About

Focus and Scope

Focus

BioDiscovery is an international, open access, online, peer-reviewed journal for the communication of primary research from any scientific discipline in the field of life sciences and medicine. Main characteristics of the journal are:

  • High quality of published papers, controlled by distinguished world-class researchers. Closed and open peer review systems
  • Rapid publication. Articles are published online immediately after manuscript acceptance
  • No limit in manuscript length. Large reviews and monograph-type papers will be published as special journal issues and assigned ISBN numbers
  • Open access - all published papers can be freely copied, downloaded, printed and distributed at no charge for the reader. Authors retain copyright
  • Worldwide dissemination of the journal content to indexing databases and archiving in open-repositories
  • Possibility for post-publication comments on articles
  • Very competitive publication charges

Annual ‘Most Cited Paper of the Year Award’ comprising of a certificate given at the Annual BioDiscovery Conference, where the corresponding author of the winning paper will be sponsored to participate.

Scope

The aim of BioDiscovery is to provide a platform for scientists in all areas of biology and medicine to promote, share and discuss new ideas and developments. 

BioDiscovery considers for publication original, high quality research which contributes significantly for the development of the knowledge in biology and medicine. Articles submitted to BioDiscovery benefit from its broad scope and readership, and dedicated media promotion. We have a rapid turnaround time of 3 weeks from submission to first decision.

Indexed: DOAJ, Sherpa/Romeo, Google Scholar, OpenAIRE, Mendeley

Archived: ZENODO, CLOCKSS


Criteria for Publication

Manuscripts will be accepted for publication in BioDiscovery only if the following criteria are fulfilled:

  • Papers and associated data must be novel and contribute to a better understanding of the topic under scrutiny. Studies that have already been published or submissions that are currently under consideration for publication elsewhere will not be accepted for publication.
  • Previously published information should be considered and cited in compliance with the good academic practice. References should be complete and accurate, where possible including DOIs or links to the article. All figures included in manuscripts should be copyright free and duly acknowledge the original source.
  • All data underpinning an article, including data tables on which graphs are produced, must be published alongside the paper, e.g. as supplementary files, or links to external repositories where data are deposited, and contain sufficient metadata to facilitate data discovery.
  • Manuscripts should be concisely written, in a good academic style, and follow a logical sequence. The voice - active or passive - and the tense used should be consistent throughout the manuscript. Results should be clearly and concisely described and supported by the data published with the article, or data published elsewhere but linked to the article.
  • This journal has well-defined policies for English language editing. Involving mandatory outsourced language editing services would considerably increase the price of the Article Processing Charges, which would become an additional obstacle for persons and institutions to publish in the journal. Therefore we rely both on the conscience of our authors to provide stylistically written texts and our editors and reviewers to filter out badly written manuscripts.
  • Manuscripts must be submitted in English. Authors should confirm the English language quality of their texts or alternatively request thorough linguistic editing prior to peer-review at a price. Manuscripts written in poor English are a subject of rejection prior to peer-review.

Unique Publishing Features

BioDiscovery demonstrates several innovations in both, technological and social aspects of the academic publishing practices. These are some of the features that make this new journal really unique in its field:

  • The journal is published on ARPHA, the first online collaborative platform and workflow ever to support the full life cycle of a manuscript, from writing through submission, peer-review, publication and dissemination.

  • In addition to conventional research articles, BioDiscovery allows publishing research outputs along all stages of the research cycle, such as Clinical Studies, Clinical Trials, Replication Studies, Data Papers, Case Studies, Methods, Review Articles, Reserach Articles and even single media articles.

  • Most structural elements of the published article – text, tables, figures, etc. are treated and stored as DATA.

  • Authors are requested to supply all data underlying given research as supplementary files to allow reproduction of experiments and re-use of data.

  • The journal is using entirely XML-based workflow; typesetting is completely avoided because authoring, publishing and reviewing all occur in the same, entirely Web-based system.

  • The online, collaborative, manuscript-authoring platform ARPHA provides a large set of pre-defined, but flexible, article templates covering all types of outcomes. Within ARPHA, authors may work collaboratively on a manuscript and invite external contributors, such as mentors, potential reviewers, linguistic and copy editors, colleagues, who may correct and comment on the text before submission.

  • A rich set of functionalities of the ARPHA Writing Tool allows for search and import of literature and data references, cross-referencing of in-text citations of literature, tables, images and supplementary material. The tool has an automated technical validation step which will save your time by checking your manuscript for consistency.

  • Authors and reviewers may opt for entirely open review process. Furthermore, authors are given the option to submit reviews or supporting statements from experts in the subject along with their submission (pre-submission reviews) for editor’s consideration to facilitate the manuscript evaluation and speed up the publishing process. All reviews are consolidated into a single online file which makes the process of editing straightforward, easy and pleasant. The journal allows also a post-publication review.

  • Low cost, decoupled and transparent publishing services


What Can I Publish

BioDiscovery considers the following categories of papers for publication:

  • Clinical Studies
  • Clinical Trials
  • Screening Data 
  • Drug Testing
  • Replication Studies
  • Research Articles 
  • Review Articles
  • Opinion Articles
  • Case Studies
  • Data Papers
  • Software Descriptions
  • Data Management Plans
  • Software Management Plans
  • Single-media Publications
  • Methods
  • Project Reports
  • Conference Abstracts
  • Correspondences
  • Research Posters
  • Research Presentations
  • Biographies
  • Book Reviews
  • Corrigenda
  • Editorials
  • Commentaries
  • Short Communications
  • Hypotheses

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.


Peer Review Policy

This journal uses a single-blind peer review process. This means that the names of reviewers are hidden from the authors (the author does not know the identity of the reviewer, but the reviewer knows the identity of the author). Notwithstanding that, the reviewers are encouraged to disclose their identities, if they wish to do so. Each article is reviewed by at least two independent experts, with a final decision on acceptance being made by the Subject Editor / Editor-in-Chief. Front-matter articles, such as editorials, correspondence, biographies, and similar articles, can be published after editorial evaluation only.

Please consider the Editor and Reviewer Guidelines in the About webpage of this journal for more details and stepwise instructions on the editorial and peer review process.


Indexing and Archiving Policy

The articles published in the journal are indexed by a high number of industry leading indexers and repositories. The journal content is archived in CLOCKSS, Zenodo, Portico and other international archives. The full list of indexes and archives are shown on the journal homepage.

Article Charges


Core Charges

Core services included in our Article Processing Charges:

  • Manuscript authoring in the ARPHA Writing Tool
  • Online collaboration with your co-authors and peers during authoring
  • Data import tools for references, figures, tables and supplementary materials
  • Automated technical validation for consistency
  • Technical and editorial checks provided by BioDiscovery
  • Semantic tagging and cross-linking of content
  • Pre-submission peer review, organized by the author (optional)
  • Pre-publication peer review
  • Community-driven post-publication peer review (optional)
  • Automated registration of peer reviews at Clarivate (formerly Publons)
  • Publication in semantically enhanced HTML, PDF and JATS XML formats
  • Machine-readable, harvestable content via JATS XML and Web services
  • Publication of a revised version of your article upon request
  • Articles can be easily returned into editing mode and re-published with CrossMark DOI 
  • Archiving in trusted international repositories
  • Active dissemination via social networks and email alerts
  • Extensive article and sub-article usage metrics and citation counts
Article size
(Character count including spaces)

Via ARPHA Writing Tool
(use the Start a Manuscript button)

Via file submission
(use the Submit a Manuscript button)

Small (up to 13,000) € 199 € 199 + € 50 (conversion fee)
Standard (13,000-65,000) € 499 € 499 + € 100 (conversion fee)
Large (65,000-130,000) € 899 € 899 + € 150 (conversion fee)
Above 130,000 Ask for a quote Ask for a quote

Please note that the above prices do not include VAT (Value Added Tax). VAT is applicable only for VAT non-registered customers based within the European Union. To avoid charging VAT, the EU companies or persons should provide their VAT registration numbers validated with the EU taxation database (https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/).


