Access Microbiology, with artificial intelligence (AI) review tools and many of the elements of a preprint server. In an effort to improve the rigour, reproducibility and transparency of the academic record, the Access Microbiology platform will host both preprints of articles and their Version of Record (VOR) publications, as well as the reviewer reports, Editor's decision, authors' response to reviewers and the AI review reports. To ensure the platform meets the needs of our community, in February 2020 we conducted focus group meetings with various stakeholders. Using articles previously submitted to Access Microbiology, we undertook testing of a range of potential AI review tools and investigated the technical feasibility and utility of including these tools as part of the platform. In keeping with the open and transparent ethos of the platform, we present here a summary of the focus group feedback and AI review tool testing.The Microbiology Society will be launching an open research platform in October 2021. Developed using funding from the Wellcome Trust and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the platform will combine our current sound-science journal,  The awards support society publishers who ‘want to explore new ways of signalling the significance of published research outputs in an open and transparent manner’.In July 2020, the Microbiology Society was awarded funding by the Wellcome Trust and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as part of their Learned Society Curation Awards  review tools to help authors improve their work, and the posting of article versions as preprints alongside their associated AI review reports, peer reviewer reports, Editor comments and author responses, to ensure a fully transparent peer-review process. Accepted articles will be typeset and published in their final, Version of Record form.Our application proposed the conversion our existing sound-science journal, Access Microbiology welcomes articles from the entirety of microbiology and virology, and encourages the publication of replication studies, negative or null results, research proposals, data management plans, and additions to established methods. The publication criteria is based on methodological rigour rather than novelty. Converting the journal to an open research platform will increase transparency and openness, and therefore the rigour and reproducibility of the research.During the first stage of this project the Society has been engaging extensively with our community regarding the platform, and performing initial technical assessments of the AI review tools and peer review software.Access Microbiology, Society members, authors published in other open research platforms, preprint users, early career researchers, open access specialists based at large universities, Wellcome-grant recipients, and Editors who currently serve on the Access Microbiology Board. An initial call for volunteers to be involved in the project was put out in July 2020 by direct email to Society members and in the Microbiology Society Newsletter. The list of respondents was used as the primary source of contacts to populate the focus groups. However, authors published in Access Microbiology were contacted based on their publications over the past 2 years, preprint users were selected from recent authors published in Society journals who submitted via a bioRxiv transfer process, Wellcome-funded authors were found via Wellcome’s publicly available list (https://wellcome.org/grant-funding/funded-people-and-projects), and open access specialists were already known to the Society from institutional agreements.To encourage debate and to ensure we listen to our community, we attempted to include a representative pool of various potential stakeholders, including published authors in In advance of the focus group, participants were sent an overview of what the session would entail and were provided links and/or documentation to the AI review tools. In each session we presented the proposed model of the open research platform and asked for feedback. There were five to six participants in each group and three Microbiology Society staff members. Whilst each 90 min session mainly consisted of open discussion, the Chair guided the session through specific topics, including posing some open and closed questions. Topics included the overall model, open peer review, open data, and the AI review tools.Below are some key characteristics of each participant in each group. This information aims to provide context as to why they are an important stakeholder in the project. Limited information is provided to ensure anonymity is preserved.Postdoctoral Researcher and member of the Early Career Microbiologists’ (ECM) Forum.Director of microbiology and Society member; Wellcome-funded.Senior Lecturer; Wellcome-funded.Senior Lecturer and virologist of over 40 years.Open access specialist at a large university.Access Microbiology author.Associate Professor and Access Microbiology author and user of bioRxiv.Research Fellow, Group Leader, author published in other open research platforms, user of bioRxiv, Society member.Associate Professor, user of bioRxiv and Society member.Professor; Wellcome-funded.Open access specialist at a large university.Access Microbiology author.Principle Investigator and Access Microbiology author.Postdoctoral Researcher, member of the ECM Forum and Postdoctoral Researcher and member of the ECM Forum.Group Leader, user of bioRxiv and Society member.Group Leader; Wellcome-funded.Lecturer; Wellcome-funded.Access Microbiology were present: two Editor Mentors, three Editors and two Editor Mentees.Seven Editorial Board members of Access Microbiology open research platform , Penelope (https://www.penelope.ai/), iThenticate® (https://www.ithenticate.com/) and Scholarcy™ (https://www.scholarcy.com/scholarcy-features/).In parallel, it will be run through a number of AI or machine learning review tools. The AI review tools under consideration and presented were SciScore™  liked the general idea of the model, and particularly praised its goal of increased transparency with respect to peer review, and as a platform that could help early career researchers both improve their work and get it published. One participant noted that this model has the potential to disrupt an established hierarchy of high-impact journals led by senior researchers, whilst another commented that it has the potential for wide dissemination.PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports also exist. This was related to the perception of a lack of a unique selling point by some participants. The use of the terminology ‘posting’ and ‘publishing’ for preprints and Versions of Record, respectively, was well understood and felt to be important by some in highlighting when an article is truly published, as this is key for funding. A few participants in group 1 had concerns about reviewer fatigue if there was no option for Editors to reject, which was also extensively covered by the Editor focus group, described below.There were concerns by a few participants across different focus groups that there is already a very well-established preprint community  and that it might be difficult to convince authors to move away from these established platforms, especially when other successful sound-science journals such as After this initial and open discussion, when asked if they would consider publishing in the platform almost all participants across all focus groups indicated that they would. The exceptions included the two university open access specialists who are not microbiologists, one participant who was unsure and two who indicated that they would not because they do not typically publish in sound-science journals.Access Microbiology was already very difficult and were concerned that requiring reviewers to include their names would decrease the likelihood of people accepting to review, which was also noted as a possibility in focus group 2.The concepts of ‘open review’ or ‘transparent review’ were introduced. In summary, reviewers’ names are published in open review, while transparent review involves publishing the content of the review but the reviewer can opt-out of having their name revealed. Almost all participants across all four groups agreed with the principle of open peer review and felt that it should be a goal to work towards. However, most participants had reservations about the real implications and felt strongly towards transparent peer review with an opt-in option. A few participants in group 2 were strongly in favour of open reviews, arguing that if a publisher launches an open research platform, everything should be truly open and that this would encourage better quality reviews. Two Editors highlighted that securing reviewers for Access Microbiology, with multiple participants voicing concerns that posting these might risk the reputation of the platform and the Society itself. It was noted that reviewers often provide just one sentence, which is insufficient, and it was emphasized that there must be a way of dealing with these kinds of reviews on the platform. This led to a discussion on whether mandating open reviews would increase the quality and length of reviews, with two suggesting it might help; although one commented that the open reviews they had received on their own manuscript in an open review journal had not been much better and the Editor had allowed unfair comments to be sidestepped. Staff suggested the possibility of the platform launching with transparent  reviews but that the goal could be to move towards a mandatory open review within 2 years, to allow for wider community adoption and understanding. One Editor responded that any change would have to be based on a survey of those who have both opted in and opted out, to see what the main reasons were for opting out.A larger discussion occurred in the Editor focus group regarding the poor quality of the reviews currently received in Many participants across the groups that discussed the open data policy (group 1 did not) also agreed with it in principle, with some arguing that it would be important for the platform to enhance transparency, and that it could support data reproducibility and null studies. However, it was suggested that this might disadvantage smaller and less well funded researchers because the data could rapidly be reused by others who are much better equipped, and could publish work on it before the article was accepted. It was highlighted that it is often cultural attitudes towards data sharing that prove to be a barrier, rather than operational considerations.The Editor focus group was asked how they felt about Editors being asked to perform reviews on manuscripts handled by other Editors, as well as handling their own manuscripts, and how they felt about the Board being expanded to accommodate this new responsibility. Two Editors pushed back on this idea, stating that they were already overloaded with work, with one suggesting it would reduce the quality of the work they already do.The Editors were posed the following question: if the model (in theory) allows authors to continually revise their article, at what point in the peer review process could or should it no longer be continued, and under what circumstances? All Editors felt strongly that there should be a route to a form of rejection for a variety of reasons. Three Editors felt that they should even be able to assess the work before it was posted and reject it at this point. The primary reason being that when articles are very badly structured and written, it can be impossible to know what has been done methodologically and therefore to scientifically assess it. Another major concern surrounded those articles that could be understood, but were completely scientifically unsound, and any form of revision would not resolve that fundamental issue. Of additional concern were scenarios in which two ‘Reject’ recommendations are received from reviewers on an article that Editors are not themselves an expert on, and how it would be difficult to see how they should not listen to these recommendations. There was a high level of concern from most Editors that allowing preprints on the platform with no prior screening by an Editor would cause the platform to be inundated with very poor preprints, risking the reputation of the platform and the Society.Access Microbiology, Editors should not typically be asking authors to perform large amounts of experimental work, since the scope allows for incremental work, and if more work is being requested, it is a sign it probably is not sound and should be rejected. Another Editor disagreed, stating that it is possible to ask for experiments to make the work rigorous. One Editor also stated that they often ‘Rejected and invited resubmission’ for very poor language, but none had so far been resubmitted. Articles such as these would always remain on the new platform, again increasing the volume of poor-quality content.When it was clarified that Editors would be able to make early ‘Major revision’ recommendations on articles that could not yet be sent out for review, Editors felt that this would increase the workload for themselves as they