closed review players were not rewarded for reviewing additional submissions, i.e. there was no significant difference in the probability a playerÕs submissions would be accepted for each additional review .Under the open system one of the top two reviewers was always one of the winners of the game, suggesting that reviewers were rewarded for their good behavior toward other players . This reReview times were not significantly different between open and closed review , consistent with observations from randomized controlled trials Finally, overall reviewing accuracy was statistically indistinguishable between open and closed peer review . This result agrees with previous studies of open and closed peer review which showed no statistically significant difference in review quality between the two systems An important question is whether making reviewing behavior public facilitates cooperation. For each experiment we calculated a pair-wise measure of cooperation between players . The opeWe have developed both a theoretical and experimental model for peer review. Our theoretical model allows exploration of the relative impact of alternative systems and incentives for peer review. A basic analysis of the theoretical model suggests that the current system of anonymous peer review discourages reviewing activities. Further exploration of the model under alternative systems and incentives may be helpful in evaluating alternative models of review going forward. Using our experimental model, we were able to collect the first data on social interactions and accuracy under alternative peer review models. Our experimental results both substantiate our theoretical model and agree with previous studies of peer review systems. We have also shown that one mechanism for increased cooperation is making reviewer information public. But other mechanisms for improving cooperation in the review process may exist; for example, reducing calls for unnecessary experiments has recently been suggested as a potential improvement in the reviewing process We developed a peer review game that can be played by two or more players. The game was developed as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that can be launched from the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud In both the open and closed games reviewers were shown the identity of the player who solved the problem. Under the open system, solvers were also shown the identity of the player who acted as peer reviewer for their solution. Throughout the game, information was projected onto a screen at the front of the room. In the closed mode, the number of solutions each player had submitted and had accepted was displayed . In the At the beginning of each game, the players were read the instructions for the appropriate mode (closed or open) as described in the following sections. The investigator then initiated a session of the Peer Review Game that lasted for T = 40 minutes in each case. Nametags were given to each subject with their anonymous subject ID at the beginning of the experiment and players were permitted to speak to one another during the course of the experiment.Six laboratories at the Johns Hopkins Medical School and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health were recruited to participate in the peer review experiment. Laboratories consisted of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research scientists, and principal investigators. Each laboratory participated in one replication of the Peer Review Game; the goal was to mimic the small and relatively tight-knit communities of scientists who act as peer reviewers for each other's papers. Experiments were performed on laboratories of laboratories of size K = 8, 8, and 9 players for the closed game and K = 7,10, and 8 players for the open game. Participating laboratories were offered $50 for each 10 participating members of the lab, a complimentary lunch, and the potential for two lab members to earn $5 each. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants in the study. Recruitment was performed with approval from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health IRB, project number 3316.Next we estimated a measure of cooperation or obstruction between subjects In all outcome modeling, the unit of observation is one reviewed problem. Each reviewed problem has a solver and a reviewer and is associated with a particular study type, either open or closed.To control for differences in behavior between individual participants, the models described below were fit using a mixed-model framework, with all models including separate random effects for solvers and reviewers. Model fitting was done in the statistical programming language R To assess the impact of previous review performance by a subject on the chance that solutions submitted by that subject will be accepted, we associated to each reviewed problem the number of solutions accepted by the problem submitter, up to the time the problem was reviewed. In the open framework, this value was known to all study participants, including the reviewer; in the closed framework, this value was unknown.Modeling the acceptance probability of a submission as a function of this covariate and the study type, and their interaction, we assessed the change in acceptance probability for each solution accepted by the submitter, in either the open or closed review setting. Define To assess the impact of the open or closed scenarios on review quality, we associated to each reviewed problem an indicator of whether the review was accurate, given that we know the correctness of the submitted solution.We defined the variable To ensure the effect observed in this model is not due only to the increased accuracy of the solution submitted by the problem solver, for each reviewed problem we defined a three-level factor, with level 0 indicating that neither the solver nor the reviewer was part of a cooperative pair, 1 indicating that only the solver was part of a cooperative pair, and 2 indicating that both the solver and the reviewer are part of a cooperative pair. Calling this variable We also modeled this accuracy as a function of study type alone to determine whether one scenario produced more accurate reviews. We fit the modelThis research is being done to evaluate open and closed peer review systems experimentally. Peer review is the process by which scientific research is evaluated for publication in journals. The goal of this study is to determine whether anonymous (closed) or non-anonymous (open) peer review results in more correct research being accepted.You are being asked to participate in the study because you are a graduate student, postdoctoral research fellow, scientist, or faculty member at Johns Hopkins University and are representative of the population of individuals who will participate in the peer review process.Once the experiment begins, you will be asked to answer multiple choice questions similar to questions on the graduate record exam (GRE). After you submit your answer, the solution will be randomly assigned to another participant in the study for review. The reviewer can either choose to accept or reject the solution. The reviewer will know your subject ID. However subjects who submit solutions will not know the ID of the reviewer of their solution. Throughout the course of the experiment you will act as both a reviewer and a problem solver. You may spend as much time as you like on either task. The experiment will last for forty minutes. I will now show you example screens from the experiment website and you may ask questions about the study procedure.You may experience some stress since you will be asked to answer GRE like problems and review the solutions of your peers. However, the only interaction you will have with other participants will be through the anonymous subject IDs.The two individuals with the most accepted answers at the conclusion of the experiment will receive $5. The payment will be in cash immediately following the experiment. If you leave the study early you will lose your opportunity to win the cash prizes distributed at the end of the experiment.All research projects carry some risk that information about you may become known to people outside of a study. We minimize these risks by not connecting your responses to any information that could be used to identify you. All data collected during this experiment will only be connected with the anonymous subject ID you have been assigned.Your responses and reviews will not be personally associated with you. All interaction will be performed based on the anonymous subject IDs you have been assigned.You may leave the study at any time without penalty.This research is being done to test open and closed peer review systems experimentally. Peer review is the process by which scientific research is evaluated for publication in journals. The goal of this study is to determine whether anonymous (closed) or non-anonymous (open) peer review results in more correct research being accepted.You are being asked to participate in the study because you are a graduate student, postdoctoral research fellow, scientist, or faculty member at Johns Hopkins University and are representative of the population of individuals who will participate in the peer review process.Once the experiment begins, you will be asked to answer multiple choice questions similar to questions on the graduate record exam (GRE). After you submit your answer, the solution will be randomly assigned to another participant in the study for review. The reviewer can either choose to accept or reject the solution. The reviewer will know your subject ID and you will know the reviewer ID for each solution after it is reviewed. Throughout the course of the experiment you will act as both a reviewer and a problem solver. You may spend as much time as you like on either task. The experiment will last for one forty minutes. I will now show you example screens from the experiment website and you may ask questions about the study procedure.You may experience some stress since you will be asked to answer GRE like problems and review the solutions of your peers. However, the only interaction you will have with other participants will be through the anonymous subject IDs.The two individuals with the most accepted answers at the conclusion of the experiment will receive $5. The payment will be in cash immediately following the experiment. If you leave the study early you will lose your opportunity to win the cash prizes distributed at the end of the experiment.All research projects carry some risk that information about you may become known to people outside of a study. We minimize these risks by not connecting your responses to any information that could be used to identify you. All data collected during this experiment will only be connected with the anonymous subject ID you have been assigned.Your responses and reviews will not be personally associated with you. All interaction will be performed based on the anonymous subject IDs you have been assigned.You may leave the study at any time without penalty.http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/~jleek/peerreview/ that reproduce all analyses performed in this paper.To conform with the standards of reproducible research, R Written informed consent was obtained from all participants in this study. This specific study was approved by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health IRB with project number 3316.