Special Issues

Article collections enable conference organizers or project coordinators to publish a number of articles under a common theme and editorship. Depending on the number of articles to be included, Pensoft offers discounts on APCs as described in the table below.

 

Small

Medium

Large

Number of articles

< 10

10 – 20

21 +

Discount on APCs

5%

10%

15%

PR campaign

By agreement

By agreement

Included

Institutional branding

By agreement

By agreement

Included

We are happy to discuss alternative arrangements if there is a better way to suit your needs for n article collection. Please do not hesitate to contact us or to submit your proposal through the article collection application form.


Discounts and Waivers

  • Discount of 10 % is offered to:
    • Scientists working privately.
    • Graduate and PhD students if they are first authors of a manuscript. 
    • Scientists living and working in lower middle-income countries (http://data.worldbank.org/income-level/lower-middle-income) if they are sole authors of a manuscript, or authors' research is funded primarily (50% or more of the work contained within the article) by an institution or organization from the eligible countries. 
    • Discounts are also offered to our editors and reviewers, for more information see here
  • Waivers  (once per year per (co-) author for manuscripts no larger than 10 printed pages, or for the first 10 pages of a larger manuscript) are offered to:
    • Retired scientist who are editors or active reviewers for this journal (1-3 reviews provided in the year before the manuscript submission). 
    • Scientists living and working in low-income countries (http://data.worldbank.org/income-level/low-income), if they are sole authors of a manuscript, or authors' research is funded primarily (50% or more of the work contained within the article) by an institution or organization from the eligible countries.

The journal offers also various institutional programs and membership plans to support Open Access scientific publishing. To be eligible, the author must be a corresponding author affiliated with the institution or agency.

Discounts and waivers do not accumulate. 

Please note that conversion costs for manuscripts submitted as files are not covered by promotions and waivers.

Promotions, discounts and waivers do not include conversion costs when manuscripts are submitted in a file format.


Additional Services (Optional)

Optional service

Price

Notes

Linguistic services

€ 15 per 1800 characters

For texts that require additional English language editing

Tailored PR campaign

€ 150*

Press release, dedicated media and social networks promotion

Paper reprints

At cost

On demand

Auditing of the Darwin Core data associated with manuscript**

€ 75 for datasets up to 10000 records. For large datasets (10,000 + records) please contact Dr. Bob Mesibov for pricing

On demand

Cleaning of the Darwin Core data associated with my manuscript**

€ 225 for datasets up to 10000 records. For large datasets (10,000 + records) please contact Dr. Bob Mesibov for pricing

On demand

Scientific illustrations & image processing to complement articles ask for a quote contacting Pensoft Publishers at designer@pensoft.net On demand

*This service can be discounted or waived for articles of outstanding importance for the science and society.
**Pensoft reviewers do not usually have time to check through large data files included with manuscripts. If you would like us to have your data files checked, we offer the services of Pensoft editor Dr Bob Mesibov, who is also a data auditor.
Suitable data files for checking would be large tables of occurrence records or of genetic data. These can be checked for duplicate and broken records, misuse of fields, disagreements between fields, character encoding problems and incorrect or inconsistent formatting. Georeferencing can also be checked, on request. Please note that this service does not apply to taxonomic, nomenclatural or bibliographic details in data files.


How It Works

Authoring a manuscript in the ARPHA Writing Tool 

How can I decide which article type to choose?

How can I cite references, figures and tables?

Pre-submission technical validation 

Pre-submission, author-facilitated, external peer-review

Submission

Publication

Authoring a manuscript in the ARPHA Writing Tool 

For manuscripts intended for submission to BioDiscovery, we offer the authors to write in the online collaborative ARPHA Writing Tool. ARPHA provides flexible article templates to be selected in the tool after clicking on the "Start a manuscript" button. ARPHA further provides a rich set of functionalities, which makes the collaborative work of the authors and their peers easy and pleasant. The authoring process in ARPHA is described in fine detail in the Tips and Tricks menu of the writing tool.

There are NO author guidelines in BioDiscovery with regard to text formatting. The ARPHA Writing Tool will guide you during the authoring and submission process. Please consider Tips and Tricks if you need some assistance or contact helpdesk@pensoft.net. There is only a few simple rules to follow, so please please read carefully the half page of text below before you start your manuscript!

1. How can I decide which article type to choose?

The article templates in ARPHA are created to facilitate the structured publishing of science content and ease discoverability and machine-readability of your work. You can change the article templates, add new sections or subsections or move them within the manuscript. However, we would recommend using these changes only in case of necessity. There is also free text manuscript template, which may be used for editorials, correspondence, opinion papers, and others.

2. How can I cite references, figures and tables?

  • Please do not insert in-text citations of references, figures or tables manually! The citations will be inserted automatically at the place of your cursor through the "Cite a figure", "Cite a table", "Cite a reference" or "Cite a supplementary material" commands. Once you select the place you want to insert a citation, click on the desired reference, table or figure from the respective list (see next).

  • Before citing a reference, figure, table or supplementary material, you have to upload these, so that they become visible in the respective list of figures, tables or references.

  • Please do not number captions of figures or tables – they will be numbered automatically and can be re-ordered, if needed.

  • All uploaded figures, tables and references must be cited in the text and vice versa.

3. Materials and methods

In line with responsible and reproducible research, as well as FAIR data principles, we highly recommend that authors describe in detail and deposit their science methods and laboratory protocols in the open access repository protocols.io.

Once deposited on protocols.io, protocols and methods will be issued a unique digital object identifier (DOI), which could be then used to link a manuscript to the relevant deposited protocol. By doing this, authors could allow for editors and peers to access the protocol when reviewing the submission to significantly expedite the process.  

Furthermore, an author could open up his/her protocol to the public at the click of a button as soon as their article is published.

Stepwise instructions:

  1. Prepare a detailed protocol via protocols.io.

  2. Click Get DOI to assign a persistent identifier to your protocol.

  3. Add the DOI link to the Methods section of your manuscript prior to submitting it for peer review.

  4. Click Publish to make your protocol openly accessible as soon as your article is published (optional).

  5. Update your protocols anytime.

Pre-submission technical validation 

The ARPHA Writing Tool provides automated technical pre-submission validation steps to save your time by checking your manuscript for consistency.

In addition, a pre-submission technical review is performed for all manuscripts in ARPHA by the Editorial Office against formal checklist criteria such as: technical consistency, language, ethical issues, correspondence to the journal’s criteria for publication, focus, and scope. The BioDiscovery editors can re-iterate the technical evaluation process several times until the manuscript reaches an acceptable level of quality to be submitted to BioDiscovery.

Submission 

Manuscripts for BioDiscovery should be prepared for submission in the ARPHA Writing Tool.

During the submission process, the author(s) should:

  1. Suggest a number of referees, for the assigned Subject Editor's consideration, as the latter might wish to invite some or all of them to review the manuscript.

  2. Answer a couple of other questions about copyright, authorship, ethical issues, and publication fees.

Publication

Manuscripts will be published upon acceptance on behalf of the appointed Subject Editor, in the latest version submitted by the authors (upon the acceptance), and after payment of the article processing charges is released. The final production stage does NOT include an exchange of proofs. Therefore, no further corrections of the latest version submitted by the authors would be applied.


Science Communication

Our journal and the PR team at Pensoft invites authors to contribute to the communication and promotion of their published research, thereby increasing the visibility, outreach and impact of their work. 

Authors are welcome to notify us whenever their institution is working on a promotional campaign about their work published in our journal. We are always happy to reshare and/or repost (where appropriate). 

You can contact our PR team at dissemination@pensoft.net to discuss the communication and promotion of your research.