would essentially have to perform full reviews to make this decision. Three participants stressed that Editors should be trusted to make the final judgement. On the issue of authors being unable to return to their labs to perform more experimental work due to COVID-19 restrictions, one Editor said that this should not be an excuse; the work must always be sound. Another Editor felt that given the sound-science scope of Lastly, one Editor felt that the platform should not be a form of ‘repository’ and should not allow minimal research such as genome announcements, as Editors at a journal they had previously worked on had been inundated with articles containing research not sufficient enough to be published.The Editors were asked whether a singular point of contact such as an Editor-in-Chief, as the other Society journals have, would be valuable to them for advising on ethical issues, appeals and edge-case articles. An Editor suggested that the previous idea of having one Editor Mentor and Mentee on the Society’s Publishing Panel to represent the platform could work. Both Mentors highlighted that the current Editor Mentor workload was relatively low and the current system of Mentors working with the other Board Members and the Journal Development Editor to resolve these situations worked well and that the journal was unique in this way. It was felt that, if there was to be a figurehead, they should be promoted from within the existing Board, but that it was not necessarily a requirement.There were some concerns from a few participants across the groups regarding the use of AI review tools. One concern related to asking authors to do more work during the submission process, and how this could be a barrier to submission. It was also raised that AI review tools can produce incorrect results, and having them used as a reason to reject an author could be unfair. Participants across all focus groups were concerned that publishing reports from any of the tools without clear guidance might be damaging if readers are not made fully aware of their possible weaknesses and the context required when interpreting them. Once participants were made aware that the tools would be primarily used by the authors to improve their work (even before preprinting), there was greater approval of their use, if handled appropriately by the Society.https://www.sciscore.com/media/Sample-Report.pdf. Many participants across all groups saw the potential for this tool, with the greatest emphasis placed on allowing authors to improve the rigour of their work and spot mistakes they would not have previously known required correction. Others stated it would help reviewers to spot ethical and data availability issues, whilst one suggested it could help highlight the use of different sequencing technologies. Whilst a couple of participants stated they would not have time to read the report alongside the preprint, one felt strongly that providing accurate and detailed methodology was useful when trying to reproduce a paper’s work. There was no indication that it would be useful to Editors. As noted above, it was stressed by many participants that clear guidance would be needed if the report were to be published with the article.Participants were asked to discuss the sample SciScore™ report, as shown on the SciScore™ website, Participants were asked to discuss a sample file sent to them by the Society. Concerns about iThenticate® were centred once again around publishing reports without providing clear guidance, with the open access specialist in group 2 explaining that misinterpretation of the report was a frequent issue with their students, which led to a lot of distress. Once participants were made aware that authors and Editors would be able to access the full online version before the posting of preprints, many saw the value in this tool in allowing an author to improve their work. Examples included: researchers not realizing they are self-plagiarizing due to years of writing in the same style; poor scholarship (incorrect referencing); and authors being able to spot when sentences had been lifted from previously published work because co-authors had written large parts of the manuscript. A point raised in multiple groups was that it is notoriously difficult to rewrite some methods that are well established (e.g. DNA extraction) and that allowances for slightly higher ‘scores’ in areas like this should be given, with one participant commenting that there would be an irony in a platform aiming to be transparent, but penalizing authors for attempting to ensure their methods were detailed and accurate.https://app.penelope.ai/submissions/demo/?role=author. Penelope was considered a useful tool for authors by some in each group, with a couple independently commenting that it would be particularly useful for early career researchers in guiding them how to properly construct a manuscript and self-improve. A few others stated that it was useful in simply checking they had complied with journal policies, with one saying it looked like the useful linting software they regularly use to check their code, whilst another liked that it would pick up on missing figure citations or references. A concern was raised by a couple of participants that this tool might be used to enforce archaic formatting requirements.Participants were asked to discuss the example article on the Penelope.ai website, https://app.scholarcy.com/flashcard-generator.html. This tool was regarded as the least useful of the tools by many participants across the groups, with many commenting they would not use it. Two participants explained that they had run one of their manuscripts through it and it had produced completely irrelevant results. A couple of participants also commented that as a reviewer they would not be confident that it was completely accurate and they would end up using the raw manuscript anyway. It was suggested that it might be useful for authors in writing a press release if it was free for the Society, but otherwise it was not useful.Participants were asked to discuss the flashcard generator on the Scholarcy™ website, Access Microbiology are based in the UK. We tried to ensure that authors who have published in Access Microbiology were well represented in the groups, but due to three of these invited participants being unexpectedly unable to attend, there were only four in total who took part. We also appreciate that the very nature of inviting participants to discuss an open research platform likely skews the eventual participant pool in favour of people already knowledgeable or interested in the concept and may therefore be more likely to have viewpoints on the model.Whilst we attempted to include a representative and diverse set of stakeholders, we recognize that our selection and invitation process using primarily a list of contacts who expressed interest through Society membership and activities likely captures only a subset of potential stakeholders. For example, most participants were based in the UK, whilst only approximately 5 % of the corresponding authors of articles submitted to Access Microbiology platform, articles were run through each tool and the results analysed, including accepted and rejected articles, and various article types. Tools were also investigated with respect to their possible integrations with our peer review system, Editorial Manager®, and how much manual intervention would be required by Editorial staff on a per article basis. Below is a summary of these tests.To ensure that the AI review tools are appropriate for the content published on the n=18) than rejected articles ., with the known average SciScore™ of an article in PubMed Central being 4.2 [SciScore kindly gave us an account to test the software. Methods, ethics statements, data availability statements and any other relevant information in each article was run through the tool and the score recorded, as well as how accurately and fairly it detected criteria. On average, accepted articles had a higher score 2.78, n=8 than reFor many Research Articles, sequencing and software were often correctly detected and clearly did not include sufficient information such as accession numbers, whilst many articles often omitted replication, power analysis and many research resource identifiers (RRIDs) that could easily be included by the authors. ‘Not detected’ was consistently present for all human-related checks in the Rigour Adherence Table on articles where this was completely irrelevant. After discussion with SciScore, this was determined to be a bug in the tool and would be fixed very soon. However, based on our recommendations, they stated that they are now considering rewording ‘Not detected’ to ‘Not relevant’ in instances when the tool does not expect a criterion, to highlight to authors when they do not need to address these areas.https://manuscriptexchange.org/) export to be posted online alongside the preprint.SciScore are in the process of a full integration with Editorial Manager®, with the expectation that it will be included in the next version release. Authors will manually paste their own methods during the submission process and the report will be run automatically when they submit, which returns the full set of results to the system. Authors, staff, Editors and reviewers should all be able to access the report, if given permission to do so. With a small amount of manual work by Society staff, the report can easily be included in the Manuscript Exchange Common Approach  whilst rejected articles scored 32 (n=9), suggesting that either peer review help improved authors’ work or that authors who are accepted are more careful with their writing. Most individual matches on accepted articles were only 1–2% and linked to very short and mandatory pieces of text, such as affiliations, standard funding statements, or commonly accepted phrases within the field. However, even some of the accepted articles contained longer sentences that were identical to previous work and should be rewritten. Some articles that had already been published were also checked, revealing that whilst the tool did pick up the published article, it often only matched with the abstract or only some parts of the rest of the manuscript.Testing was done using the Microbiology Society’s established account with Turnitin. Overall similarity scores were noted, and individual matches were checked to assess relevance. On average, accepted articles scored 15.3 , and it is worth noting that these articles had already been screened by in-house staff, so it is assumed that the tool would have picked up more errors than we found if run on unchecked articles. It was useful in detecting missing references (or citations for references), missing figure legends (or figure citations) and ethical statements. Notably, it was able to recommend that authors consult the CARE checklist (https://www.care-statement.org/checklist) for Case Reports. However, because it has been designed to specifically expect authors to provide funding and conflict of interest statements under these respective headings, it did not detect any that did not fall under these, even if the statements themselves were present in the manuscript. The file size limit is 10 MB, which prevented a couple of articles from being assessed.Penelope was tested using the freely available precheck tool on their website: Penelope is not integrated in Editorial Manager® and at the time of writing, there were no confirmed plans for this to happen soon, although an API is available. However, the tool can easily be used by authors as a standalone product  before submitting to Editorial Manager®, although the Editorial Office, Editors and reviewers would not receive any of these results associated with a submitted manuscript.https://app.scholarcy.com/flashcard-generator.html?web=1&wdLOR=cA57D6039-E93C-4287-92DC-5BD2945568D5. The tool also has no score-based output so testing was based on its ability to generate useful lay summaries and highlights, and detect relevant keywords. Only seven articles were tested  but only one was considered ‘Useful’. The main issues included the Tweet/lay summary frequently missing key information that rendered it meaningless, and full stops used in abbreviated bacterial names (e.g. B. subtilis) often being detected as the end of a sentence, producing stunted and useless summaries.Scholarcy™ was tested using the freely available flashcard generator on their website, Scholarcy™ is not integrated in Editorial Manager® and at the time of writing, there were no confirmed plans for this to happen soon, although an API is available. Like Penelope, the tool can be used by authors as a standalone product (linked within our website) before submitting to Editorial Manager®, but the Editorial Office, Editors and reviewers would not receive any of these results associated with the submitted manuscript.These findings and some recommendations were presented to the Project Steering Group in March 2020. However, one of our main recommendations was to try and capture more feedback from our community on the more divisive aspects of the model, such as open peer review and the open data policy. We will do this by running a short survey over the coming months.