On the 4th September 2012 the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature announced an amendment to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature allowing for electronic publication of the scientific names of animals. In this interview Frank-T. Krell discusses the implications of this amendment for authors wishing to publish descriptions of newly identified animal species in online and open access journals, and for the future of taxonomic science. He works on taxonomy and ecology of scarab beetles and is engaged in questions of zoological nomenclature and scientific publishing. He considers the recently published Amendment  to the IPreviously the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), which is the body providing the rules on scientific animal names, did not recognise online-only journals. This meant that any animal name described in an online-only journal was not ‘available’ under the Code and would not be recognised as legally published. As an editor of "Systematic Entomology", a Wiley-Blackwell print and e-journal with electronic 'pre-publication,' I often felt the frustration of authors who were unsure whether they should allow electronic 'pre-publication' of their papers when the electronically published results remained unpublished under the Code and therefore ‘unavailable’ until the paper appeared in print at a later date. Authors who opted out of electronic pre-publication often had to wait over six months until their paper appeared in a printed issue. For authors publishing in open-access, online-only journals the situation was even more acute. Should they go for the widest dissemination of their results, but violate the Code? Some did . The majAs an active taxonomist and editor of scientific journals, I have constantly been exposed to the problems caused by the rule that declared electronic publications unavailable for the purposes of nomenclature, particularly describing new species or taxa. I have long championed ,4 an ameMost scientists, from physicists to taxonomists, receive and use their literature electronically, be it through subscriptions, interlibrary loan, or open access sources. For our everyday work, it is irrelevant whether a paper actually appears in print. The new Amendment will speed the process of publishing biodiversity information, improve access to this information through ZooBank, and can only help in reducing the ‘taxonomic impediment’ that hinders our discovery and cataloguing of zoological taxa.The old method still stands for print products. Print products needed and still need to fulfil certain criteria to be ‘available’ (i.e. comply with the Code) for nomenclatural purposes: Works must be in printed issues for the purpose of providing a public and permanent scientific record; an advertisement in a local newspaper would not count. Works must be obtainable, when first issued, free of charge or by purchase; a private publication distributed by the author or publisher to a handful of friends only would not count. Last but not least, it must have been produced in an edition containing simultaneously obtainable copies by a method that assures numerous identical and durable copies. However, it is a misconception that five copies of printed papers need to be deposited in libraries. Such a requirement never existed for print publications. The identical copies just needed to be obtainable. What has changed now? All the above criteria are still required for print publications, but additionally to "the numerous identical and durable copies", we are now allowing "widely accessible electronic copies with fixed content and layout". Those must still be issued for the permanent scientific record. A blog post that stays online for only a limited period of time would not count. Electronic publications have to fulfil a few additional criteria to be available: The date of publication must be stated in the work itself (i.e. the paper); the work (article or book) must be registered in ZooBank  and contOpen access journals rarely produce print products. To publish nomenclaturally available papers under the old rules, open access publishers needed to make printed copies of those papers containing nomenclatural acts available. New names and nomenclatural acts were then classed as ‘available’ from this print run, but not from the original electronic publication. We had arrived at the awkward situation that open access papers, having the widest possible availability to readers, were unavailable for nomenclature. On the other hand, small print runs that hardly anybody can access were considered available. This situation contradicted Recommendation 8A of the Code: "Authors have a responsibility to ensure that new scientific names, nomenclatural acts, and information likely to affect nomenclature are made widely known". Now this is rectified. New species can be described in electronic format, and the paper is immediately available and can be used by taxonomists around the world. This makes open access journals even more attractive for authors of papers containing taxonomy, and helps disseminating taxonomic information faster and more widely.Every description of a new taxon, every nomenclatural act is a 'legal' document of lasting relevance . Good taOpen access journals have a crucial role in proving the concepts of electronic publishing and registration in taxonomy. They demonstrate how to make taxonomic information widely and freely available which is particularly advantageous for our colleagues in biodiversity-rich but financially challenged countries.Since open access journals normally have no paper edition, they need to deal with registration and archiving according to the new rules. To smooth the registration process, minimize man-made errors (typos), and to reduce costs in terms of time and salaries, we need to implement automated registration. We will develop a system that allows publishers to bulk-upload marked-up content into ZooBank. Several journals, both open access and traditional, have expressed interest in working with us on such a solution. Registration needs to be painless and efficient. If too much work is involved, if it is too cumbersome, it won't be widely accepted. GenBank has been a success story because journal editors became convinced of its usefulness and made submission of sequences to the database a condition for publication . The mycWith electronic publication being a new concept in zoological nomenclature, we need to see how it works out. The Amendment will serve as a test run. The ICZN has started on a new edition of the Code that will contain the regulations of the Amendment in principle. Experience with the Amendment will help us to fine-tune the rules for the new Code in the future.We will also continue to develop ZooBank, add further modules allowing registration of other nomenclatural acts beyond new names, defining and publishing our policies, improving the registration process for all parties, and working out a procedure for validation or verification of registered information.Wouldn't it be great to have one authoritative place to access all information about all animal species ever published? We will not achieve this with ZooBank alone, but after some time of data gathering, all scientific animal names, all nomenclatural acts, and all original descriptions will be documented in ZooBank. We will not achieve this ambitious goal overnight, but I am confident that we will achieve it. My vision always has been to have all original descriptions either stored or linked to in ZooBank: a “One Stop Shop” for everything related to animal names. When registration will have become common practice and widely accepted as an integral part of the taxonomic publication process, then we can consider making it a requirement for availability. ZooBank would then be a complete registry. When and where was a species described? How many species were described in this genus? Did I overlook a species for my generic revision? The answers will be all in one place. This is easy to achieve with open access publications and archives. But with a large portion of taxonomic research being done without funding, be it by amateurs  or on thFrank Krell is Commissioner of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and Editor-in-Chief of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science Annals, an open access journal.FTK wrote and approved the final text.