Tailored PR Campaign

(Paid service*)

We encourage authors, who feel that their work is of particular interest to the wider audience, to email us with a press release draft** (see template and guidelines), outlining the key findings from the study and their public impact. Then, the PR team will work with them to finalise the announcement that will be:

  • Issued on the global science news service Eurekalert!
  • Sent out to our media contacts from the world’s top-tier news outlets
  • Posted on ARPHA’s or Pensoft’s blog
  • Shared on social media via suitable ARPHA-managed accounts

Following the distribution of the press announcement, our team will be tracking the publicity across news media, blogs and social networks, in order to report back to the author(s), and reshare any prominent media content.

Request our Tailored PR campaign service by selecting it while completing your submission form and you will be contacted once your manuscript is accepted for publication. Alternatively, contact our PR team (dissemination@pensoft.net), preferably upon the acceptance of your manuscript.

* The Tailored PR campaign is an extra service charged at EUR 150. However, we would consider discounts and even full waivers for studies of particular interest for the society.

**Please note that our PR team reserves the right to edit your press release at their discretion. No press announcements will be issued until we receive the author’s final approval to do so. The service is only available for studies published within the past 3 months.


Media Center

Follow BioDiscovery on Twitter and Facebook.

Learn about some of the most notable research published in Biodiscovery on Pensoft's blog.

See top news stories from around the globe, mentioning research published in BioDiscovery on Technology Networks, Sign of the Times, Medical Xpress and others.

Find past press releases for BioDiscovery on Eurekalert!

Boost the reach of your paper(s) to a larger audience by making the most of Pensoft's science communication services.

Download journal promotional leaflet.

Download journal logo.


Institutional and Other Membership Plans

Our plans provide additional flexibility and affordability for institutions, research groups, consortia, conference organizers and other larger research teams and organizations. Affiliated authors can publish in any Pensoft journal by using a streamlined payment interface. Pensoft’s plans are a great way to support open access publishing, while also simplifying budgeting, invoicing, and author reimbursement procedures. We offer three plans to choose from, however, if they do not quite suit your needs, we would be happy to discuss alternative arrangements with you. Please do not hesitate to contact us for a preliminary conversation about our plans!

 

Annual membership

Pre-paid plans

Direct billing

Key benefits

  • Flat rate - publish all you can
  • Cost based on the size and publishing pattern of your organization
  • Beginning of year budgeting
  • One invoice / no billing during the year
  • Discount on APCs
  • Deposit funds up-front and spend without a time limit
  • Add funds to your account at any time
  • Choose whether to cover full (discounted) cost of publishing or split costs with authors
  • No up-front payments
  • One monthly invoice for all publications by affiliated authors
  • Regular reports to track publication pattern and expenses

Additional services we can provide upon request

  • PR campaigns for specific publications or sets of publications, including press releases and video interviews
  • Institutional branding – including institutional logos on published papers, dedicated webpages, institutional online collections of articles
  • Research output reporting, detailing number and types of publications, expenses, views, and downloads

Please find more details about each individual plan below. If you would like to recommend Pensoft’s plans to your institution you can fill out this simple form or contact us at info@pensoft.net and we will forward your recommendation with some additional information.


Annual Memberships

Annual memberships allow institutions to plan their publishing expenses in the beginning of the fiscal year by providing unlimited publishing in all Pensoft journals in exchange for a flat annual payment. The cost of membership depends on the total publishing output capacity of the institution and its historical publishing pattern in Pensoft journals. We will adjust the cost of your membership annually.


Pre-Paid Plans

Pre-paid plans allow institutions and / or research groups to deposit a certain amount of funds with Pensoft and make them available to affiliated researchers for covering Article Processing Charges (APCs) in any Pensoft journal. Member institutions decide whether to cover APCs in full or share the expenses with the authors. Depending on the amount members are prepared to commit, Pensoft is offering a discount on APCs per the table below. Additional funds can be added to an account at any point in time within the calendar year of purchasing the plan, while leftover funds are preserved until spent.

 

Economy

Standard

Premium

Minimum deposit

€ 1,000 – 3,000

€ 3,000 – 5,000

€ 5,000 +

Discount on APCs

0%

5%

10%


Direct Billing

The direct billing plan allows institutions to reduce the complexity of billing and reimbursements. It consolidates all Pensoft invoices for articles authored by researchers affiliated with an institution into a single monthly bill that is sent directly to the institution.


Guidelines for Editors


How to Access a Manuscript

Manuscripts can be accessed after login

  1. Login is possible after registration at the journal's website. Our Editorial Office will register all first-time editors and reviewers. New users will receive an automated notification with a request to confirm registration and account information, and options for setting a password, email alerts and other features.  
    Note: All users can use their registration details to login in all three (Book, E-Book and the respective Journal) platforms of www.pensoft.net.
    Note: Please remember that you may have registered with two or more different email addresses, that is why you may have more than one valid account at www.pensoft.net. We advise using only one email address, hence one password associated with it, for all your operations at www.pensoft.net. We highly recommend that, in case the user has two or more different accounts, to merge these through user's profile.  
    Note: Users can at any time change the initially set password and correct personal details using their user's profile menu (by clicking on the user's name in the upper right corner of the screen appearing after login).
  2. If you have forgotten your password, please use the function Forgot your password? or write to request it from journals@pensoft.net.

There are two ways to access a manuscript

  1. After login, please go to the respective journal’s web page and click on My Tasks button in the upper right corner of the screen. This way, you will be able to see all manuscripts you are responsible for as Author or Reviewer or Subject Editor.

    Note: The manuscripts are grouped by categories, e.g., In Review (no.), In layout (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.) etc. The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts assigned to you.

  2. Click on the active manuscript link provided in the email notification you have received from the online editorial system. The link will lead you directly to the manuscript.


General Responsibilities of Editors

Subject, or Associate, editors in Pensoft’s journals carry the main responsibility for the scientific quality of the papers. They take the final decision on a manuscript’s acceptance or rejection and their names are listed as Academic Editor in the header of each published article.

The editorial process is facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. The online editorial system informs the Subject Editor about any change in the status of a manuscript from submission to publication.

The online editorial system is designed to save time and effort for Subject Editors in checking the status of the manuscripts. There is no need for editors to visit the journal’s website to keep track on the manuscript they are responsible for. The online system will inform the Subject Editor when an invited reviewer has accepted or declined to review. The email notifications contain stepwise instructions what action is needed at each stage, as well as a link to the respective manuscript (accessible by clicking on the link in the email notification or after login – see How to Access a Manuscript).

Subject Editors are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but rather focus on its scientific quality and overall style, which should correspond to good practices in clear and concise academic writing. It is the author’s responsibility to submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English. The Subject Editor should not hesitate to recommend either Reject, or Reject, but resubmission encouraged PRIOR to the peer-review process, in cases when a manuscript is scientifically poor and/or does not conform to journal’s style, and/or is written in poor English (see Note under point 1 below how to reject a manuscript prior to peer review). 

Editors-in-Chief, Managing Editors or their deputies are allowed to publish a limited proportion of papers per year co-authored by them, after considering some extra precautions to avoid an impression of impropriety, endogeny, conflicts of interest and ensure that the editorial decision-making process is transparent and fair.

It often happens that even carefully written manuscripts may contain small errors in orthography or stylistics. We shall be thankful if editors spot such errors during the reading process and correct them.


Stepwise Description of the Editorial Process

  1. Once a manuscript is submitted, the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) briefly checks the manuscript for any personal notes addressed to the E-i-C during the submission process, any explicitly indicated conflict of interest or request for additional services or discount and then the Editor can process it for review.
    Note: The workflow that the journal uses allows the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) to perform a thorough initial check of the manuscript, during a previous stage called Technical evaluation, prior to its submission to the journal. During this stage the Editor checks the manuscript for conformance with the journal's Focus, Scope, Policies and style requirements and decides whether it is potentially suitable for publication and can be processed for review. In case the submission does not comply with the journal's standards, it can be either 1) sent back to the authors for correction - this process can be iterated in as many rounds as needed - or 2) rejected in ARPHA, i.e. disabled for submission to the journal. Either way, the system requires that the Editorial office add a note explaining the reason for return or rejection.