The demand for peer reviewers is often perceived as disproportionate to the supply and availability of reviewers. Considering characteristics associated with peer review behaviour can allow for the development of solutions to manage the growing demand for peer reviewers. The objective of this research was to compare characteristics among two groups of reviewers registered in Publons.A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used to compare characteristics between (1) individuals completing at least 100 peer reviews (‘mega peer reviewers’) from January 2018 to December 2018 as and (2) a control group of peer reviewers completing between 1 and 18 peer reviews over the same time period. Data was provided by Publons, which offers a repository of peer reviewer activities in addition to tracking peer reviewer publications and research metrics. Mann Whitney tests and chi-square tests were conducted comparing characteristics  of mega peer reviewers to the control group of reviewers.p < .001). We found no statistically significant differences in the number of words between the groups (p > .428).A total of 1596 peer reviewers had data provided by Publons. A total of 396 M peer reviewers and a random sample of 1200 control group reviewers were included. A greater proportion of mega peer reviews were male (92%) as compared to the control reviewers . Mega peer reviewers demonstrated a significantly greater average number of total publications, citations, receipt of Publons awards, and a higher average h index as compared to the control group of reviewers (all Mega peer reviewers registered in the Publons database also had a higher number of publications and citations as compared to a control group of reviewers. Additional research that considers motivations associated with peer review behaviour should be conducted to help inform peer reviewing activity. Peer review involves a manuscript undergoing evaluation of research by, for example, experts or early career researchers in the same field, individuals with lived experience, and policy advisors . When peThe sustainability of peer review relies on the availability and expertise of peer reviewers. Obtaining peer reviews that are high quality is difficult for many journal editors –8. An inPublons offers a repository where peer reviewers can document their peer review activities in addition to tracking publications and research metrics . Anecdothttps://osf.io/vxdhf/?view_only=313fd05399664b94bc7a9042aa225be3) before data collection began. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study that retrospectively examined factors associated with mega peer reviewers compared to a control group of peer reviewers. Mega reviewers were defined as individuals that completed peer reviews for 100 or more unique articles from January 2018 to December 2018. All aspects of this study were reported in accordance with the original Strengthening (STROBE) reporting guidelines to facilitate the complete and transparent reporting of this work , review characteristics based on Publons data . Sex was not available on Publons. As such, sex was estimated by using the Genderize data base, which uses data collected from countries to assess the probability of the sex being associated with a given name  and review characteristics  (independent variables) were compared in the two groups of reviewers (mega-reviewers and control group of reviews) within the regression model. Prior to conducting regression analyses, preliminary tests were performed to determine the appropriateness of analyses based on any violations of regression assumptions. Tests of multicollinearity were conducted, and independent variable tolerance values were reviewed. Four variables did not reach the recommended cut-off values for collinearity statistics , suggestConducting a survey with mega reviewers and control reviewers to better understand what drives peer reviewing behaviour was a planned part of the current project. This survey has not yet been conducted due to reduced availability of the first author. The average word count of reviewers at the same institutions as the mega reviewers and control reviewers was removed from the included variables as this variable is a characteristic of the institution rather than the individual reviewers.> 100 peer reviews during 2018 were included. A random sample of 1200 control group reviewers completing 18 peer reviews over the same time period. For reviewers that could have their sex estimated with at least 80% certainty (n = 1315), 92% of mega peer reviewers were male, as compared to 70% of reviewers that were male in the control group. Characteristics of mega peer reviewers and the control group are included in Tables A total of 396 M reviewers that completed p < .05). No statistically significant differences in the medians were found when comparing for the number of words in peer reviews between groups (p > .05) (see Table A series of Mann-Whitney u tests were conducted comparing mega peer reviewers to the control group of reviewers (see Table The continent of reviewers significantly differed. The majority of mega peer reviewers were from Asia (33%), Europe (37%), and North America (19%). Among the control group of peer reviewers, 41% were from Europe, 26% from North America, and 21% from Asia. The remaining reviewers were from Australia , South America , and Africa . Publons awards were significantly more present among mega peer reviewers with 88% of mega peer reviewers having received an award from Publons as compared to less than 1 % of the control group reviewers , followed by optimal reviewing with the help of a reporting guideline , along wPublons Academy modules provide relevant knowledge to all peer reviewers who are trainees, which could influence the quality and completeness of peer reviews. The need to prioritize depth over the number of completed peer reviews may need to be further emphasized in these modules when training reviewers. This emphasis on depth may also be relevant for incentive structures. Peer reviewing is often absent from incentive structures within academia , howeverhttps://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/web-of-science-academy/].There are limitations that should be considered when interpreting our results. First, the data used was collected from researchers that have an account through Publons database which may result in a selection bias. Second, the data collected for this work was received from Publons, limiting the variables that were available. For example, the sex of peer reviewers is not collected within the Publons database. As such, we estimated gender using an online algorithm that has been used in previous studies . The accThe demand for peer reviewers continues to increase. Peer review can result in valuable feedback for the authors and improve the quality and usability of research findings. However, obtaining a high quality peer review is difficult for many journals. The current research found that mega peer reviewers complete a substantive number of peer review activities each year and demonstrate significantly different characteristics than a group of control peer reviewers. These characteristics are important to understand in order to increase the availability and usability of peer reviewers. Future research that identifies the factors associated with peer-review behaviour should be conducted to help inform designing strategies and interventions to facilitate system- and individual- level changes in peer reviewing activity.