Diagnostic Pathology as example.Herein we describe and interpret the digital world of diagnostic surgical pathology, and take the in Pathology leading Open Access Journal http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1944221953867351 The digital world, which is the digitalization of all kinds of data, forms the basics of communication. Communication is one of the main components in medical treatment and research. How does this condition reflect to scientific publication, especially to open access peer reviewed pathology journals?Diagnostic Pathology is the only one that integrates virtual slides in its articles to our knowledge.Digitalization in surgical diagnostic pathology mainly involves partly and completely digitized images of microscopic slides , the diagnostic work with these slides , measurements and derived clinical applications, as well as integration into Hospital Information System (HIS) and Laboratory Information Systems (LIS). Virtual Slides (VS) are quite large (about 3 GB) and demand a specific server. Our journal TM (http://www.diagnomx.eu:8080/amp), or access to open structured atlases are not available at present to our knowledge.Peer reviewed open access journals are in some part equivalent, in other parts contrary to conventional peer reviewed scientific journals: Equivalent in terms of financial interest of the publisher, format of data/script presentation and reading, contrivers in the financial model. Authors who usually use grants have to pay, readers have free and unlimited access; articles are presented in conventional order such as summary, introduction, material and methods, etc. Additional features of the digitized environment such as “interactive publication” (similar to on-line scientific chat), performance of image analysis , China and Asia (Motic), and Europe (Leica). Therefore, we expect that the percentage of articles provided with VS will significantly increase in 2013.Diagnostic Pathology publishes all kinds of articles that contribute to tissue-based diagnosis in general. These include classic medical diagnosis, research, training, education, new technologies and applications, innovative ideas and their implementation. The broad spectrum of accepted articles offers opportunities and contemporary limitations. It is in favour for the degree of popularity, and permits authors to publish research and other findings somewhat “out of their main interest or scientific spectrum”. Examples are the articles on Schizophrenia proteomics [(http://www.diagnosticpathology.org/content/1/1/1], published in 2006 and accessed by approximately 40,000 readers, Evaluation of oxidative stress in diabetes mellitus [http://www.diagnosticpathology.org/content/2/1/22], published in 2007 and accessed by approximately 11,000 readers, or the case report on a Tubular adenoma [http://www.diagnosticpathology.org/content/2/1/29], published in 2007 and accessed by approximately 20,000 readers. According to these data, case reports are not necessarily of less interest to readers than research or other articles.The journal Diagnostic Pathology ranges in the middle of all conventional and open access pathology journals ordered in accordance with the impact factor.The contemporary constraints include the negative influence on the impact factor, which means a strong boundary of scientific reputation. Journals with high impact factor are usually highly specialized, and some of them publish only a few manuscripts per year. At present, our journal Our aim is to keep this balance between popularity and scientific reputation in general with some preference for popularity. Popularity is closely associated with innovation and assistance of science in developing countries, whereas scientific reputation is more related to the spread of already known or implemented research.Tissue-based diagnosis and associated research are not limited to present structures and appearance of existent biology systems to our opinion. The biology environment is founded on the chemical characteristics of carbon which can be replaced by different atoms, especially silicon. Research on replacing carbon in living systems by silicon is in its childhood. We will certainly accept results and interpretation of such experiments for publication as well as those that deal with implantation of technical communicative devices in organs or living systems adding to the intelligence or behaviour of those animals and/or man.In other words, our understanding of diagnostic pathology includes all expressions of future man made or natural life, even if they might sound science fiction. A specific ‘Hypothesis’ article type is already available for this type of study.Diagnostic Pathology although we were not able to implement all aims, we are still working to implement still outstanding issues such as interactive publication or automated pre-review procedures in order to diminish the period between submission and publication, and to give support for colleagues who still need formal and scientific advices for successful publication.We can retrospectively look at a real successful year of We will start optimistically into the New Year 2013. As usual, there are some changes necessary in the editorial board in order to keep the journal alive. Some colleagues will leave the board other will enter and hopefully will contribute to the journals future development as our leaving colleagues did. We are also very grateful to all colleagues who served as reviewers, advisors, and authors. We do thank our readers for their interest and appreciate all their comments, as well as our publication and production team for their support and advices.We are aware that all of you, the author, the reader, our reviewer, our publication team and board member are the mandatory basis of all our aims, which are the development of medical research, the increase of understanding our nature and environment, and serving for an improved diagnosis and treatment of patients.Please take our best wishes for a Blessed and Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, and Fruitful New Year.


To summarize succinctly in one place all the issues, some quite contentious, that we are aware of in the light of four years' experience with re-review opt-out . One Journal of Biology - the fusion with BMC Biology came after the policy was established) decided to operate, for an experimental period, a policy whereby in the case of important but non-lethal criticisms by referees, authors would be asked to address the issues raised, and then to choose whether the referees saw the paper again or not.We Third, iterative re-review is exhausting for referees, and after two or three iterations where authors have revised inadequately, the referees can simply lose patience and recommend publication. We think it unlikely that significantly more inadequately supported papers will be published under re-review opt-out than under the more usual system; and it will have the substantial advantage of lessening the burden on a limited pool of referees.We were afraid of this. We do state of course in our invitation to referees that authors will be offered a choice about whether their revisions are seen by their reviewers. In practice, we have almost never had a referee refuse to assess a paper for that reason.And it is not the case that their criticisms may be ignored: as already stated, if the authors opt out of re-review, the editors look carefully to see if important criticisms seem to have been addressed, and the paper may be rejected if the response seems inadequate - for example, if the authors have argued that additional data requested by the referees are unnecessary, or if it seems that additional evidence provided is not persuasive.Yes. This occasionally happens, and in those cases the referees sometimes advise on balance that the paper should be published. It is not always straightforward to decide how much evidence should be required.No. It is not uncommon for (say) two out of three reviewers to make positive recommendations, while a third has criticisms that seem to need to be addressed, and authors do sometimes in those cases argue that the third referee is mistaken and should be disregarded.In a case like that, we consult all three referees, but we send each referee all the comments on the original version of the paper, along with the authors' responses, and ask the favorable referees to comment on the criticisms of the unfavorable one. We may also seek adjudication from a fourth reviewer or an Editorial Board member, if the authors request it, or there is no consensus among the existing referees.BMC Biology are screened first for suitability on grounds of their interest or importance in principle for the journal - usually by an Editorial Board member, sometimes  by an appropriate expert not on our Board. Only if the paper is judged suitable on this first screen is it sent to referees, and the referees are then asked to evaluate the paper solely on the basis of its technical soundness and not on the basis of its interest.No. All submissions to BMC Biology is usually generous.Usually, the Editorial Board member is judging the paper's claim at face value and on the basis of his or her expert general perspective rather than examining the paper in detail, and giving an opinion on that basis. Of course it is just an opinion, and opinions vary - it is in the nature of a selective journal that it must draw lines on a continuum from highly specialized to extremely interesting and/or important to all biologists. In the absence of expert consensus, it is the editors' decision where the line should be drawn. Because it is not the Editorial Board member's job, however, to evaluate the technical soundness of submissions, it is not uncommon for referees to report that although the claim of a paper is interesting, it is overstated in the light of detailed scrutiny of the data. In such a case, the paper may contain perfectly valid data supporting a point of relatively specialized interest, but inadequate data in support of its more striking conclusions.BMC Biology but with the proviso that the revised paper may seem more appropriate for a sister journal.Yes and no. Usually, we offer authors the option of extending their paper to bolster its more interesting claim, or resubmitting to one of our subject-specific sister journals, which (in the case that the paper is otherwise completely sound) may simply publish it on the basis of the existing referees' advice. Depending upon how much work we think would be involved in supporting the authors' more striking claim, we may either reject the paper but encourage resubmission to a sister journal (with the option of resubmission to us if they think they can provide the necessary data), or we may invite revision for BMC Biology. The entire file on the paper can be made available to the sister journal, so that in some cases the paper can simply be accepted as it stands in a sister journal; in others, authors may need to revise the paper to meet criticisms other than those bearing on the disputed point of general interest.Normally a decision can be made on the basis of the reports sent to Yes. We have already acknowledged this above. In straightforward cases where a paper is reporting a significant step in an established field with well validated technology, it is likely to be relatively simple to say how well the conclusions should be supported by the data.It is not so easy in fields where the data are by their nature fragmentary or hard to interpret ; and it is also less easy where new ground is being broken (see the comment on the discovery of cyclins in ). If we Certainly not. Only that a paper doesn't have to be impeccable to be important, and we shouldn't expect papers breaking new ground to have every i dotted and t crossed (to mix metaphors).No. It would be irresponsible to publish flimsy papers just to provoke. Papers that make claims that are open to question, or provocative, should be well supported within the bounds of what is possible or reasonable, or should at least make it clear where evidence ends and speculation begins.That is a risk. So when we do publish papers that require some qualification not provided in the paper itself, we commission expert commentary to put the paper in perspective.BMC Biology - would be contingent on the authors' modifying their text appropriately.No. We do think that what is in a paper is ultimately the responsibility of the author. But it is the responsibility of the editor to decide (on the basis of expert advice from referees) what should be published. We may err on the side of publishing an author's interpretation even if not fully endorsed by referees, provided that the authors clearly state that it is what they propose, and not that it is compelled by the evidence. But we should not publish a paper making a claim that is flatly wrong - either on the basis of evidence in the paper, or on the basis of others' evidence. Nor should we publish misrepresentation of others' work. In such cases, publication - provided that the paper is otherwise sound and interesting enough for Almost certainly not: please send us yours.