  2. Once a manuscript has been approved during the Technical evaluation and then submitted to the journal, the Managing Editor (or the Editor-in-Chief) assigns it to the Subject Editor responsible for the respective topic (e.g., science branch or taxon). The Subject Editor receives a notification email on the assignment.  
    Note: The link to the respective manuscript is available in the review request email and all consequent reminder emails. The manuscript is accessible by clicking on the link in the email notifications, or via the user's dashboard after login. Please see How to Access a Manuscript above in case you have any difficulties.

  3. The Subject Editor has to read the manuscript and decide whether it is potentially suitable for publication and can be processed for review, or rejected immediately, or returned to the author for improvement and re-submission. Reasons for rejection can be a low scientific quality, non-conformance to the journal’s style/policies, and/or linguistically or grammatically poor English language.
    Note: There are two ways to reject a manuscript prior to review process:
    -  Through the buttons Reject or Reject, but re-submission encouraged in the Editorial tab. Please note, however, that the buttons will be made active only after a justification for the rejection is provided in the text field. 
    -  Through an email to the Editorial office explaining the reason for rejection. The manuscript will be then rejected/returned through the online editorial system and the respective notification email will be sent from the Editorial Office.

  4. In case the manuscript is acceptable for peer review, the Subject Editor has to invite reviewers by clicking on the Invite reviewers link. A list of reviewers will appear from which the editor can choose the appropriate ones or add new.
    Note: "Nominated" and "Panel" reviewers. The difference between "Nominated" and "Panel" reviewers is that "Nominated" reviewers are expected to provide a formal review by the deadline; "Panel" reviewers are invited but not required to evaluate the manuscript. Both "Nominated" and "Panel" reviewers can propose changes and corrections, and make comments in the manuscript online and submit a concise reviewer's form. 

  5. Once reviewers are chosen, the Subject Editor has to click the Invite reviewers green button at the end of the page which will generate emails templates with review invitations. It is highly recommended that the Subject Editor adds some personal words above the standard email text review invitation.

  6. In case a reviewer is absent from our users' data base, the editor can add his/her name and email through the Add new reviewer link, which will appear once the search field reveal no results. It is possible that the needed reviewer has already been registered in the Pensoft database either as customer or author/reviewer of another journal. If this is the case, then his/her name, affiliation and other metadata will automatically appear once the e-mail field is populated in the Create user online form.

  7. The Subject Editor receives a notification email if the reviewer has agreed to review a manuscript or declined to do that. The editor takes care to appoint additional reviewers in case some of the invited reviewers have declined.

  8. Once all reviewers submit their reviews, the Subject Editor receives an email notification, inviting him/her to consider reviewers' opinions, read through the manuscript and make a decision through the Proceed button. The Subject Editor is also notified in case none of the reviewers agreed to provide a formal review on the manuscript and he/she is prompted to consider inviting more reviewers.
    Note: Editorial comments should be added in the online editorial form; comments and corrections applied using the Track Changes feature and these will be consolidated in a single document along with all reviewers' comments and suggestions.

  9. At this stage, the editor should make a decision either to (1) accept the manuscript, or (2) reject it, or (3) initiate another review round. In case the manuscript is not rejected, but recommended for Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Acceptance, the author is expected to submit a revised version within a certain period of time and the Subject Editor will be notified by email about that.
    Note 1: Authors must submit revised versions using the Track Changes feature and resolve all Comments, replying to each Subject Editor and reviewer's query so that the Subject Editor can see their corrections/additions. Authors are expected to reply to the essential critiques and comments of reviewers separately through the online editorial system.
    Note 2: During the second, or next, review round, the Subject Editor may decide to ask reviewers to evaluate the revised version of the manuscript. He/she may also make a decision based on the author’s responses and the revised version of the manuscript without asking additional reviewers' support.

  10. After acceptance, the manuscript will go to layout and proofreading. The Subject Editor will be notified by email when the final proof is uploaded on the journal’s website. The Subject Editor is expected to look at the proofs and notify the Editorial Office through email in case the proofs need improvement.

  11. The Subject Editor may always access information on the manuscripts which have been edited by him/her through the menu My Tasks –> Subject Editor on the journal’s web page – In Review (no.), In Edit (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.). The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts that were assigned.


Editors’ and Reviewers’ Workload Stats

While selecting a Reviewer or a Subject Editor to assign to a manuscript, Editors can access the current and past workload for the person they are considering.

By clicking on the user’s name, an Editor sees how many editorial or review tasks the person is currently assigned with, as well as a record of the user’s previous performance across all ARPHA-hosted journals (i.e. number of accepted and declined editorial and review assignments, as well as the titles of the corresponding journals).

The feature is meant to facilitate and expedite the editorial process by discouraging assignment of tasks to overburdened or inactive users.

Find how to Manage Subject editor assignments and Invite Reviewers in the ARPHA Manual.


Review Quality Rating

Subject Editors should evaluate each review submitted to a manuscript they are handling by using a 5-star rating system. The average score is visible for Subject editors who consider the user as a Reviewer. The feature is meant to expedite the editorial process by aiding Subject Editors in the selection of the most suitable reviewers.

Find how to Rate a peer review in the ARPHA Manual.


Guidelines for Reviewers

Pensoft journals support the open science approach in the peer review and publication process. We encourage our reviewers to open their identity to the authors and consider supporting the peer review oaths, which tend to be short declarations that reviewers make at the start of their written comments, typically dictating the terms by which they will conduct their reviews (see Aleksic et al. 2015, doi: 10.12688/f1000research.5686.2 for more details):

Principles of the open peer-review oath

  • Principle 1: I will sign my name to my review
  • Principle 2: I will review with integrity
  • Principle 3: I will treat the review as a discourse with you; in particular, I will provide constructive criticism
  • Principle 4: I will be an ambassador for the practice of open science

How to Access a Manuscript

Manuscripts can be accessed after login

  1. Login is possible after registration at the journal's website. Our Editorial Office will register all first-time editors and reviewers. New users will receive an automated notification with a request to confirm registration and account information, and options for setting a password, email alerts and other features.  
    Note: All users can use their registration details to login in all three (Book, E-Book and the respective Journal) platforms of www.pensoft.net.
    Note: Please remember that you may have registered with two or more different email addresses, that is why you may have more than one valid account at www.pensoft.net. We advise using only one email address, hence one password associated with it, for all your operations at www.pensoft.net. We highly recommend that, in case the user has two or more different accounts, to merge these through user's profile.  
    Note: Users can at any time change the initially set password and correct personal details using their user's profile menu (by clicking on the user's name in the upper right corner of the screen appearing after login).
  2. If you have forgotten your password, please use the function Forgot your password? or write to request it from journals@pensoft.net.

There are two ways to access a manuscript

  1. After login, please go to the respective journal’s web page and click on My Tasks button in the upper right corner of the screen. This way, you will be able to see all manuscripts you are responsible for as Author or Reviewer or Subject Editor.

    Note: The manuscripts are grouped by categories, e.g., In Review (no.), In layout (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.) etc. The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts assigned to you.

  2. Click on the active manuscript link provided in the email notification you have received from the online editorial system. The link will lead you directly to the manuscript.


General Responsibilities of Reviewers

This journal uses a single-blind peer review process. The reviewers are encouraged to disclose their identity, if they wish so. The peer review and editorial process is facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. The online editorial system sends the Reviewer a review request, initiated by the Subject Editor or the Editorial Office. The online system will also inform about delays in the reviewing and will confirm a successful review submission. The email notifications contain stepwise instructions about the actions needed at each stage along with the link to the respective manuscript (accessible only after login – see section How to Access a Manuscript).