Dear Readers,The great science from our authors and the high support our readers have positioned ”Nanomaterials” as a top scientific journal with a continuous impact factor increase. We also have an excellent group of reviewers supporting the journal that actively enhances the journal’s quality—the increasing trajectory of the journal results in the current impressive impact factor of 5.076. I must congratulate our Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Shirley Chiang, for these outstanding results.From mid-2019, we started a new section in Nanomaterials focused on “Inorganic Materials and Metal–Organic Frameworks”. This section covers a multidisciplinary science at the frontier between nanomaterials and inorganic chemistry. It focuses on different types of materials, including monoelemental and multicomponent nanoparticles with different shapes and sizes and incredible physico-chemical properties, enhancing applications to atomically designed particles. We also include a particular sub-section on metal-organic frameworks because processability at the nanoscale of these porous and crystalline materials has recently become a topic of increasing scientific attention due to their potential implication in many technological fields of application. The section has been very well received, publishing a total of 38 works of excellent quality in 2020 by scientific groups worldwide. Just to mention some examples of the most relevant contributions selected based on the number of citations, I would like to highlight a research article from Prof. Clement et al. (Germany) focused on Biocompatible Magnetic Fluids [It is a great honor for me to follow at the position of Inorganic Materials and Metal–Organic Frameworks Section Editor-in-Chief of Nanomaterials.We are excited about the future. We want to support the publication of the scientific works in fundamental and applied science, dealing with preparation, characterization, properties, device fabrication, and applications to theoretical studies to enhance materials design and properties.The Inorganic Materials and Metal–Organic Frameworks section is currently organizing 22 Special Issues covering the most fundamental aspects of the research in inorganic materials at the nanoscale. Some of these issues are led by world-leading scientists or rising stars. For example, Prof. Wang of The Chinese Academy of Sciences is leading a special Issue on Advanced Metal–Organic Frameworks. At the same time, the young scientist Dr. Marius Dobromir acts as guest editor of the Special Issue “Growth, Characterization and Applications of Nanotubes”.Nanomaterials to continue to keep on the journal’s quality. Our goal is to publish a variety of high-quality, high-impact research on inorganic nanomaterials.We look forward to working with the researchers, reviewers, and the brilliant editorial staff of With best regards,Félix Zamora


What happens to applications after they are submitted to the National Institutes of Health, and how can you better prepare yourself and your application for the process of peer review? The Center for Scientific Review (CSR) works closely with the 24 funding institutes and centers at the National Institutes of Health that provide funding support for projects of high scientific merit and high potential impact. CSR conducts the first level of review for the majority of grant applications submitted to the NIH, which includes 90% of R01s, 85% of Fellowships, and 95% of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) applications as well as many other research and training opportunity activities. In this capacity, CSR helps to identify the most meritorious projects, cutting-edge research, and future scientists who will advance the mission of the NIH: to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. The purpose of this project is to provide an overview of 1) what happens to NIH applications before, during, and after peer review at CSR; 2) a summary of new and current peer review policies and practices that impact investigators and their submitted applications; and 3) strategies for developing a strong NIH grant application. Peer review is the cornerstone of the NIH grant supporting process, and an insider’s view can shine a light inside the “Black Box” of how the most meritorious projects are identified.


Communications Biology, and the importance of providing peer review opportunities and recognition to early-career researchers.In celebration of Peer Review Week 2021, we asked pairs of faculty mentors and their trainees to reflect on their experiences as co-reviewers for manuscripts at  Dr. John Dennehy is a Professor of Biology at Queens College, City University of New York. He received his Ph.D. in biology from Clark University and was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University and the State University of New York at Albany before coming to Queens College in 2007.Irene Hoxie is a Ph.D. student in the Dennehy lab at Queens College, City University of New York, where she investigates rotavirus ecology and evolution.Dr. Elia di Schiavi received his Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Naples Federico II, and is currently the head of the C. elegans neurobiology lab at the Institute of Biosciences and BioResources in Naples, Italy.Giada Onorato is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Biosciences and BioResources, where she is currently working with the di Schiavi lab to investigate genetic background-dependent effects of space-related radiation on the C. elegans nervous system.John and Irene, please tell us a bit about your research.John Dennehy (JD): The focus of the lab is virus ecology and evolution. The lab works with everything from phages to mammalian viruses. Irene introduced rotaviruses to the lab and made them the focus of her dissertation. She bioinformatically analyzed patterns of genetic exchange and compared the 11 rotavirus segments’ evolution over the past 50 years. In addition, she conducted wet lab experiments on rotavirus reassortment, extracellular vesicle formation, and miRNAs that are carried by rotavirus extracellular vesicles.Irene Hoxie (IH): I’m mostly interested in viral RNA and RNA virus genome evolution, but both John and I started in ecology, evolution, and behavior (EEB) before getting into virology, so I think we both get excited by viral and microbial diversity in general, and anytime those EEB fields overlap with molecular virology.Elia and Giada, please tell us about your research interests.Elia di Schiavi (EDS): In my laboratory we use the incredible power of the small animal model C. elegans to study how neurons are able to cope with different insults of genetic and environmental origin. This fundamental question about how neurons survive for a very long time (decades in some species) is addressed using molecular biology approaches to understand the genetic pathways involved in neuronal degeneration and protection. Moreover, using a high-throughput pharmacological approach, we are also identifying small natural and artificial molecules able to prevent or delay neurodegeneration.Giada Onorato (GO): I am interested in using C. elegans as a model organism to understand how environmental conditions and genetic variations can modulate neuron survival and degeneration, including in pathological conditions.Why do you think peer review is important? Has being a peer reviewer changed your perception of the scientific process?EDS: Albeit imperfect, peer review is the best and only way science can advance and stay protected from non-scientific approaches, thus helping, even recently during the COVID pandemic, science to stay consistent and reliable. Of course, being a reviewer completely affects your perception of the whole scientific process. Only when you know what it means to do something, you truly understand, respect and possibly appreciate it. In my case, I got the feeling that reviewers are human beings, with their values and defects, knowledge and misconceptions, and precious time to dedicate to the review process. This simple message completely changed the way I approach writing papers and the rebuttal process to reviewer comments.IH: I’ve received totally opposite reviews for the same paper , so it’s helpful to be exposed to many reviews so you get a better sense of what’s helpful, what’s good science, etc. It also provides a different perspective to be a  part of someone else’s science and thought process, without having any kind of bias to the project or people. Usually, we’re just so deep into our own work, so we can’t necessarily see how others might view it. Peer reviewing gives us an opportunity to give an outside perspective.Why is it important to include trainees in the peer review process and provide them with direct recognition for their involvement?EDS: Including trainees in the review process is pivotal for them (and the whole peer review process), for their education on how to write articles and review them, but also for their professional development. It is very important to stress the importance of giving credit to their work, which is one of the most important rewards that scientists achieve in their career (at least in my opinion). So, it’s important to give a clear message to early-career researchers that reviewing is an important aspect of science, that it is a difficult and long task, but their job will be somehow acknowledged. Of course, there’s also the possibility of adding this experience to build a more appealing CV.GO: Allowing young researchers to participate in the process of reviewing scientific work can improve their knowledge even in fields apart from their own research activity. It allows them to become aware of ongoing scientific progress, creates curiosity and stimulates their critical spirit. Therefore, providing credit to the review activity is important to allow the professional growth of young researchers.IH: Trainees are often the ones writing most of a manuscript or designing and conducting experiments, particularly if it’s for their own dissertation, and sometimes they’re the ones corresponding with the reviewers and journals. Principal investigators also get asked to review a lot of papers not necessarily always within their field of expertise, while trainees rarely get personally asked by journals. If a paper comes along that’s related to some experiment or paper the trainee is first author on, it makes sense the investigator would want their trainee to help write the review. Also, since we never get asked personally by journals, we’d be much more likely to say yes to writing a review. It’s demoralizing to spend a long time on a review and not get credit, so of course you should credit trainees.JD: I was never asked to participate in a peer review by my mentors. Being asked to review a manuscript was an important milestone for me as it indicated that I was accepted as a peer in the scientific community. However, it took some time for me to learn the ins and outs of reviewing, a process that would have been facilitated if my mentors had shared reviewing responsibilities with me. The peer review process is a fundamental aspect of science. Despite this, specific training in the performance of peer review is rare. There is more to peer review than simply critiquing a paper. Not only must the scientific soundness of the work need to be judged, but also the significance of the work, its context in the literature, and its appropriateness for the journal need to be considered. As a mentor, I include my mentees in all reviews that I perform. The mentee benefits from first-hand exposure to the peer review process and the authors and editors benefit from an extra set of eyes assessing the work. But too often the contributions of “junior” reviewers are not acknowledged. Direct recognition of their involvement will benefit trainees’ careers by increasing their recognition as scientists by the scientific community.Interviews were conducted by Associate Editor George Inglis.