Nutrients recently became the target of an unprecedented internet campaign by an individual who disagrees with the content and conclusions of a paper published in the journal last year, viz. “The Australian Paradox: A Substantial Decline in Sugars Intake over the Same Timeframe that Overweight and Obesity Have Increased” by Alan W. Barclay and Jennie Brand-Miller, Nutrients2011, 3, 491–504. Regrettably, his criticism has extended to the journal and its peer review processes for permitting publication of the article.Nutrients is one of an extensive series of on-line open access journals published by MDPI, who abide by internationally accepted standards of anonymous peer-review publication. Moreover, as one of the first MDPI journals addressing a field of biomedical/clinical sciences, our editorial team has endeavoured to adopt all appropriate conventions regarding ethics approvals, clinical trial registrations and declarations of perceived conflicts of interest. I have been grateful for the efforts made by members of the MDPI editorial team, our editorial board, our reviewers and our contributors for helping to ensure that the desired standards of publication are attained. I believe these standards were applied to the review of the paper in question and, despite inferences to the contrary, neither author had a role in the editorial process.As you may know, Nutrients does not have a policy of inviting correspondence to the Editor, nor has the journal received any formal correspondence regarding this manuscript. However, in view of the widely circulated criticism of the paper by Barclay and Brand-Miller, I believe that it is in the interest of the journal as well as the authors to afford them an opportunity to address these criticisms and provide further clarification of their research. This correspondence now appears on the Nutrients website at http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/3/4/491/.I will leave our readers to judge for themselves.


PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, to include a specific heading permitting the publication in English of older studies that initially appeared in a language other than English. The texts would be English versions respecting the entirety of the original text. Submission should be accompanied by a presentation of the problem, with details and explanatory comments, with submission at the initiative of the authors of the former article in question or their students or sympathizers.Interest in filariasis has found a new impetus now that neglected tropical diseases have their own journal. However, some of the advances published in renowned international journals have completely ignored previous publications on the subject, particularly those in languages other than English. The rapid assessment procedure for loiasis and the mapping of lymphatic filariasis provide two perfect illustrations of this. This problem may seem a bit outdated, given that all “good authors” now publish exclusively in English. It certainly is outdated for most areas of medicine. But, surely, this should not be the case for neglected tropical diseases, for which certain long-standing findings are every bit as important as what may be presented as new discoveries. One possibility would be for certain journals, such as  Interest in filariasis has found a new impetus now that neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) have their own journal. However, some of the advances published in renowned international journals have completely ignored previous publications on the subject, particularly those in languages other than English. This Viewpoint article is intended to make us ponder the issue of a language gap or discrimination existing in publishing outcomes and reference citations. This is also the question of deleterious effects of the obligation “to be in English or not to be”.The rapid assessment procedure for loiasis (RAPLOA) and the geographical distribution of lymphatic filariasis provide two perfect illustrations of this.PLOS NTDsLoa loa. This approach has proved particularly useful in areas in which both loiasis and onchocerciasis are observed: the mass treatment program to control onchocerciasis is based on the use of ivermectin and there is a risk of adverse treatment outcomes in patients carrying large numbers of L. loa worms Médecine Tropicale (Marseille), it has never been cited, despite being listed in international databases, including PubMed. A poster communication concerning the same issue had no real impact either, despite being presented at an international congress The RAPLOA has recently been widely used to determine the regional endemicity of loiasis and to update existing endemicity data for this disease over its global distribution range. This important work has been recently published in L. loa had been recommended by different authors as early as 1950 The usefulness of specific clinical manifestations  to assess The conclusion of this article was formulated as follows: “Screening for foci of filarial endemicity could be improved by the use of a simplified method and the validation of simple, inexpensive indices. Once these foci have been identified, a more precise evaluation can be carried out.”What is most astounding about the two WHO publications cited as the origin of this “new epidemiological index” Bulletin of the World Health Organization and by other international journals published in English of an opinion article dealing with this issue and using the example of lymphatic filariasis does not seem to be justified, and is another illustration of “to be in English or not to be.”Against this background, the rejection by the Wuchereria bancrofti is systematically described as endemic in Congo and Gabon, two French-speaking countries, in non-specialist works on tropical medicine and in more specialist publications (WHO) despite a total absence of epidemiologic studies and/or confirmed case report over the last 30 years to prove it. What is certain is that no case was found when the last studies were conducted in these countries at the end of the 1970s and during the 1980s but unfortunately published in French. The studies that we carried out in the Congo as part of the National Project on Onchocerciasis and Other Filariases (between 1982 and 1987) confirmed the presence of four types of human filariasis: onchocerciasis, loaiasis, and the filariases caused by Mansonella perstans and M. streptocerca. There was a total absence of confirmed cases of lymphatic filariasis (bancroftosis). In this case, it is not a question of the attribution of merit for a particular “discovery”, but of basic knowledge of the geographic distribution of a scarcely studied disease, lymphatic filiariasis, in French Central Africa. Taking into account only publications in English, even older and poorly structured data, have been, in our opinion, a source of confusion and has led to false conclusions being drawn about the distribution range of this disease. This undoubtedly highlights the need to update knowledge by carrying out prospective studies (which seem to be underway), but these studies do not seem to be considered a matter of priority given the low levels of resources available and current health priorities.Indeed, filariasis due to This has drawn us to publish this article in a French-language journal, but together with an entire translation into English The problem is not a rivalry between French and English, but the confrontation between English and all other languages of the world. Moreover, the problem is undoubtedly worse for works published in non–Western European languages such as Chinese, Russian, and Japanese, which are arguably even less accessible.All things considered, this problem may seem a bit outdated, given that all “good authors” now publish exclusively in English. It certainly is outdated for most areas of medicine, where everything that is old is assigned to being nothing more than the history of medicine. But, surely, this should not be the case for NTDs, for which certain long-standing findings are every bit as important as what may be presented as new discoveries.PLOS NTDs, to include a specific heading permitting the publication of older studies that initially appeared in a language other than English (and are therefore currently little known). The texts included in this heading would essentially be English versions of these articles previously published in other languages, respecting the entirety of the original text.One possibility would be for certain journals, such as This would concern studies considered of importance because they highlight a point that remains unclear or describe an aspect considered innovative in a review but for which the originality of the article is due more to an incomplete reference list than to a true advance in knowledge. These articles should be judged in light of the knowledge and technical and methodological means available at the time at which they were initially published. Submission should be accompanied by a presentation of the problem, with details and explanatory comments, with submission at the initiative of the authors of the article in question or their students or sympathizers.


Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) begins its second year. JAHA was created as a forum for high‐quality cardiovascular and cerebrovascular science and to particularly represent the domains of the 16 Scientific Councils of the American Heart Association (AHA).1 As an open access journal, JAHA was designed to provide readers with immediate subscription‐free access to the entire content of articles from any device connected to the internet. The launch of JAHA was particularly timely, because funding agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom have recently established policies requiring that publicly‐funded research be freely accessible.3 We have no restrictions on article length and provide unlimited use of color images and video, thus allowing authors to present all aspects of their work. It was our particular goal to provide rapid review and posting of manuscripts. In our first year, we have accomplished many of these goals and have begun to establish our identity within the AHA family of journals.With the February 2013 issue, the JAHA, we expect further increases in the number of articles published per issue and we are striving to decrease the time for review and online publication.In 2012, we published 99 original articles and 24 reviews/editorials and had a marked increase in the number of articles per issue during the course of the year . Articles are reviewed rapidly, with a median time to first decision of 19.5 days, and are posted online within 4 weeks of acceptance. Articles are submitted from around the world: Over 40% of our submissions came from outside the United States, including 8% from Japan, 5% from the United Kingdom, 5% from Canada, and 4% from Germany. As authors become more aware of 4 This broad range of topics was achieved, in part, because our editorial board is composed of representatives from each AHA Council. Board members act as guest editors for papers within their area of expertise and help identify editorialists and authors for review articles.Our published articles covered a broad range of cardiovascular science. About two‐thirds of the original articles reported clinical science and one‐third reported basic science. The most frequent topic categories included coronary heart disease, vascular medicine, heart failure, stroke, and electrophysiology. In line with our goal to support the missions of the AHA and to represent the scientific councils, we also published articles on resuscitation science, pediatric cardiology, health services and outcomes, interventional cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, the kidney in cardiovascular disease, nutrition, and physical activity. We also have been a forum for leadership to comment on the AHA's goals for the cardiovascular health of all Americans.Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, Circulation Research, Hypertension, Stroke, and the Circulation family of journals cannot exceed their print and online page budgets, and often must reject highly meritorious papers. JAHA has no such limits, because we do not have a print version and because publication costs are borne by authors and/or their institutions and research sponsors. We communicate with the editors of the other AHA journals on a daily basis about such papers. After consideration of the content and reviewer comments, we invite the authors of selected papers to submit their work to JAHA. This is appealing to many authors because they are asked to address the comments of the original reviewers and do not have to start over with an entirely new set of editors and reviewers. Since we carefully screen papers before offering the option of submitting to JAHA, the final decision can be made quickly and the acceptance rate for invited papers is very high as long as the authors appropriately address the reviewers’ comments.We have developed close relationships with the other AHA journals. The editors of Circulation, and the editors of JAHA have considered referrals from all ten of the other AHA journals. While it is difficult to generalize, several types of papers were invited. For example, the editors invited a number of basic science papers that made highly novel observations, even though the operative mechanisms were not completely defined. We invited well‐done clinical trials, including adequately‐powered negative studies. We also invited well‐conducted observational and outcomes papers, including a number of Get‐With‐the‐Guidelines studies relevant to the missions of the AHA. Given the research interests of some of the editors, we have been highly interested in translational science, particularly work that examined mechanisms of cardiovascular disease in human subjects. Finally, we invited a number of high‐quality papers that did not achieve priority largely because the topic of research was highly specialized and fell outside the domain of the original AHA journal. The editors emphasize that all invited and direct submissions undergo rigorous peer review. We particularly focus on statistical issues, and all papers undergo review by our Statistical Editor and a team of statistical consultants.In our first year, 60% of accepted original articles were referred from another AHA journal. The greatest proportion (64%) was referred from JAHA website . All articles are deposited into PubMed Central and we successfully applied to the National Library of Medicine for indexing of JAHA on Pub Med. Our publisher developed a user‐friendly iPAD/smartphone app that can be downloaded without cost by searching for “JAHA.” Readers also can learn about and connect to the full text of our articles by following JAHA on Twitter (@Jaha_aha) or Facebook (use the direct link http://goo.gl/Fvt9B or search for “JAHA”). In addition to highlighting new articles each week, our Facebook page has interesting additional content, including regular ECG challenges and author profiles.Open access publication is important because it facilitates the dissemination of scientific knowledge. During our first year, we took several steps to take full advantage of the internet and to increase accessibility of our manuscripts beyond simply posting them on the JAHA as a journal that can provide rapid review and the widest possible dissemination of their work. Our ultimate goal is to facilitate communication of cardiovascular science that will improve the care of patients with cardiovascular disease and stroke.In summary, we have made considerable progress during our first year. We are publishing an increasing number of outstanding articles that cover a wide range of cardiovascular science. The review process is rapid, and we are working to increase the visibility and accessibility of our papers. Authors working in any domain of cardiovascular research should consider


European Journal of Psychotraumatology (EJPT) is now completing its third volume. It is exciting to see how the range of articles addressing both clinical issues as well as more basic research, include samples of simple and complex PTSD as well as other disorders such as substance use disorder . The authors show that although there was significant clinical and statistical heterogeneity in the included studies and results should thus be interpreted cautiously, the meta-analyses limited to the clinically more homogeneous trauma-focused interventions were positive. Veterans respond to out-patient trauma-focused psychosocial interventions for chronic PTSD on a one-to-one or group basis (with the therapist within the same room), which is consistent with the evidence from meta-analyses of civilian studies .3. PTSD and trauma in Austria's elderly: influence of wartime experiences, postwar zone of occupation, and life time traumatization on today's mental health status - an interdisciplinary approach by In this article the current ESTSS president Brigitte Lueger-Schuster and her team have addressed the long term traumatization due to World War II experiences in elderly persons in Austria showing that PTSD is a common disorder in the elderly due to these experiences. They also point to the importance of post war distressing conditions in posing a further risk for symptomatology and distress in later years. The authors recognize that with a growing proportion of older people in Europe's societies, PTSD cannot be ignored and sequelae of trauma need to be considered in treatment and care.Martin Sack, Melanie Cillien, James W. Hopper  with each author's contribution indexed with an individual DOI. This was not only helpful to the conference participants but also made the content of this meeting available all over the world. Next year we will be publishing the abstracts and keynote lectures from the ESTSS biennial congress in Bologna June 6-9.Inaugural lectures – In this volume we have also introduced papers based on inaugural lectures , developed and managed by NIH's National Center for Biotechnology Information in the National Library of Medicine. This means that EJPT is now also covered by PubMed. We are expecting a verdict from Psychinfo shortly.EJPT will receive its first impact factor in 2014 or 2015. We already see that some of the papers we publish are receiving citations. Thus, for instance, the impact of “Taxing working memory on negative and positive memories” by Iris M. Engelhard and co-workers  has received an application from us for inclusion in the Web of Science and Science Citation Database, and we hope Hello, buenos días, bonjour, guten Tag,buongiorno, dobry dzień, iyi günler – As we represent many different languages we very much value our translations of abstracts and sometimes full papers. Do not forget to check this on the website under supplementary material.Editorial board – A new Associate Editor joined the team in 2012, Marylène Cloitre. She is Past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) and founder and director of The Institute for Trauma and Stress at the NYU Child Study Center. An expert in the field of traumatic stress Marylène has published extensively on the treatment of survivors of childhood abuse. She will join forces with me and the other Associate Editors, Vittoria Ardino, Chris Brewin, Ruth Lanius, Agnes van Minnen, Rita Rosner, and Stuart Turner, and we will all—with our different types of expertise and background – continue to secure the highest quality of the papers to be published in the 2013 volume.Collaboration with other STSSs – European Journal of Psychotraumatology is the official journal of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS) and as such embedded in a professional society, which not only guarantees its legitimacy and high standards but also its integrity, being a non-profit publication. In addition, we work closely together with the ISTSS and other societies of traumatic stress (STSS) around the world. For instance, we are part of the Global Collaboration on Traumatic Stress project, a joint effort of all STSS's around the world to simultaneously push a single clearly identified topic, this year ‘Child abuse and its latent impact’.Open Access – what does it mean? Open Access, as defined as both free access to research results as well as the right to re-use the literature and data found as long as the original source is cited, contributes to the creation of a new information infrastructure. This infrastructure offers opportunities for researchers to connect with one another and the broader world. As noted above, the broad dissemination of EJPT supports this view.Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). Increasingly, institutions and funding bodies are recognizing the importance of supporting Open Access. This past summer two highly visible policies were put forth. The European Commission presented legislation for the implementation of the next research programme – Horizon 2020 – which included an Open Access mandate and funding to cover article processing charges in all areas of research supported by the EC. In the United Kingdom, the so-called ‘Finch Report’ was presented, which also included funding to cover article processing charges, and the recommendations in the report were adopted by the Research Councils UK. While both of these policies are currently being debated, they both illustrate a more pronounced support for new forms of disseminating research results.“Publish open access or perish?” is the title of a forthcoming symposium to be held February 2013 by the KNAW (EJPT with much confidence and aim to develop the journal even further. Tune in next time at this time of the year to hear more about our progress! Meanwhile you are welcome to submit your contribution to the journal whether you are a member of ESTSS or not.Thus we enter into the fourth volume of Miranda OlffEditor-in-Chief


Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine is an international journal publishing peer-reviewed articles dedicated to original research and concepts in all fields of cellular and molecular medicine. Bridging physiology and cellular medicine, and molecular biology and molecular therapeutics, Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine publishes basic research that furthers our understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of disease and translational studies that convert this knowledge into therapeutic approaches. The journal welcomes Original Articles, Reviews (which may be in Review Series), Short Communications, Editorials and Points of View, as well as Letters to the Editor. From time to time the journal publishes Retro-views of significant ideas and discoveries, and Commentaries.The http://www.wileyopenaccess.com/details/content/12f25db4c87/Copyright--License.html.From12th September 2012 all articles accepted by the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine are fully open access: immediately freely available to read, download and share. All articles accepted from 12th September 2012 are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. Articles accepted before this date were published under the agreement as stated in the final article. The Creative Commons Attribution License permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and allows the commercial use of published articles. Copyright on any research article in a journal published by the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine is retained by the author(s). Authors grant Wiley a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher. Authors also grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and publisher are identified. Further information about open access license and copyright can be found at corporatesales@wiley.com.Print reprints of Wiley Open Access articles can be purchased from The Publisher and Editors cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in this journal; the views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Publisher and Editors, neither does the publication of advertisements constitute any endorsements by the Publisher and Editors of the products advertised.Wiley Open Access articles posted to repositories or websites are without warranty from Wiley of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. To the fullest extent permitted by law Wiley disclaims all liability for any loss or damage arising out of, or in connection with, the use of or inability to use the content.Wiley's Corporate Citizenship initiative seeks to address the environmental, social, economic, and ethical challenges faced in our business and which are important to our diverse stakeholder groups. Since launching the initiative, we have focused on sharing our content with those in need, enhancing community philanthropy, reducing our carbon impact, creating global guidelines and best practices for paper use, establishing a vendor code of ethics, and engaging our colleagues and other stakeholders in our efforts.http://www.wiley.com/go/citizenshipFollow our progress at Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine is published in 12 issues per year in an online-only format available at Wiley Online Library. Visit wileyonlinelibrary.com to search the articles and register for table of contents e-mail alerts.http://www.healthinternetwork.orgAccess to this journal is available free online within institutions in the developing world through the HINARI initiatives with the WHO. For information, visit This journal is indexed by Science Citation Index Expanded, Current Contents/Life Sciences, Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews.ISSN (1582-4934) (Online)http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1582-4934For submission instructions, subscription and all other information visit:


Many of my fellow theoretical linguistics researchers have not noticed the momentous changes in the world of science publication yet. When confronted with the idea that publication costs should be covered by author fees , they often react with disbelief and indignation.But the signs of inefficiency of the old subscription-based system are just as clear in my field as elsewhere, so I see no reasonable alternative to Gold open access . Green open access is inefficient because of the duplication of efforts, and subscription is inefficient because it is very difficult to predict for an institution to what extent its members will want to use a journal or book. Moreover, the subscription-based model is even worse for scholars with low budgets: While a low-budget scholar can at least read the richer scholars' works on the APC-based open access model, not even that is possible on the traditional model, and usually one can publish in prestigious places only if one knows the relevant literature.But is APC-based publication of scientific results by profit-oriented companies  a good alternative to subscription? Clearly, the old author-pays model removes a major inefficiency of the subscription-based system, because the authors know that they want to publish, whereas the subscribers only suspect that they want to use the publications. According to Stuart Shieber, an open-access expert and theoretical linguist at Harvard University, subscription-based publication can lead to market dysfunction (unreasonably high publication prices) because science journals are not competitive goods: If you subscribe to one science journal, this doesn't mean that you don't need another one  is routinely measured by the place of publication of the work. When evaluating a scientist, the evaluators not only look at the amount of research output and the amount of citations, but also at the place of publication. Moreover, when deciding what to cite, scientists routinely privilege papers published in more prestigious journals and books published in more prestigious imprints. Thus, to be a successful scientist, one needs to publish in the same places as other successful scientists. Thus, journals and imprints have a significance for science that goes far beyond the purpose of dissemination of research results. The latter can nowadays be achieved much more easily, by archives such as Arxiv.org, or by publishing in one's personal blog, or on Academia.edu. The primary purpose of peer review is actually peer selection: One needs to make a special effort to present one's results in such a way that one's peers recognize their value. It is only in this way that one's research is likely to have an impact on others. Being selected for publication in a particular place  means being successful.One could imagine alternative models of establishing scientific credentials, e.g., by a rating system similar to the one found in online bookshops, but discussing these is beyond the scope of this note. The big advantage of anonymous peer review and selection that I see for my own field is that it gives younger scholars the chance to become more widely visible even without traveling to many conferences. In the following, I assume that peer selection of publications will be the prevalent mode of establishing scientific credentials also in the future.Now crucially, the association of place of publication with prestige means that the market for APC-based journals does NOT provide for competition after all: I cannot simply submit my paper to a cheaper journal if the cheaper journal has much less prestige and will lead to much fewer citations of the article. I will quite likely submit my paper to the best journal in my subfield even if this means that I will pay higher APCs . Publishers will be able to price their journals according to their prestige, not according to their services. But in the 21st century, the prestige of a journal is primarily the result of the work of the scientists who publish in it, who serve as editors and as reviewers, and not the result of the publisher's efforts. If I publish an excellent piece of research in a journal, or if I write a careful review of a submitted manuscript, I thereby enhance the prestige of this journal, and I thereby contribute to making the journal more expensive for future submitters. The publishers will reap the benefits of my excellent and conscientious work, because they can charge more without improving their services. This situation is clearly undesirable for science.Journal and book publication has become very simple and cheap as a result of technological developments: One just needs typesetting, hosting and web presentation, as well as perhaps some kind of print-on-demand service (for open-access books). This can be done very easily without major investments, and as a result, journal publication in the less wealthy countries has increased dramatically over the last 20 years. For example, the Brazilian platform Scielo.org hosts over 1000 journals that are freely accessible and do not charge any author fees.Of course, even nowadays journal and book publication does not come for free, and somebody has to pay for it. But in order to have a functioning market with reasonable prices, one needs real competition. My research institution can replace its cleaning company by another one, or it can buy its computers and printers from different companies if we are dissatisfied with the services and products. But we cannot simply replace journals and imprints, because we use these to build our careers and to measure our success.A functioning model would be one where the scientists own the journal titles and book imprints, and where they choose typesetters, webdesign companies, and hosting companies that can be easily replaced by others if the prices are not right. Just as basic science itself is not a profit-oriented activity, publication of scientific results would not be a profit-oriented activity. APCs could be charged by the nonprofit organizations of the scientists , but these would not increase as a result of excellent and high-impact work being published by the journals and imprints. On the contrary, since universities and scholarly associations derive their prestige in part from their publications, it is to be expected that the best work will be published without any APCs: These nonprofit organizations would benefit from their prestigious journals and imprints, so it would make sense for them to subsidize them in much the same way as they are subsidizing non-profit-oriented basic research itself.http://www.scirp.org/, over 250 journals) and Beijing-based MDPI . The business model here is to start a large number of new journals and to hope that some of them will succeed and bring profit. For example, MDPI's journal Languages does not even have an editor yet. This is of course reminiscent of the business model of spam e-mail, and in fact, some observers have warned of the danger of “predatory journals.” In particular, Jeffrey Beal noted in a Nature column in 2012 that there are hundreds of journals with this business model, and he writes:The competition for author fees among fraudulent publishers is a serious threat to the future of science communication. To compete in a crowded market, legitimate open-access publishers are being forced to promise shorter submission-to-publication times; this weakens the peer-review process, which takes time to do properly. To tackle the problem, scholars must resist the temptation to publish quickly and easily… Beall, The alternative model, where APCs are charged by profit-oriented publishers, has another serious drawback: It creates a strong incentive to create journals and book imprints that function like “vanity presses,” allowing authors to publish their low-quality work without significant risk of rejection. Vanity presses have long existed in the regular book market, and they have not been a problem because no public money went into them. Of course, everyone should be free to publish their bad novels or low-quality scientific articles if they desire. However, when it comes to scientific publications, the idea is that the APCs are covered by grants for scientific research, i.e., mostly by public money that would otherwise go into science. In the traditional system, grant holders are free to publish the results of their research wherever they want—but there used to be a limited set of possibilities, and scientific vanity publishers hardly existed. But nowadays increasingly, grant agencies are trying to impose the restriction that the publication should be open access—and with the for-profit approach, there is an unlimited set of possibilities. Anyone can easily found a new journal and offer publication for APCs, simply claiming that it is peer-reviewed. For example, I recently heard of two Chinese companies that are publishing a large number of open-access journals, some of them in my field of linguistics: Wuhan-based SCIRP , rather than by the authors.http://www.mpdl.mpg.de/news/pressrel_2013/PM_deGruyter_MPG_de.pdf).Another argument that Shieber  cites agTo summarize, the major argument for open access is that toll access is inefficient because there can be no functioning market Shieber,  and beca