Reviewers are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but rather focus on its scientific quality and overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing. If Reviewers recognize that a manuscript requires linguistic edits, we shall be grateful for them to inform both the Author and the Subject Editor in the report. It is the Author’s responsibility to submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English.

It often happens that even carefully written manuscripts may contain small errors in orthography or stylistics. We shall be thankful if Reviewers spot such errors during the reading process and correct them.

The manuscripts will generally be reviewed by two or three experts with the aim of reaching a first decision as soon as possible. Reviewers do not need to sign their reports, but are welcome to do so. They are also asked to declare any conflicts of interest.

Reviewers are asked whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, how interesting it is and whether the quality of the writing is acceptable. Where possible, the final decision is made on the basis of the peer reviews. In cases of strong disagreement between the reports or between the authors and peer reviewers, the editor can assess these according to his/her expertise or seek advice from a member of the journal's Editorial Board.

The ultimate responsibility for editorial decisions lies with the respective Subject Editor and/or, in some journals, with the Editor-in-Chief. All appeals should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, who may decide to seek advice from the Subject Editors or the Editorial Board.

Reviewers are also asked to indicate which articles they consider to be especially interesting or significant. These articles may be given greater prominence and greater external publicity, including press releases addressed to science journalists and mass media.

During a second review round, reviewers may be asked to evaluate the revised version against their recommendations submitted during the first review round.

Reviewers are kindly asked to be polite and constructive in their reports. Reports that may be insulting or uninformative will be rescinded.

Reviewers are asked to start their report with a very brief summary of the reviewed paper. This will help the editor and the authors see whether the reviewer correctly understood the paper or whether a report might be based on misunderstanding.

Furthermore, reviewers are also asked to comment on originality, structure and previous research:

Originality: Is the paper sufficiently novel and does it contribute to a better understanding of the topic under scrutiny? Is the work rather confirmatory and repetitive?

Structure: Is the introduction clear and concise? Does it place the work into the context that is necessary for a reader to comprehend aims, hypotheses tested, experimental design or methods? Are Material and Methods clearly described and sufficiently explained? Are reasons given when choosing one method over another one from a set of comparable methods? Are the results clearly, but concisely described? Do they relate to the topic outlined in the introduction? Do they follow a logical sequence? Does the discussion place the paper in scientific context and go a step beyond the current scientific knowledge on the basis of the results? Are competing hypotheses or theories reasonably related to each other and properly discussed? Do the conclusions seem reasonable?

Previous research: Is previous research adequately incorporated into the paper? Are references complete, necessary and accurate? Is there any sign that substantial parts of the paper are copies of other works?


Stepwise Description of the Peer Review Process

  1. This journal uses a single-blind peer review process. Notwithstanding with that, the reviewers are encouraged to disclose their identities, if they wish to do so. 

  2. The Reviewer receives a review request generated by the Subject Editor or the Editorial Office and is expected to either agree to provide a review, or decline, through pressing the Will do the review or Unable to do the review link in the online editorial system. In case the Reviewer agrees to review the manuscript, he/she should submit the review within a certain time frame, which may vary in the different journals.
    Note: The link to the respective manuscript is available in the review request email and all consequent reminder emails. The manuscript is accessible by clicking on the link in the email notification, or after login. Please look at the section How to Access a Manuscript above in case you have any difficulties.

  3. The review should be submitted through the Proceed button. The review should consist of (1) a simple online questionnaire to be answered by ticking either YesNo, or N/A; and (2) comments addressed to both the Author and the Editor in the online form.
    Note: Reviewers can insert comments in the manuscript review version.

  4. The Reviewer may decide to stay anonymous or open his/her identity by ticking the Show my name to the author(s) box at the bottom of the reviewer’s form.

  5. The review process is completed by selecting a recommendation from five options: (1) Reject; (2) Reject, but resubmission encouraged; (3) Major Revision; (4) Minor Revision; (5) Accept. The system will ask for one more confirmation of the selected recommendation before submission. The submitted review cannot be changed after submission.
    Note: Reasons for rejection can be a low scientific quality, non-conformance to the journal’s style/policies, and/or grammatically poor English language.

  6. Once a Reviewer submits a review of a manuscript, he/she receives an acknowledgement email from the journal.

  7. The submission of the review is also automatically reported to Clarivate - Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Service (formerly Publons). Reviewers are asked to confirm whether they want their reviews to be recorded on Clarivate.

  8. When all Reviewers have submitted their reviews, the Subject Editor makes a decision to either accept, reject or request further minor/major revision.

  9. After Subject Editor's decision, the manuscript is sent back to the author for comments and further revision. The author needs to submit a revised version in due time.

  10. Reviewers are notified via email when the revised version of a manuscript they have reviewed is submitted by the author. They receive a link to the revised version along with the editorial decision and all reviews of the manuscript. Reviewers are also provided with a feedback form should they have any comments on the revised version.

  11. When an article is published, all Reviewers who have provided a review for the respective manuscript receive an email acknowledgement. In the email, there is a link to view/download the published article.

  12. The Reviewer may always access information on the manuscripts that are being / have been reviewed by him/her through the menu My Tasks –> Reviewer on the journal’s web page – In Review (no.), In Edit (no.), Published (no.), and Archived (no.). The number in brackets after each category shows the number of manuscripts that have been assigned to you.


Benefits for Editors and Reviewers

This journal does not exclude editors from publishing papers in the journal (co-)authored by them. However, this is only possible for a limited proportion of papers per year, with some extra precautions and procedures to avoid an impression of impropriety, endogeny or conflicts of interest, and to ensure the editorial decision-making process is transparent and fair. For more information please consult the Policies page on the journal's website.

Pensoft editors and reviewers are entitled to a set of benefits in appreciation for their contribution to the quality of the works we publish. Please make sure to apply for your discount prior to the manuscript submission.

For Editors

For Reviewers

  • 15% unconditional discount on APCs and reprints for the journal in which you are an editor. Valid in cases where at least one paper has been handled within the last 12 months and the editor is the senior or corresponding author of the paper subject to the discount.
  • 10% unconditional discount on all books published by Pensoft.
  • 15% discount on APCs for the journal in which the review was provided. Valid in cases where the reviewer is the senior or corresponding author of the paper subject to the discount.
    • Valid for one manuscript per review, submitted within 12 months of the review
  • Automated registration of reviews at Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Service (formerly Publons) after confirmation by the reviewer.
  • Open reviews are provided with DOIs and citation details.

* When an individual qualifies for multiple discounts Pensoft will use the largest that applies.

  Apply to become editor via Editor Application Form

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

General

The publishing ethics and malpractice policies follow the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, DOAJ, WAME, and OASPA), the NISO Recommended Practices for the Presentation and Identification of E-Journals (PIE-J), and, where relevant, the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from ICMJE.

Privacy statement

The personal information used on this website is to be used exclusively for the stated purposes of each particular journal. It will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. 

Open access

Pensoft and ARPHA-hosted journals adhere strictly to gold open access to accelerate the barrier-free dissemination of scientific knowledge. All published articles are made freely available to read, download, and distribute immediately upon publication, given that the original source and authors are cited (Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)).

Open data publishing and sharing

Pensoft and ARPHA encourage open data publication and sharing, in accordance with Panton’s Principles and FAIR Data Principles. For the domain of biodiversity-related publications Pensoft has specially developed extended Data Publishing Policies and Guidelines for Biodiversity Data. Specific data publishing guidelines are available on the journal website. 

Data can be published in various ways, such as preservation in data repositories linked to the respective article or as data files or packages supplementary to the article. Datasets should be deposited in an appropriate, trusted repository and the associated identifier (URL or DOI) of the dataset(s) must be included in the data resources section of the article. Reference(s) to datasets should also be included in the reference list of the article with DOIs (where available). Where no discipline-specific data repository exists authors should deposit their datasets in a general repository such as, for example Zenodo or others. 