Scientific Reports launched in June 2011 with an inclusive ethos, and a mission to publish high-quality research without selecting papers based on perceived impact or significance. We reflect on our first 10 years, and thank our authors, reviewers and Editorial Board Members for their contributions to the success of the journal. The vast majority of research involves small steps forward and it is not easy to predict which are steps towards major breakthroughs, or those that will later be found to have unexpected importance. Science is driven forward by these incremental advances in knowledge and understanding, and it progresses more rapidly when these contributions are disseminated quickly. But some research still goes completely unpublished, and overall progress is impeded when valid results are not made widely available. Researchers can find themselves sitting on results because they don’t fit the hypothesis, leading to publication bias; or due to the way researchers are assessed, they focus only on the results they think may be accepted by a selective journal.We set out to serve the research community by providing a high-visibility, multidisciplinary Open Access journal that publishes scientifically robust original contributions, but where the community determines the value and importance of the work after publication. Since 2011, Open Access publishing has become more mainstream and there is increased understanding of the benefits it offers. There is also wider acknowledgement of the publishing option provided by a broad scoped, inclusive journal, and greater appreciation of how we can serve the broader research enterprise by improving research dissemination, reducing publication bias, and making the overall editorial and peer-review process more efficient and constructive. As we look back on our first 10 years, we are humbled by the number, breadth and diversity of the researchers who see the value in our approach and choose to publish with us.interviews, they reflect on their experiences at Scientific Reports, how the journal is achieving its mission, and its role in a changing research and publishing landscape.To mark our 10th anniversary our in-house editors interviewed some our Editorial Board Members (EBMs), some of whom have been with us since the start, and others who have joined us more recently as Collection Guest Editors and Registered Reports EBMs. In these Our EBMs allude to some positive signs that those assessing researchers are not relying on Journal Impact Factor to the same extent that they used to, and there are indications of a growing appreciation that negative results ought to be published, even if they’re still mostly not. But while there are reasons to be positive about this progress, we still face the fundamental problem that the research, publishing and academic systems do a poor job of rewarding rigour.What comes across most strongly in the EBMs’ interviews is their commitment to the ethos of the journal, providing constructive peer review, and serving their communities. Of course the role is not without its challenges; there are the day-to-day issues of finding reviewers and managing peer review—something we have been focussing on by introducing new submission technology to improve author experience, and facilitate innovation in peer review. But there are also broader issues in that there is still insufficient credit, in terms of career development, for doing editorial work and reviewing papers.Sara Weibel explains how she has redirected her research to combat COVID-19. But there is hope that the pandemic may also help to reshape research in the long-term by encouraging early sharing of data, and release of early versions of work as pre-prints—things we have championed at Scientific Reports with our Under Consideration site for COVID-19 related work submitted to the journal.We know that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to profoundly affect many of our contributors in terms of personal challenges, disruption and loss. It has also led to many researchers being busier than ever:  our EBM Matjaž Perc, who works in social physics, explains how research is becoming more multidisciplinary, and that new fields now generally emerge at the interfaces of other fields. Scientific Reports has always been supportive and inclusive of such communities, helping them to grow and become more visible.We started out covering the natural sciences, expanding into clinical sciences, and more recently further expanding to cover engineering disciplines. The broad, multidisciplinary nature of the journal has helped to develop connections between different fields and foster collaborations to address global challenges and Sustainable Development Goals. Florian Frommlet is Guest Editor of our ‘Improving reproducibility in animal research’ collection and he explains how multidisciplinary collaborations can also lead to increased rigour, and how he has seen a changing attitude to reproducibility issues over the last 10 years. To support reproducibility, we will introduce further initiatives and policies to improve reporting and transparency, but Florian explains why it is also important to identify and address the specific issues affecting different research subcultures. We recently introduced Registered Reports, which can promote rigour and combat publication bias, and we are encouraging their broader use.Collections of papers and authors’ stories. Our Collections allow us to support and highlight specific communities, to promote work that address Sustainable Development Goals, to react to events and respond to emerging fields of research. Our authors tell the stories of how their paper came into being, often through embracing multidisciplinary collaborations, benefiting from a constructive editorial and peer review process, and then finding that the published work had unexpected reach and impact.We have also taken our 10th anniversary as an opportunity to select some of our favourite We would like to finish by offering our profound thanks to our authors, reviewers and EBMs. We are hugely grateful for your contributions to the journal during its first 10 years, and we look forward to collaborating further for the good of the broad research community and research dissemination in general.


BJUI Compass is picking up momentum in new article submissions not only from work contributed by the editorial team, but also articles transferred from BJUI, and direct submissions. With any route, a finalized and published article needs a lot of attention to detail to be sure we are getting it right with sound science, clarity in writing, and efficiency in highlighting new and important information for your practice in urology.This phrase has been on my mind lately. Therefore, I want to acknowledge and thank the editorial board and ad hoc reviewers for their efforts toward a thorough review of our articles and finding many ways to improve them. Authors have been thoughtful in their responses and revisions; and courteous enough to resubmit their work with “track changes” versions and detailed author response letters such that the team can quickly see how the article is improved. We are a new journal, and I am pleased to see the peer review system working well toward an optimized final product that is freely accessible to the world.BJUI Compass—another multinational effort with papers from Australia, Italy, Egypt, and Germany.To the Journals… In this month’s review article, Nzenza et alTo the Clinic… The study by Hurle et alTo the Drawing Board… At this point in time, patients requiring urinary diversion after radical cystectomy have a fairly long history of experience available in the literature and from their surgeons to make an informed decision. There are many preferences among surgeons as well as some medical history or age‐related reasons to choose one over the other. In the study from Elbadry et alTo the Future… Although many of the articles we will feature in this section will be surgical innovation, this article certainly caught my attention as a potentially important innovation in salvage radiation. Many cases of recurrent disease after radical prostatectomy will feature only a rising PSA with no imaging findings. In this study by Spek et alLet’s get to this month in BJUI Compass and in keeping with the theme of attention to detail—Figure Please enjoy the September 2020 issue of


Molecular Biology and Evolution is a proudly society-owned journal, providing members of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) with a high-impact outlet for their research and opportunities for active participation in scientific publishing.The world faced many challenges in 2020, which were shared by our community. We are particularly grateful to our editors and reviewers, who continued their efforts to move science forward in the face of disrupted work environments and urgent personal commitments.MBE community also prepared for a major change in 2020, transitioning from a hybrid publishing model to fully open-access publishing. This transition required modifications to the submission and production of manuscripts and the publication fee structure. By August 2020, all submissions were required to be evaluated under an open-access license, allowing the January 2021 issue to contain only open-access manuscripts. With this development, MBE content became accessible to readers everywhere without paywalls. Although the changes in publication fees raised concerns about the accessibility of publication to researchers lacking sufficient financial support, MBE maintains its mission to support the publication of novel and high-impact research regardless of the authors’ ability to pay.The MBE. The December 2020 issue was MBE’s last regular volume printed on paper. MBE continues to highlight author-contributed original artwork on our website, with a virtual cover image selected for each issue.The transition to full open access also marked the end of print publication for MBE received 1,247 original submissions and 482 revised submissions from authors based in 54 countries. Although more than 90% of the submissions came from Europe, Asia, and North America, the proportional contribution among these regions continues to shift, with the proportion of manuscripts submitted by authors based in Asia (33%) narrowly surpassing the proportion submitted by authors based in Europe. Authors based in North America submitted 26% of original manuscripts received by MBE in 2020. Articles account for almost 92% of original submissions, followed by Letters (7%). MBE continues to publish Brief Communications , Perspectives, and Reviews in smaller numbers, as well as Protocols by invitation. Press articles, written by MBE’s Press Officer Joseph Caspermeyer, highlight articles expected to generate broad interest among nonspecialist readers.During the 2020 calendar year, MBE’s impact factor for 2020 (citations during 2020 of manuscripts published in 2018 and 2019) is 16.240. Citation trends thus far in 2021 suggest that next year’s impact will remain strong.MBE’s rejection rate for original submissions in 2020 was 73%, with nearly 57% of these rejected without soliciting external review. Of manuscripts rejected at this stage, 30% were offered an immediate transfer to our sister journal Genome Biology and Evolution (GBE). Rejection prior to external peer-review is meant to save time for authors and reviewers in finding the most suitable venue for a given manuscript. This procedure helped us keep the average time until the first decision to 23 days for manuscripts submitted in 2020. The average time to reach a final decision for a research article was 36 days, an improvement in speed from 2019, despite our impressions that everything was moving slower in “pandemic time.”GBE, MBE has experimented with changes to our editorial process that expedite the transfer of high-quality manuscripts suitable for publication in GBE. As part of the routine manuscript evaluation, handling editors assess whether manuscripts would be potentially suitable for publication in GBE, regardless of their outcome at MBE. Any manuscripts deemed potentially suitable for GBE but not chosen as a high priority for publication in MBE are offered transfer to GBE in their decision letter. Of manuscripts submitted in 2020, 373 were given an option to transfer to GBE, including 216 immediate transfers and 157 after external peer-reviews at MBE. More than half of these manuscripts had positive outcomes at GBE, i.e., they were either accepted or a revision was invited. The offers of transfer to GBE had a response rate less than 50%, but ∼58% of respondents did elect to transfer their manuscript to GBE. Although these results are generally encouraging, MBE will continue to work with the editors and staff at GBE to make the transfer process more appealing to authors and improve MBE editors’ ability to identify articles that will be successful at GBE.In ongoing efforts to work more closely with Although the global pandemic removed our ability to convene our editorial board in person in Quebec City, our virtual editorial board meetings were well-attended. We are grateful to our editors’ service to the SMBE community and thankful to the editorial staff for supporting all the editors and authors.