The field of organ, tissue and cell transplantation through the recent decades has revolutionised treatment options for some of the most critically ill patients. Advancements in this discipline have been dramatic and provided life saving options, with a good quality of life, for patients with previously untreatable conditions. Both researchers and the public remain fascinated with the concept of transplantation because replacing body parts still seems to be part of science fiction, but yet is somehow possible through extraordinary pioneering research that has become part of routine modern medicine. Nonetheless, many serious issues remain unsolved limiting the further advancement of transplantation medicine, including the severe shortage of available organs/tissues and our inability to prevent immunological rejection without life-long suppression of general immunity with drugs that have substantial side-effects. Indeed, it could be said that the field of transplantation is presently resting uncomfortably on a plateau that most clinicians and researchers feel is far from where we would like to be . StrivinTransplantation Research aims to contribute to this niche by providing all the potential benefits that open access publishing has to offer. Among the advantages are speed of publication (published immediately upon acceptance), high visibility of your research (anyone with web access can read your article free of charge), and the provision of unlimited space for figures and extensive data sets (including video). With Transplantation Research, all articles will be rigorously peer reviewed by our outstanding global editorial board [ad hoc experts in the field. These combined values provided by open access publishing have been recognised by numerous societies [Transplantation Research to help fulfil a mandate in transplantation to provide more full access to current knowledge in the field.Providing new, reliable, rapid and fully open avenues for publishing transplantation research will only add to our ability to advance transplantation science and the care of transplant recipients. We believe that the advent of “open access publishing” brings a fresh perspective to publishing novel research; al board , and othocieties ,4, natioocieties . For exaocieties . TherefoTransplantation Research is meant to be a portal for all aspects of transplantation investigation. We encourage the publication of studies involving a wide range of transplantation research, including: organ preservation, ischemia-reperfusion injury, histocompatibility, experimental immunosuppression, immune recognition - regulation, tolerance induction strategies, stem cell research for tissue regeneration and immune regulation, clinical trials, complications of transplantation , biomarker investigation, organ donation and transplantation ethics, as well as xenotransplantation. We at Transplantation Research will encourage the publication of experimental research and pilot clinical trials that introduce new ideas and concepts to the field of transplantation. The introduction of novel experimental concepts that may have not yet been fully tested and early stage trial results are welcomed for publication and debate. In addition, we strongly encourage the submission of clinical trial protocols for publication; a publication portal for presentation and discussion of trial designs is largely missing in transplantation. Furthermore, we also encourage the publication of new and innovative experimental methods that can help other investigators establish reliable models and measures in their research. Finally, with the support of our publisher, BioMed Central, we will be adding a new publication media dimension to transplantation, by offering the possibility of a “video-type” publication . Therefore, with the increasingly powerful platform of electronic open access publishing, we aim with Transplantation Research to offer all transplantation researchers new and innovative possibilities for publishing their basic and clinical studies.There is also another perspective to consider – regarding the introduction of another journal in the field of transplantation. Simply stated, it is important that researchers have options to present their work to a different group of editors that inherently may consider studies to have more, or less, priority. How often have each of us sent for publication what we believed to be important and well-designed studies to one group of editors, only to be outwardly rejected, and turned around to send the work to another editorial group where the work was well received. It is not even uncommon for studies that were first sent for publication in a lower-ranking journal to be accepted later in a higher ranking journal, where the latter editors judge the study to be of a higher priority. This is normal and to be expected in the “business” of research publication; having multiple options, as long as journals use a solid and rigorous peer-review process, can only be positive for the development of the field.Transplantation Research, built on a foundation of an open access publishing instrument, also offers new publication categories, as well new innovative publishing formats, to transplant researchers. Importantly, we can ensure that the information is made freely available to all researchers, and the public sector. To us, this is a worthwhile endeavour that we hope will contribute to the improvement of outcomes following transplantation.We trust that our own expertise and views, and those of our editorial board, can indeed offer a fresh opinion and option for publishing your transplantation research. Moreover, we firmly believe that


BMC Hematology, formerly known as BMC Blood Disorders, within the BMC series of journals published by BioMed Central. The scope of BMC Hematology encompasses basic, experimental and clinical research related to hematology. In this Editorial we will discuss the rationale behind this relaunch and how, as an open access journal providing unrestricted and free access to scientific and scholarly work, BMC Hematology will help disseminate research in the hematology field in a freely-accessible manner.This Editorial marks the launch of  BMC Blood Disorders has relaunched this month under the name BMC Hematology. The decision to rename the journal was taken in response to the feedback received from key opinion leaders in the field and in consultation with our Editorial Board.To emphasize its commitment to representing the full breadth of disciplines and specialties in hematology, BMC Hematology welcomes submissions on basic, experimental and clinical research related to non-malignant and malignant hematological diseases, hemostasis and thrombosis, hematopoiesis, stem cells and transplantation.This change of journal name is also intended to reflect the multi-disciplinary nature of the hematology field in which rapidly evolving research findings translate into patient care. Since William Harvey introduced the then controversial concept of circulation in 1628, the field of hematology has come a long way. Important advances in the field of molecular biology have enabled fundamental insights into the origin of human diseases and enabled the development of innovative treatments. Nowhere are these changes more prominent than in the field of hematology, which has indeed paved the way for the thrilling era of “bench to bedside” research. The past decades have seen major clinical advances arising from trail-blazing basic research, including hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for the treatment of blood and bone marrow disorders and targeted molecular therapies for hematological malignancies. Reflecting the cross-disciplinary and translational nature of the field, BMC Hematology will maintain the ethos of its predecessor and of the rest of its sister journals in the BMC series [C series , and conC series . All preBMC series, BMC Hematology has an international Editorial Board of academic scientists, many of whom are previous members of BMC Blood Disorders[Similarly to other journals in the Disorders. The jouDisorders.BMC Blood Disorders and all other medical journals within the BMC series, BMC Hematology will operate an open peer review policy with two levels to this “openness” [As with penness” . The firpenness” ,7.Although initially looked upon with skepticism, the open access publishing model, which provides an unrestricted and free access to scientific and scholarly work, has become increasingly accepted as a viable model, with more than 8,500 open access journals now operating worldwide [BMC Hematology are included in the major bibliographic databases including PubMed and can be freely redistributed and reused as long as they are correctly attributed. Publication volume has grown within all major scientific disciplines, but biomedicine has seen a particularly rapid 16-fold growth between 2000  and 2011  [Open access increases the potential readership of any article to anyone with internet access and indirectly accelerates the spread of new research findings. All articles published in BMC Hematology will of course be open access, ensuring that research is disseminated to the widest possible audience. In order to cover the costs of publication, an article-processing charge (APC) is levied to the authors or their institution on acceptance of the article. This flat fee is among the lowest charged across other publishers offering open access [Articles published in n access . Publishn access . A numben access  and waivn access ,14.BMC Hematology marks the start of an exciting new developmental phase for the journal and we do hope that you will take the time to visit the website and consider us for your future submissions.We are delighted to welcome our two first Section Editors Dan L. Longo from Harvard Medical School and Mary J. Laughlin from University of Virginia, heading the Malignant hematological diseases and Hematopoiesis, stem cells and transplantation sections respectively. We plan to recruit additional Editorial Board members from many different disciplines within the hematology field as well as from different geographic regions. We believe that a strong Editorial Board is essential to ensure that the journal is at the forefront of the field while effectively using the time and effort that the reviewers contribute. In this inaugural issue, Section Editor Dan L. Longo tells us how he first became interested in hematology and gives his personal view on the recent progress and future challenges of the hematological cancer field in particular . The relBMC Hematology.CC is the Executive Editor of The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here:http://www.biomedcentral.com/2052-1839/13/1/prepub


The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene publishes original research papers, reviews and commentaries on diverse diseases and research areas of global health importance. Diseases that take the highest human toll—malaria, tuberculosis, and other neglected tropical diseases—are often those where evidence is most limited regarding pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment or vaccine-mediated protection. Where data are limited, controversy exists and subjective opinions dominate.Journal is embarking on publishing debates of topics that have widespread clinical and public health importance. These debates will take place within a Point-Counterpoint format published in the front matter of the journal. We invite interested authors to discuss with the Editor ideas and subject areas that would be amenable to formal, written interactive debate. For areas of mutual interest, authors will be invited to write a focused essay (less than 1500 words) putting forth a particular, possibly provocative viewpoint on a topical subject.To foster open, vigorous debate that will guide our diverse fields toward greater insights and ultimately impact on human lives, the Submissions will undergo peer-review and authors with contrasting points of view will be invited to respond. Manuscript drafts will be shared among authors and between sides to allow for full vigorous debate and to allow for responses to points that are raised. We look forward to engaging with our authors and readers on important controversies in global health, the resolution of which has public health and clinical implications.