Submission, peer review and editorial process

The peer review and editorial processes are facilitated through an online editorial system and a set of email notifications. Pensoft journals’ websites display stepwise description of the editorial process and list all necessary instructions and links. These links are also included in the respective email notification.

General: Publication and authorship

  • All submitted papers are subject to a rigorous peer review process by at least two international reviewers who are experts in the scientific field of the particular paper. 
  • The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability and language. 
  • A declaration of potential Conflicts of Interest is a mandatory step in the submission process. The declaration becomes part of the article metadata and is displayed in both the PDF and HTML versions of the article.
  • The journals allow several rounds of review of a manuscript. The ultimate responsibility for editorial decisions lies with the respective Subject Editor and, in some cases, with the Editor-in-Chief. All appeals should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, who may decide to seek advice among the Subject Editors and Reviewers.
  • The possible decisions include: (1) Accept, (2) Minor revisions, (3) Major revisions, (4) Reject, but re-submission encouraged and (5) Reject. 
  • If Authors are encouraged to revise and re-submit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted. 
  • The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. 
  • No research can be included in more than one publication.
  • Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and their deputies are strongly recommended to limit the amount of papers co-authored by them. As a rule of thumb, research papers (co-)authored by Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and their deputies must not exceed 20% of the publications a year, with a clear task to drop this proportion below 15%. By adopting this practice, the journal is taking extra precaution to avoid endogeny and conflicts of interest, while ensuring the editorial decision-making process remains transparent and fair.
  • Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and handling editors are not allowed to handle manuscripts co-authored by them.

Responsibility of Authors

  • Authors are required to agree that their paper will be published in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) license.
  • Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work. 
  • Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere. 
  • Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. 
  • Authors should submit the manuscript in linguistically and grammatically correct English and formatted in accordance with the journal’s Author Guidelines.
  • Authors must participate in the peer review process. 
  • Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes. 
  • All Authors mentioned are expected to have significantly contributed to the research. 
  • Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest. 
  • Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript. 
  • Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
  • Authors should acknowledge all significant funders of the research pertaining to their article and list all relevant competing interests.   
  • Other sources of support for publications should also be clearly identified in the manuscript, usually in an acknowledgement (e.g. funding for the article processing charge; language editing or editorial assistance).
  • The Corresponding author should provide the declaration of any conflicts of interest on behalf of all Authors. Conflicts of interest may be associated with employment, sources of funding, personal financial interests, membership of relevant organisations or others.

Responsibility of Reviewers

  • The manuscripts will be reviewed by two or three experts in order to reach first decision as soon as possible. Reviewers do not need to sign their reports but are welcome to do so. They are also asked to declare any conflicts of interests.
  • Reviewers are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but to focus on its scientific quality, as well as for the overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing. If Reviewers recognize that a manuscript requires linguistic edits, they should inform both Authors and Editor in the report.
  • Reviewers are asked to check whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, how interesting it is and whether the quality of the writing is acceptable.
  • In cases of strong disagreement between the reviews or between the Authors and Reviewers, the Editors can judge these according to their expertise or seek advice from a member of the journal's Editorial Board.
  • Reviewers are also asked to indicate which articles they consider to be especially interesting or significant. These articles may be given greater prominence and greater external publicity, including press releases addressed to science journalists and mass media.
  • During a second review round, the Reviewer may be asked by the Subject Editor to evaluate the revised version of the manuscript with regards to Reviewer’s recommendations submitted during the first review round.
  • Reviewers are asked to be polite and constructive in their reports. Reports that may be insulting or uninformative will be rescinded.
  • Reviewers are asked to start their report with a very brief summary of the reviewed paper. This will help the Editors and Authors see whether the reviewer correctly understood the paper or whether a report might be based on misunderstanding.
  • Further, Reviewers are asked to comment on originality, structure and previous research: (1) Is the paper sufficiently novel and does it contribute to a better understanding of the topic under scrutiny? Is the work rather confirmatory and repetitive? (2) Is the introduction clear and concise? Does it place the work into the context that is necessary for a reader to comprehend the aims, hypotheses tested, experimental design or methods? Are Material and Methods clearly described and sufficiently explained? Are reasons given when choosing one method over another one from a set of comparable methods? Are the results clearly but concisely described? Do they relate to the topic outlined in the introduction? Do they follow a logical sequence? Does the discussion place the paper in scientific context and go a step beyond the current scientific knowledge on the basis of the results? Are competing hypotheses or theories reasonably related to each other and properly discussed? Do conclusions seem reasonable?  Is previous research adequately incorporated into the paper? Are references complete, necessary and accurate? Is there any sign that substantial parts of the paper were copies of other works?
  • Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.
  • Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information. 
  • Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. 
  • Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
  • Reviewers should also call to the Editors’ attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Responsibility of Editors

  • Editors in Pensoft’s journals carry the main responsibility for the scientific quality of the published papers and base their decisions solely on the papers' importance, originality, clarity and relevance to publication's scope.
  • The Subject Editor takes the final decision on a manuscript’s acceptance or rejection and his/her name is listed as "Academic Editor" in the header of each article.
  • The Subject Editors are not expected to provide a thorough linguistic editing or copyediting of a manuscript, but to focus on its scientific quality, as well as the overall style, which should correspond to the good practices in clear and concise academic writing. 
  • Editors are expected to spot small errors in orthography or stylistic during the editing process and correct them.
  • Editors should always consider the needs of the Authors and the Readers when attempting to improve the publication. 
  • Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record. 
  • Editors should preserve the anonymity of Reviewers, unless the latter decide to disclose their identities. 
  • Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines. 
  • Editors should act if they suspect misconduct and make all reasonable attempts to obtain a resolution to the problem. 
  • Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
  • Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between Authors, Reviewers and Board Members.
  • Editors are allowed to publish a limited proportion of papers per year co-authored by them, after considering some extra precautions to avoid an impression of impropriety, endogeny, conflicts of interest and ensure that the editorial decision-making process is transparent and fair.
  • Editors-in-Chief, managing editors and handling editors are not allowed to handle manuscripts co-authored by them.
           

Neutrality to geopolitical disputes

General

The strict policy of Pensoft and its journals is to stay neutral to any political or territorial dispute. Authors should depoliticize their studies by avoiding provoking remarks, disputable geopolitical statements and controversial map designations; disputable territories should be referred to as well-recognised and non-controversial geographical areas. Тhe journal reserves the right to mark such areas at least as disputable at or after publication, to publish editor's notes, or to reject/retract the paper.

Authors' affiliations

Pensoft does not take decisions regarding the actual affiliations of institutions. Authors are advised to provide their affiliation as indicated on the official internet site of their institution.

Editors 

Editorial decisions should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Decisions to edit and publish should not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself.

Human and animal rights

The ethical standards in medical and pharmacological studies are based on the Helsinki declaration (1964, amended in 1975, 1983, 1989, 1996, 2000 and 2013) of the World Medical Association and the Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals of the World Association of Medical Journals (WAME).

Authors of studies including experiments on humans or human tissues should declare in their cover letter a compliance with the ethical standards of the respective institutional or regional committee on human experimentation and attach committee’s statement and informed consent; for those researchers who do not have access to formal ethics review committees, the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki should be followed and declared in the cover letter. Patients’ names, initials, or hospital numbers should not be used, not in the text nor in any illustrative material, tables of databases, unless the author presents a written permission from each patient to use his or her personal data. Photos or videos of patients should be taken after a warning and agreement of the patient or of a legal authority acting on his or her behalf.

Animal experiments require full compliance with local, national, ethical, and regulatory principles, and local licensing arrangements and respective statements of compliance (or approvals of institutional ethical committees where such exists) should be included in the article text.