Journal of Reproduction and Fertility (now known as Reproduction) was launched 60 years ago in 1960, it addressed the need for a formal publication to represent the members of what was then the Society for the Study of Fertility . Through the years, the journal’s successive editorial boards have molded it into one that has the reputation of being a leading title in reproductive biology.When the Reproduction and Fertility, and have invited us to lead the journal as founding co-editors-in-chief.In recent years, the SRF identified the need for a new publication outlet for its members and authors, one which is fully open access and devoted to the entire breadth of our subject, from basic through to translational to clinical research. With this endpoint in mind, SRF, alongside the society’s established publisher Bioscientifica, are launching a new fully open-access journal, We have conceived new editorial policies that, together with the publication of all work under open-access licenses, will allow the widest possible dissemination of published work:We have made the decision to focus on scientific robustness when assessing papers, rather than on a perceived level of interest or originality. Too often, editorial boards find themselves needing to cherry pick only what is considered to be the most exciting or novel research for publication, with negative results, confirmatory studies or minor advances often overlooked. Here, our aim is simply to encourage submission of all papers which are scientifically and methodologically sound.Articles can be in the form of research articles, research letters, reviews or commentaries. Our inclusion of short research letters provides authors with an opportunity to let the scientific community know of preliminary work prior to completion of a more comprehensive study or to publish small but scientifically robust studies where that avenue of research has not been further pursued.In alignment with the greater visibility proffered by publishing articles open access, authors will be asked to provide a short Lay Summary of their article, a condensed summary intended for the public or those working outside of the immediate field. These summaries will offer authors the opportunity to share their perspective on the wider impact of their work.Authors will also be encouraged to include a graphical abstract that will sit alongside their traditional text abstract. The graphical abstract is intended to be a neat, visual summary of the key points of the article and will serve as an additional peer-reviewed medium for communicating authors’ work within the journal and using social-media platforms.Reproduction and Fertility papers during the launch years, to enable authors to benefit from the additional exposure afforded by open-access publication at no extra cost. This is an extraordinary move and one that will support SRF members and the wider scientific community.Finally, it is well known that open-access articles are freely and universally accessible online. Authors hold the copyright for their work and are able to comply with any requirements of funding bodies for work to be published via a gold open-access route. However, open-access publication shifts the onus of payment from subscribing libraries to the author. We are excited to announce that SRF and Bioscientifica will completely cover the article publishing charges for Our vision for this new journal is that it will draw from the opportunities presented to create a powerful new outlet to accelerate the research, education and practice of those working in our field and beyond. Scientific and medical breakthroughs are rare, increasingly so; rather, iterative progress is the norm. We need to advocate for openness, visibility, collaborative and holistic working in order to provide an environment in which many iterations can, together, have the same impact as those breakthrough moments, increasing our knowledge of reproduction and fertility and improving reproductive health. We are currently recruiting an exceptional and diverse editorial board with the necessary experience and expertise to shape the path for this new journal and one that reflects the wide scope of basic, translational, and clinical reproduction and fertility.Reproduction and Fertility has been conceived as a complementary journal to Reproduction and will benefit from Reproduction’s tried-and-tested editorial policies and from its established standards for rigor during peer review. There are many good papers submitted to Reproduction which cannot be published there. As such, we will also work alongside the editorial board of Reproduction to identify manuscripts that might be considered for Reproduction and Fertility, including aiming to use reviewers’ reports, to save authors time and to allow their papers to be published in an SRF journal.Reproduction and Fertility is now accepting submissions of research articles, research letters, reviews and commentaries. We anticipate that Reproduction and Fertility will be included in PubMed Central and Journal Citation Reports (Science Citation Index Expanded) as soon as the required number of articles have been published, at which point indexing will be applied to all articles retrospectively.We hope that you take advantage of the extraordinary offer to publish open-access free of charge and look forward to seeing your submissions.The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of this commentary.


European Journal of General Practice (EJGP) editors evaluated the EJGP’s last year’s volume. In 2020, we published 36 articles, including 19 reports of original research, one systematic review, and four editorials. We had our share of COVID publications, including a background paper by WONCA Europe and several Letters to the Editor, following our first Editorial on this topic. We published three articles in the ongoing Series on eHealth. Authors came from various countries, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Turkey; there were a few international collaborative contributions [Like previous years, the ‘Improving the quality of antibiotic prescribing through an educational intervention delivered through the out-of-hours general practice service in Ireland’ by Nuala O’Connor et al. In their paper, the authors describe how they improved the quality of antibiotics prescription during out-of-hours services in two Irish areas. They used a simple educational information tool targeted at GPs differentiating antibiotics into ‘red’ (to be avoided) and ‘green’ . At the end of each consultation, an electronic pop-up message was displayed in the patient management software if a decision to describe an antibiotic was made. The simple intervention reduced the proportion of prescribed ‘red’ antibiotics from 44% to 17% and increased the ‘green’ antibiotic prescriptions from 56% to 83%. We encourage the publication of sound studies that are innovative and relevant, like this one. This quality improvement study could easily be replicated in other settings, areas and countries, with a clear impact on public health. Congratulations to the whole team [The Editors each selected five articles they found most valuable and of which they established the scientific quality as ‘good’. We considered relevance for family medicine , originality, methodology and possible impact on practice or research. Overall, the highest-ranking paper was ole team !Anne E. MacFarlane’s opinion paper ‘Optimising individual and community involvement in health decision-making in general practice consultations and primary care settings: A way forward’ for her apparent attempt to discuss ‘three overlapping forms of patient involvement: shared decision-making in clinical care, community participation to develop services and Public and Patient Involvement in research’ [In addition, we want to mention esearch’ .‘Lessons on the COVID-19 pandemic, for and by primary care professionals worldwide’ by Salman Rawaf et al., which we consider the most valuable contribution on COVID-19 published in this Journal in 2020. The authors stress ‘the importance of maintaining access to primary care and ongoing management of all health problems that impact the local population’. They also provide an essential lesson on communication: ‘Users of information  all have their own information needs that cannot be served by the same measures’ [Furthermore, we want to highlight the article easures’ .European Journal of General Practice.You can read these and other published articles in the European Journal of General Practice accepts around 15% of all submitted manuscripts.Finally, we want to express our gratitude to all reviewers who have advised us during the year 2020. We thank you for your appreciated assistance! Your review reports were very valuable feedback to the authors and helped us to make our editorial decisions. Currently, the http://mc.manuscript-central.com/ejgp to modify your profile. In addition, we invite all readers of the European Journal of General Practice interested in reviewing manuscripts for this Journal, to visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ejgp and to register as ‘new user’, i.e. to complete the details of their expertise.Although our database of authors and reviewers steadily increases, the Editors find it challenging to select referees within the Journal’s deadlines. Therefore, we sincerely hope that all reviewers want to continue their review work. If you would like to update your reviewer account, e.g. to specify your expertise, please visit


Telemedicine Reports. I have been involved in telemedicine for over 30 years and must admit that we are currently in what I would consider the most exciting of those 30 years. Not only is telemedicine at the forefront of healthcare as a critical and necessary way for patients and providers to stay connected in times of the public health emergency, but it is finally also actively on the agenda of world governments, healthcare payers, administrators, educators and patients. We have arrived!It is with great enthusiasm that I write this editorial for the inaugural edition of Why do we need another journal? There are a number of highly respected journals dedicated to telehealth, telemedicine, m-Health, e-Health and a host of related topics, and nearly every clinical specialty journal either has a dedicated telemedicine or related section these days or at least regularly publishes articles on the topic.Telemedicine Reports is to be the leading open-access, peer-reviewed journal for telemedicine research, education, and implementation science reports. The emphasis of the journal will be on published research on the successful development and integration of telehealth technologies and applications into healthcare settings, with the goal of improving the efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness of improving patient health outcomes. We are particularly interested in multidisciplinary and global research and education efforts, reflecting the diversity of patient populations, healthcare systems, and research methodologies impacted by telehealth. Telemedicine Reports will bring healthcare to anyone, anywhere, anytime as a fully open access publication. Our goal is to disseminate research results online and free of cost to readers in the most timely fashion.The goal of Telemedicine Reports is not bound to the traditional model of collecting articles into issues and only releasing them periodically. Authors can submit papers for full peer-review, receive comments in a timely fashion for quick revision turn-around if the paper is deemed suitable for publication, and expect to see the final article online and available for the public to read in far less time than with a more traditional journal. There is so much going on in telehealth and telemedicine today that waiting months for cutting-edge research and information to appear in print is simply not acceptable. Telemedicine Reports will be the go-to journal for state-of-the-art information on a host of important and highly relevant topics that will help propel telemedicine to even further heights.As an open access, online journal, Telemedicine Reports Editorial Board to help with this undertaking and to guide the journal in its progress and efforts. For all of you interested in and conducting research in telehealth, comparative effectiveness, human factors and implementation science, healthcare educators, trainers & curriculum developers, medical informatics, and telehealth technology, I welcome you to Telemedicine Reports and encourage you to submit to, read and refer to our new journal!I am looking forward to heading this amazing effort and new publication from the Mary Ann Liebert Inc. publishers. I will soon be welcoming a group of world experts to the