Journal of Eating Disorders. We are sure that the first questions you may wish to ask would be why a new journal of eating disorders and why an open access one? There can be no doubt that the field of eating disorders is experiencing a phase of major growth. We have strong international eating disorders organisations such as the Academy of Eating Disorders and the Eating Disorders Research Society and many national societies throughout the world. These societies not only provide local networks for their members but arrange annual conferences to ensure that important new developments in our field are rapidly disseminated. To meet the growing demand for the ever increasing research and reviews of developments in our field, the International Journal of Eating Disorders came into being in 1981. Under the excellent stewardship of the founding editor Craig Johnson and later Michael Strober the International Journal not only met the need for a home for publications in eating disorders but stimulated further interest that has exceeded every expectation.We would like to welcome you to the first edition of the Despite the explosion of knowledge emanating out of years of high calibre research in eating disorders, there remain many gaps. Whilst there is now sufficient scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of cognitive behaviour therapy for the treatment of bulimia nervosa, furtherJournal of Eating Disorders is uniquely placed to facilitate rapid publication and dissemination of the results of these exciting developments. The way we communicate our scientific findings is undergoing a metamorphosis and science has to adapt to meet these challenges. We have undoubtedly “crossed the Rubicon” and science as an open enterprise is now upon us[The time has now arrived to harness these opportunities and the  upon us. The Net upon us in the U upon us, and theJournal of Eating Disorders aims to embrace and exploit all the opportunities that open access can deliver[The  deliver. Adding  deliver.Journal of Eating Disorders are widely cited[It is also important to understand the ramifications of open access. No longer is your research a private enterprise and read only by those who have access or the means to purchase your article, but by all who wish to enrich their knowledge. Clinicians, politicians, media, high school students, parents, teachers, health economists, private industry and those individuals living in developing countries who do nly cited.Notwithstanding all these advantages of open access over more traditional publications, there is a cost that has to be met. Producing a journal requires a production team to maintain databases, ensure high standards of formatting, marketing, PubMed listings and constantly upgrade our web page to name just a few. Upon acceptance of a paper and just prior to publication, the author is required to pay an Article Processing Charge,15. MostThe Editors have deliberately kept the scope of the Journal broad. We invite not only original research reports but systematic reviews of the literature, clinical case reports, new randomised controlled trials, editorials as well as letters to the editors. We have a policy in place to provide a rapid turn around in review with the intention of publishing a paper within 8 weeks of submission. This is a tall order but one the Editors are determined to enshrine as one of the hallmarks of this new publication.et al. examined the relationship between internalized weight bias and physical and mental health related quality of life (HRQoL) in 120 participants overweight or obese[et al. investigated the role of perfectionism in body dissatisfaction in a large (over 1000) sample of adult women[Journal of Eating Disorders to lead the field.The launch contains papers reflecting the breadth diversity and scope of this Journal. Latner or obese. They folt women. Controllt women in theirJournal of Eating Disorders and we look forward to receiving your manuscripts for publication. It is our aim to provide you with a high quality journal which will be a flagship for the area in open access. Throughout this endeavour we have had the unwavering support of Sara Ho of BMC who never lost sight of our determination to launch a new open access journal in early 2013. Her encyclopaedic knowledge regarding the establishment of an exciting, innovative and new open access journal and all the details that needed to be worked through has ensured that our new journal of eating disorders has met the highest international standards. It is now there for all to see. We thank our managing editor Jeremy Freeman whose visionary talents, abundance of enthusiasm and attention to detail has contributed greatly to the quality of this edition but will ensure that we strive for bigger and better things in the years to come. A special word of thanks is to the Butterfly Foundation for their generous support to ensure that this dream was finally able to become a reality. We thank all who have contributed to this launch, the first important step in the journal’s role in facilitating the speed of quality science and practice in the field of eating disorder and related disciplines.On behalf of the Editors, Associate Editors, members of the Editorial Board as well as our superb management team, welcome to the The authors declare that they have no competing interests.ST wrote the paper, PH contributed to content and editing. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript" should be present at the end of the paragraph.Co-editors in Chief: Stephen Touyz and Phillipa Hay.


Irish Veterinary Journal with BioMed Central, The Open Access Publisher, as part of their increasing veterinary portfolio. This is indeed an historical moment in the history of Irish Veterinary Journal, which was first published in November 1946. In this electronic age that we live in, it is interesting to note that the publication of the first issue was delayed by a post-war shortage of paper.As Editor-in-Chief, I am delighted to announce the re-launch of Irish Veterinary Journal was a study of blood serum parameters in cattle, horses, sheep and pigs in Ireland by W. Burke McAleer; a paper that emerged from his PhD thesis in the Veterinary College in Dublin. In its early years an editorial committee managed the journal and there was no mention of an individual Editor until the mid-1960s when J.K. Kealy was listed officially as Editor. B.T. Farrelly, who presided over the IVJ until 1980, soon followed him. Dr. Pat Hartigan became Editor in 1981 and worked tirelessly as peer-review Editor for many years until 2006. Management of publishing over this period was carried out by Irish Veterinary Publications Ltd. and more recently by IFP Media Ltd. for the new Veterinary Ireland organisation.The first scientific paper published in the Irish Veterinary Journal, with the support of Veterinary Ireland - the Irish professional representative organisation, is delighted to become part of the greater BMC publishing family and hopes to offer a new voice for high quality veterinary research internationally. Along with my Deputy Editors, Simon More, John Mee and Grace Mulcahy and expert editorial board, I would like to wish the new Irish Veterinary Journal every success.The move to Biomed Central heralds an exciting chapter in the history of the journal. Guím gath rath ar Iris Tréidliachta Éireann nua!Michael DohertyEditor-in-ChiefIrish Veterinary Journal