Informed consent

Individual participants in studies have the right to decide what happens to the identifiable personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

The following statement should be included in the article text in one of the following ways:

  • "Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study."
  • "Informed consent was obtained from all individuals for whom identifying information is included in this article." (In case some patients’ data have been published in the article or supplementary materials to it).

Gender issues

We encourage the use of gender-neutral language, such as 'chairperson' instead of 'chairman' or 'chairwomen', as well as 'they' instead of 'she/he' and 'their' instead of  'him/her' (or consider restructuring the sentence).

Conflict of interest

During the editorial process, the following relationships between editors and authors are considered conflicts of interest: Colleagues currently working in the same research group or department, recent co-authors, and doctoral students for which the editor served as committee chair. During the submission process, the authors are kindly advised to identify possible conflicts of interest with the journal editors. After manuscripts are assigned to the handling editor, individual editors are required to inform the managing editor of any possible conflicts of interest with the authors. Journal submissions are also assigned to referees to minimize conflicts of interest. After manuscripts are assigned for review, referees are asked to inform the editor of any conflicts that may exist.

Appeals and open debate

We encourage academic debate and constructive criticism. Authors are always invited to respond to any editorial correspondence before publication. Authors are not allowed to neglect unfavorable comments about their work and choose not to respond to criticisms. 

No Reviewer’s comment or published correspondence may contain a personal attack on any of the Authors. Criticism of the work is encouraged. Editors should edit (or reject) personal or offensive statements. Authors should submit their appeal on editorial decisions to the Editorial Office, addressed to the Editor-in-Chief or to the Managing Editor. Authors are discouraged from directly contacting Editorial Board Members and Editors with appeals.

Editors will mediate all discussions between Authors and Reviewers during the peer review process prior to publication. If agreement cannot be reached, Editors may consider inviting additional reviewers if appropriate. 

The Editor-in-Chief will mediate all discussions between Authors and Subject Editors.

The journals encourage publication of open opinions, forum papers, corrigenda, critical comments on a published paper and Author’s response to criticism.

Misconduct

Research misconduct may include: (a)  manipulating research materials, equipment or processes; (b) changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the article; c) plagiarism. Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion. If misconduct is suspected, journal Editors will act in accordance with the relevant COPE guidelines.

Plagiarism and duplicate publication policy
A special case of misconduct is plagiarism, which is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit. Plagiarism is considered theft of intellectual property and manuscripts submitted to this journal which contain substantial unattributed textual copying from other papers will be immediately rejected. Editors are advised to check manuscripts for plagiarism via the iThenticate service by clicking on the "ïThenticate report" button. Journal providing a peer review in languages other than English (for example, Russian) may use other plagiarism checking services (for example, Antiplagiat). 
Instances, when authors re-use large parts of their publications without providing a clear reference to the original source, are considered duplication of work. Slightly changed published works submitted in multiple journals is not acceptable practice either. In cases of plagiarism in an already published paper or duplicate publication, an announcement will be made on the journal publication page and a procedure of retraction will be triggered.

Responses to possible misconduct

All allegations of misconduct must be referred to the Editor-In-Chief. Upon the thorough examination, the Editor-In-Chief and deputy editors should conclude if the case concerns a possibility of misconduct. All allegations should be kept confidential and references to the matter in writing should be kept anonymous, whenever possible.

Should a comment on potential misconduct be submitted by the Reviewers or Editors, an explanation will be sought from the Authors. If it is satisfactory and the issue is the result of either a mistake or misunderstanding, the matter can be easily resolved. If not, the manuscript will be rejected or retracted and the Editors may impose a ban on that individual's publication in the journals for a certain period of time. In cases of published plagiarism or dual publication, an announcement will be made in both journals explaining the situation.

When allegations concern authors, the peer review and publication process for their submission will be halted until completion of the aforementioned process. The investigation will be carried out even if the authors withdraw the manuscript, and implementation of the responses below will be considered.

When allegations concern reviewers or editors, they will be replaced in the review process during the ongoing investigation of the matter. Editors or reviewers who are found to have engaged in scientific misconduct should be removed from further association with the journal, and this fact reported to their institution.

Retraction policies

Article retraction

According to the COPE Retraction Guidelines followed by this Journal, an article can be retracted because of the following reasons:

  • Unreliable findings based on clear evidence of a misconduct (e.g. fraudulent use of the data) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error).
  • Redundant publication, e.g., findings that have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification.
  • Plagiarism or other kind of unethical research.

Retraction procedure

  • Retraction should happen after a careful consideration by the Journal editors of allegations coming from the editors, authors, or readers.
  • The HTML version of the retracted article is removed (except for the article metadata) and on its place a retraction note is issued.
  • The PDF of the retracted article is left on the website but clearly watermarked with the note "Retracted" on each page.
  • In some rare cases (e.g., for legal reasons or health risk) the retracted article can be replaced with a new corrected version containing apparent link to the retracted original version and a retraction note with a history of the document.

Expression of concern

In other cases, the Journal editors should consider issuing an expression of concern, if evidence is available for:

  • Inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors.
  • Unreliable findings that are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case.
  • A belief that an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive.
  • An investigation is underway but a judgement will not be available for a considerable time.

Errata and Corrigenda

Pensoft journals largely follow the ICMJE guidelines for corrections and errata.

Errata

Admissible and insignificant errors in a published article that do not affect the article content or scientific integrity (e.g. typographic errors, broken links, wrong page numbers in the article headers etc.) can be corrected through publishing of an erratum. This happens through replacing the original PDF with the corrected one together with a correction notice on the Erratum Tab of the HTML version of the paper, detailing the errors and the changes implemented in the original PDF. The original PDF will be marked with a correction note and an indication to the corrected version of the erratum article. The original PDF will also be archived and made accessible via a link in the same Erratum Tab.

Authors are also encouraged to post comments and indicate typographical errors on their articles to the Comments tab of the HTML version of the article.

Corrigenda

Corrigenda should be published in cases when significant errors are discovered in a published article. Usually, such errors affect the scientific integrity of the paper and could vary in scale. Reasons for publishing corrigenda may include changes in authorship, unintentional mistakes in published research findings and protocols, errors in labelling of tables and figures or others. In taxonomic journals, corrigenda are often needed in cases where the errors affect nomenclatural acts. Corrigenda are published as a separate publication and bear their own DOI. Examples of published corrigenda are available here.

The decision for issuing errata or corrigenda is with the editors after discussion with the authors.


Policies

 

General Statement

The journal policies and guidelines are mandatory. Exceptions to elements of the policies may be granted in specific cases, but will require justification that will be made public together with the article.

License and Copyright Agreement

In submitting the manuscript to the journal, the authors certify that:

  • They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
  • The work described has not been formally published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, thesis, or overlay journal), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication has been approved by all the author(s) and by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work has been carried out.
  • They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.
  • They agree to the following license and copyright agreement:

Copyright

Licensing for Data Publication

The journal uses the Creative Commons CC-Zero Waiver, for data in any supplementary materials associated with an article.

Other data publishing licenses may be allowed as exceptions (subject to approval by the editor on a case-by-case basis) and should be justified with a written statement from the author, which will be published with the article.

Open Data and Software Publishing and Sharing

The journal strives to maximize the replicability of the research published in it. Authors are thus required to share all data, code or protocols underlying the research reported in their articles. Exceptions are permitted, but have to be justified in a written public statement accompanying the article.

Datasets and software should be deposited and permanently archived in appropriate, trusted, general, or domain-specific repositories (please consult http://service.re3data.org and/or software repositories such as GitHub, GitLab, Bioinformatics.org, or equivalent). The associated persistent identifiers (e.g. DOI, or others) of the dataset(s) must be included in the data or software resources section of the article. Reference(s) to datasets and software should also be included in the reference list of the article with DOIs (where available). Where no domain-specific data repository exists, authors should dGiteposit their datasets in a general repository such as ZENODO,Dryad, Dataverse, or others.