Over the past decades, many new techniques, tools, and methodologies have been developed rapidly in all aspects of joint surgery, ranging from clinical and basic research to translational medicine of joint diseases, and arthroplasty. In those fields, the cooperation among the countries, continents, and regions has become even closer. Surgeons, therapists, and researchers around the world have more desire to share innovative ideas and exciting experience with others. Therefore, a platform is needed to connect the thoughts and practices, to generate more opportunities to articulate ideas and views on joint surgery and the related sciences.Arthroplasty, is a collaborative result of the Arthroplasty Society in Asia (ASIA) and BMC. It aims to exhibit insightful discoveries by publishing high-quality original articles and reviews. The goal is to provide a platform for researchers and academics all over the world to promote, share and discuss various new issues and developments in joint replacement, joint diseases, prosthetic design, and related problems. For more details of the aims and scope of the journal, please check out the website: https://arthroplasty.biomedcentral.com.The journal, Arthroplasty consists of a group of international consultants and specialists to provide the authors with unbiased, constructive, and timely peer reviews and to help disseminate their research findings expeditiously and broadly. All contributions will be published online promptly after acceptance and proofreading. We truly appreciate the efforts of all authors whose manuscripts could make space in this brand-new journal. We thanks all members of the editorial board, review board, contributors, colleagues, and staff members who have extended their supports that made the first issue of Arthroplasty possible.The Editorial Board of We are publishing several reviews and full research articles to mark the launch of Arthroplasty.In the research article entitled “Treatment of periprosthetic hip infection with retention of a well-fixed stem: six to 13-year outcomes”, Takuya Otani and colleagues reported that the two-stage treatment was a beneficial strategy to minimize the local and systemic burden of the patient. They successfully enhanced the functional preservation of the hip joint while achieved infection control in the long term.In the review entitled “Reducing the risk of infection after total joint arthroplasty: preoperative optimization”, Antonelli and Chen reviewed the recent progresses on the specific modifiable risk factors associated with surgical site infection and periprosthetic hip infection. They advocated that patients who had one or more of the risk factors  should be given a multidisciplinary intervention including patient education, counseling, and follow-up. The preoperative intervention could optimize patients to decrease the risk of total joint arthroplasty.Total hip arthroplasty for the developmental dysplasia of the hip is still a technically demanding surgery that requires an in-depth understanding of the anatomical abnormalities and complex techniques. Professor Yan Wang, the editor-in-chief, presents a review entitled “Current concepts in developmental dysplasia of the hip and total hip arthroplasty”. In this review, Professor Wang introduces the key issues of acetabular and femoral reconstruction in total hip arthroplasty for dysplasia of the hip. Those issues included the high of hip center, acetabular bone deficiency, highly porous metal, correction of femoral anteversion, femoral shortening osteotomy, and selection of stems. We hope those issues will stir up a further discussion in this important field to advance acetabular and femoral reconstruction.We hope you enjoy reading the first series of papers, and cordially invite you to share your experience, discoveries, and insights with the readers. We look forward to receiving your submissions soon.


Royal Society Open Science for the past 6 years. I step down at the end of December 2021, having completed two 3-year terms, and am taking the opportunity here to reflect on some of the successes and challenges that the journal has experienced and the innovations that we have introduced. When I was first approached back in 2015, the breadth of the journal, covering the whole of science, resonated with my own interests: my research career has ranged across the entire landscape of chemistry, while my leadership roles have embraced all of science, technology and medicine. The open access ethos, the objective refereeing policy that rejects the idea of only publishing what is in fashion, and the opportunities offered by a new venture that could transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries also all appealed to me. Among our successful innovations are Registered Reports, Replication Studies and the new ‘Science, Society and Policy' section. The challenges have included the transition to paid article processing charges (APCs), whether to resist pressure to retract a controversial paper, and bullying of young female authors by established senior males in the same field. I explore all of these below, provide some statistics on the journal's performance, also cover some of the notable papers we have published, and provide some concluding thoughts.It has been a pleasure and a privilege to serve as the first Editor-in-Chief of  Briefly, a two-step peer review process allows editors and reviewers to test a hypothesis and proposed methodology and analysis before authors conduct research, with the emphasis being on the quality of the methodology and analysis rather than ‘impact' of results, or on the correctness of the original hypothesis. This approach helps tackle some elements of publication bias and encourages better research design.Over 170, initial RR submissions have been made since the journal began to offer them, with the majority in psychology but a growing minority in other subjects. More recently, we have joined with a number of other journals to encourage submission of RRs from the ‘Peer Community In' initiative, which it is hoped will expand the reach of the format.Taken together with the Replication Studies initiative, RRs are a core element of the journal's mission to encourage better and more open science.. 2Replication Studies have a two-stage peer review process: Stage 1 assesses the proposed study design before authors conduct the study, while Stage 2 assesses the results, with publication almost guaranteed if the authors have conducted the study according to their Stage 1 proposals. Royal Society Open Science has encouraged (and received) replication studies from launch, albeit infrequently.As with Registered Reports, Inspired by the so-called ‘Pottery Barn rule' , Replications were launched in 2018 for a number of reasons—partly to build on our credentials as an open science innovator; partly to encourage best-practice ; and partly to help tackle the ‘replication crisis' that is well known in some fields and perhaps quietly ignored in others. More than 45 Stage 1 submissions have come via this route, again mostly in psychology.. 3the difficulty of communicating uncertainty about facts, numbers and science stimulated a train of thought that led to the idea of a new section examining the interactions of science with society and policy. The advent of COVID-19 soon afterwards gave added impetus and urgency. We were delighted to attract Nick Pearce, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at the University of Bath, to be the inaugural Subject Editor, and we have assembled a distinguished International Advisory Board and set of Associate Editors prior to the launch in early-2021.The opportunity to break out of traditional disciplinary constraints has attracted unusual submissions from the very beginning, but the article in 2019 from Sir David Spiegelhalter and his colleagues on examined life expectancy trends and their relationship with UK government policies, and a number of pieces under review are derived from the UK–US Scientific Forum.The first few months have seen an overwhelmingly positive response with more than 50 submissions received, and a range of fascinating publications already. Many of these have been COVID-19-related, but a recent Perspective from Sir Michael Marmot . 4Attracting submissions to a new journal is inevitably not trivial, especially when APCs are introduced, as discussed below. Some of our submissions are papers submitted to other Royal Society journals and deemed scientifically sound but they don't meet those journals' selection (and selective) criteria. A successful collaboration with the Royal Society of Chemistry similarly generates papers in chemistry.was launched with chemistry: invitations in 2017 led to a modest launch event of the published collection in 2018 at the Royal Society with opening remarks from the President, and closing remarks from the Foreign Secretary. Perhaps most pleasing about the collection was the suggestion among several authors that it might lead to new collaborations; we're also delighted that at least three of the original authors have come back and published again in Royal Society Open Science.However, we have been keen to attract a new generation of researchers, and to that end have been creating special collections by inviting Royal Society University Research Fellows and Dorothy Hodgkin Fellows, with some Newton Fellowships and Sir Henry Dale Fellows, to contribute. This venture We have since commissioned similar collections in astronomy, and the broadly ‘molecular' life sciences of biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, and genetics and genomics, with the Subject Editors leading. The pattern has been set to try to encourage at least one every 12–18 months.big questions about the evolution and nature of city societies. This is a new kind of science, mining vast and often publicly available datasets, generating unexpected insights and recognizing no disciplinary boundaries. We were delighted when the Alan Turing Institute kindly offered to host a launch event for this collection, featuring a number of talks from contributors.The first special collection was on City Analytics, a fascinating collection of articles bringing together analysis of disparate new types of large-scale data, such as CCTV, social media, city sensors, retail, utility and population censuses to ask We are currently publishing papers destined for the special collection on catalysis, and around 20 submissions are expected to a cross-disciplinary Artificial Intelligence collection planned for publication next year collection. More such collections are currently being planned.. 51 The most prolific tweeter about Royal Society Open Science is David Colquhoun FRS who has tweeted/retweeted about us over 700 times, mostly about his own publications, which are also among the most read.In 2015, the journal's first full year of operation, there were 850 000 downloads; by the end of 2020, this had risen to 4.1m, and 2021 is on course to surpass this figure too. We're not driven by Impact Factor , but we are interested to measure the journal's impact and influence. Altmetric monitors mentions of all our publications in blogs and social media such as Twitter.Royal Society Open Science publications have a score in Altmetric. The top 5, which illustrate the breadth of the journal's coverage, are:Over 3000 What is especially pleasing to me is not only does this top 5 demonstrate the immediacy of research published in the journal (with two of the papers published in October of 2020) but also that the highest scoring paper is a Registered Report—some have expressed concerns that this format kills exciting/interesting research, but this evidence (and a record of over 400 000 views for this paper) suggests otherwise.Our top 10 cited papers, listed below, offer further evidence of the breadth of coverage.The evolution of popular music: USA 1960–2010’ and ‘The advantage of short paper titles’. The latter paper confirms the value of a policy I have followed in my own publications for many years; it has been cited almost 80 times in journals spanning the entire spectrum of science . It must be admitted that the correlation between title length and citations is only slight.Among the many other remarkable papers, we have published I highlight ‘. 6Royal Society Open Science was free to read and free to publish, the costs being covered from the surpluses generated by other Royal Society journals. However, with the prospect of those journals publishing ever more open access this was not a sustainable model. Reluctantly, therefore a modest APC, initially less than £1000, was introduced in 2018. We have been charging most authors for publication, but there is a well-publicized waiver scheme to avoid disenfranchising resource-limited potential contributors, and this is entirely separate from any consideration of whether to publish a submission. The impact on submission rates has been only modest and there appears not to be a significant geographical dimension to any changes.From launch in 2014 until the end of 2017, . 7published a paper in theoretical physics which had polarized the original referees and which has generated much disagreement in the field. Most experts feel strongly that the underlying mathematics is misconceived and there has been pressure on the journal to retract the paper. But not everyone agrees that the article is completely without merit, and it is possible that in challenging it new insights might emerge. We have published an Expression of Concern which is associated with the original paper so that any new readers are alerted to the controversy, but have decided that in the interest of open debate the paper should stay available for anyone to read. This has not been an easy discussion or decision, but it has now been endorsed by the Royal Society's Publishing Board.As Editor-in-Chief, I have to take a view on the more troublesome manuscripts or matters that arise. In 2018, we We should remember that in the history of science there are several examples of papers that had scorn poured on them when first published, but which turned out to be correct and to transform their fields. Most papers that look wrong to the majority of readers turn out indeed to be wrong, but a tiny minority are correct and revolutionary. The responsibility of a scientific journal is to do its best but then to leave the final judgement to future generations.. 8Royal Society Open Science paper of which she was the first author. These messages went beyond science: they threatened that the individual's career could be (deliberately) ruined if she continued to be associated with the senior author. When I made clear that such behaviour was unacceptable, the initial response was hostile, but the tone of future exchanges did improve greatly.Occasionally, scientific disagreements become more personal. In one case, a female early career researcher received threatening messages and phone calls from senior male competitors who disagreed with the science in the Royal Society Open Science, from some senior men was so unpleasant. When individuals are so harassed or shouted down, or simply ignored, by their ostensible colleagues that they leave active research, the community is poorer for it, and we should be ashamed when this happens.In a separate case, a number of promising female post-doctoral researchers indicated to their supervisor that they would leave science because the response to their publications, including one in . 9Royal Society Open Science brings its own particular challenges. The differences in reviewing cultures, and even vocabulary, across so many disparate fields adds complexity for the editorial staff. The objective peer review model allows for good but often incremental research which we expect to have archival value, but the research ecosystem prefers ground-breaking research, which contributes to the challenge of engaging reviewers: Royal Society Open Science currently needs to invite an average of 7–9 reviewers per paper to reach a decision stage. This is a growing systemic problem for many journals  and has been greatly exacerbated by COVID-19, but it adds to the challenge of prompt decision-making.The journey of a manuscript from submission through to publication requires many steps that need in-house editorial staff and infrastructure together with the involvement of external colleagues to act as Subject Editors, Associate Editors and referees. It's a complex and delicate eco-system for every journal, but We have also introduced open reviewing, which may discourage some: all referees' reports are now published along with the paper, but only a small proportion of referees have agreed to have their names published.The systemic situation is unlikely to improve until reviewer activities are better recognized by funders and employers, but the journal's efforts to recognize reviewers in annual lists and also link-ups with services such as Publons are a salve, with the latter now offering ‘transparent’ peer review—publishing of peer review reports for the journal with DOIs, so the reports become formally and easily citable. A number of reviewers and editors have also been provided with letters of thanks by the editorial office indicating when they have assisted—these have been used in promotion, tenure and immigration settings, so it is to be hoped that the journal is helping the community at the individual level in these ways.The journal currently receives around 2000 submissions annually. While growth in submissions is in general a good thing it adds to the pressure in keeping decision times to a minimum with limited resources. Expansion of the editorial board has been key to tackling the problem, and it remains a work in progress. Identifying suitable individuals to join the board, encouraging them to join and keeping editors engaged is a challenge for the journal – the model of objective and open peer review encourages some to join but puts others off. Expanding the geographical diversity of the Board is a priority and we would welcome readers' suggestions for suitable individuals.Plagiarism and the very recent proliferation of paper mills that generate fake material to order have further added to the burden of assessment, though fortunately the routine use of similarity checking software has helped somewhat.Despite the consistently high numbers of submissions and the COVID-19-induced constraints of remote working, the journal has been able to maintain or even reduce decision times in the last 18 months or so and the whole team will be diligent in prioritizing this metric. It has been helpful to expand the number of Subject Editors to 16, covering 13 broad subject disciplinary sections as well as a dedicated Registered Report/Replication Editor. This expansion has helped to build momentum not only in encouraging high-quality submissions from an impressive array of authors and geographies but also encouraging engagement from a talented Associate Editorial Board, which now comprises more than 220 members, and it is continuing to grow.. 10not only an undergraduate student but also a Thai pop star. We published a single author paper from a Pakistani high-school student, and recently published a paper co-authored by a school student who had prepared interesting materials while on work experience at a research laboratory. We take every opportunity to publicize such work on social media.I take particular pleasure in publishing the work of very young authors. Our data-analytic colleagues noted that one paper was attracting an unusual number of downloads—it turned out that one of the authors was A major strength of the journal lies in its editorial board, especially in the sage advice of the Subject Editors. I have enjoyed the spirited discussions in Editorial Board meetings and have learnt much about many fields remote from my own. The journal's workflows have meant I have been more remote from the Associate Editors, but the expertise and enthusiasm for the journal among them is remarkable. I am indebted to all the Editors for their wisdom and support. I'm also hugely grateful to the journal's in-house team; they have extensive experience and knowledge of the journal and publishing in general—from commissioning content to new journal policies—and have provided great support for my unlikely initiatives.The journal has evolved rapidly, and has perhaps contributed to a quiet revolution in the way that the Royal Society publishes research. While it has grown substantially, it retains a nimbleness that provides opportunities to innovate. I have enjoyed my time as Editor-in-Chief, and take pride in what the team has achieved. As a reader, I look forward to watching the journal develop further in the capable hands of my successor, Dame Wendy Hall.