Small data may also be published as data files or packages supplementary to a research article, however, the authors should prefer in all cases a deposition in data repositories.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses present on the journal’s website will be used exclusively for the purposes of the journal.

Author Policies

It is a responsibility of the corresponding author that all named authors have agreed to its submission.

The Corresponding Author’s Role and Responsibilities are to:

  1. Inform all co-authors of the submission of the manuscript to the journal (note: each co-author will receive a confirmation email upon submission and will need to confirm their authorship).
  2. Manage all correspondence between the journal and all co-authors, keeping the full co-author group apprised of the manuscript progress.
  3. Designate a substitute correspondent for times of unavailability.
  4. Ensure payment of the publication charges at the point of Editorial Acceptance, or before that in case some specific services have been purchased (e.g., conversion to ARPHA or linguistic editing).
  5. Ensure that the manuscript is in full adherence with all the journal policies (including such items as publication ethics, data deposition, materials deposition, etc).
  6. Post Publication: Respond to all queries pertaining to the published manuscript, provide data and materials as requested.
  7. The submission must be created (and completed) by one of the co-authors, not by an agency, or by some other individual who is not one of the co-authors.

The journal adheres to the ICMJE uniform requirements of authorship: All authors on an article must meet these requirements, which are extracted below:

  • "Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.
  • When a large, multicenter group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript (3). These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship/contributorship defined above, and editors will ask these individuals to complete journal-specific author and conflict-of-interest disclosure forms. When submitting a manuscript authored by a group, the corresponding author should clearly indicate the preferred citation and identify all individual authors as well as the group name. Journals generally list other members of the group in the Acknowledgments. The National Library of Medicine indexes the group name and the names of individuals the group has identified as being directly responsible for the manuscript; it also lists the names of collaborators, if they are listed in Acknowledgments.
  • Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship.
  • All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
  • Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Commenting Policies

All public comments follow the normal standards of professional discourse. All commenters are named, and their comments are associated to the journal profile. The journal does not allow anonymous or pseudonymous commenting or user profiles.

The journal does not tolerate language that is insulting, inflammatory, obscene or libelous. The journal reserves the right to remove all or parts of Comments to bring them in line with these policies. The journal is the final arbiter as to the suitability of any comments.

Conflicts of Interest

The journal requires that all parties involved in a publication (i.e. the authors, reviewers and academic editors) should transparently declare any potential Conflicts of Interest (also known as Competing Interests). The disclosure of a Conflict of Interest does not necessarily mean that there is an issue to be addressed; it simply ensures that all parties are appropriately informed of any relevant considerations while they work on the submission.

Potential Conflicts of Interest should be declared even if the individual in question feels that these interests do not represent an actual conflict. Examples of Conflicts of Interest include, but are not limited to: possible financial benefits if the manuscript is published; patent activity on the results; consultancy activity around the results; personal material or financial gain (such as free travel, gifts, etc.) relating to the work, and so on. A declaration of potential conflicts of interest is a mandatory step in the submission process. The declaration becomes part of the article metadata and is displayed in both the PDF and under the Article Info tab of the HTML version of the published article.

While possible financial benefits should appear here, actual funding sources (institutional, corporate, grants, etc.) should be detailed in the funding disclosure statement.

Funding Disclosure

The journal requires that authors declare the funding which made their work possible, including funding programmes, projects, or calls for grant proposals (when applicable).

Ethics and Security Statement

BioDiscovery complies with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ uniform requirements for manuscripts.

Authors provide an Ethics and Security statement detailing the relevant ethical standards that were met when conducting the research. Ethics and Security statements are required whenever research is conducted on humans or human tissue; on animals or animal tissue; when conducting field studies; or whenever the approval of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) was required.

Reporting of research involving humans or animals

Appropriate approval, licensing or registration should be obtained before the research begins and details should be provided in the report (e.g. Institutional Review Board, Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use of animals).
The authors must:

  • confirm that experiments with humans and animals reported in the original research manuscript were performed according to the relevant regulations. If requested by editors, authors should supply evidence that reported research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically (e.g. copies of approvals, licences, participant consent forms);
  • include a statement in the manuscript identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee approving the experiments.
  • for experiments involving human subjects, authors must also include with their submission a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects. Researchers should not generally publish or share identifiable individual data collected in the course of research without specific consent from the individual (or their representative).
  • where IRB approval was required, the authors must provide an ethics statement as part of their Materials and Methods section detailing full information regarding their approval (including the name of the granting organization, and the approval reference numbers). If an approval reference number is not provided, written approval must be provided as confidential supplemental file.

The appropriate statistical analyses should be determined at the start of the study and a data analysis plan for the pre-specified outcomes should be prepared and followed. Secondary or post hoc analyses should be distinguished from primary analyses and those set out in the data analysis plan. Researchers should publish all meaningful research results that might contribute to understanding.

Authors should supply research protocols to journal editors if requested (e.g. for clinical trials) so that reviewers and editors can compare the research report to the protocol to check that it was carried out as planned and that no relevant details have been omitted. Researchers should follow relevant requirements for clinical trial registration and should include the trial registration number in all publications arising from the trial.

For reports on clinical trials requirements include:

  • Registration of all interventional trials, whether early or late phase, in a primary register that participates in WHO’s International Clinical Trial Registry Platform.
  • Full public disclosure of the minimum 20-item trial registration dataset at the time of registration and before recruitment of the first participant is encouraged. The registry must be independent of for-profit interest.
  • Reports of trials must conform to CONSORT 2010 guidelines and should be submitted with their protocols.
  • All reports of randomised trials should include a section entitled Randomisation and masking, within the Methods section.
  • Cluster-randomised trials must be reported according to CONSORT extended guidelines.
  • Randomised trials that report harms must be described according to extended CONSORT guidelines.
  • Studies of diagnostic accuracy must be reported according to STARD guidelines.
  • Observational studies (cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional designs) must be reported according to the STROBE statement, and should be submitted with their protocols.
  • Registration of all observational studies on a WHO-compliant registry is encouraged.
  • Genetic association studies must be reported according to STREGA guidelines.
  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines.

'Dual Use Research of Concern' is defined by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) as any "biological research with legitimate scientific purpose that may be misused to pose a biologic threat to public health and/or national security."

If an author, editor or reviewer feels that a submission may be subject to concerns surrounding dual use, then it is incumbent on them to report this concern to staff.


Terms of Use

This document describes the Terms of Use of the services provided by the BioDiscovery journal, hereinafter referred to as "the Journal" or "this Journal". All Users agree to these Terms of Use when signing up to this Journal. Signed Journal Users will be hereinafter referred to as "User" or "Users".

The publication services to the Journal are provided by Pensoft Publishers Ltd., through its publishing platform ARPHA, hereinafter referred to as "the Provider".

The Provider reserves the right to update the Terms of Use occasionally. Users will be notified via posting on the site and/or by email. If using the services of the Journal after such notice, the User will be deemed to have accepted the proposed modifications. If the User disagrees with the modifications, he/she should stop using the Journal services. Users are advised to periodically check the Terms of Use for updates or revisions. Violation of any of the terms will result in the termination of the User's account. The Provider is not responsible for any content posted by the User in the Journal.

Account Terms

  1. For registration in this Journal or any of the services or tools hosted on it, Users must provide their full legal name, a valid email address, postal address, affiliation (if any),  and any other information requested.
  2. Accounts created via this journal automatically sign in the User to the ARPHA Platform.
  3. Users are responsible for maintaining the security of their account and password. The Journal cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage from failure to comply with this security obligation.
  4. Users are solely responsible for the content posted via the Journal services (including, but not limited to data, text, files, information, usernames, images, graphics, photos, profiles, audio and video clips, sounds, applications, links and other content) and all activities that occur under their account.
  5. Users may not use the service for any illegal or unauthorised purpose. Users must not, in the use of the service, violate any laws within their jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright or trademark laws).
  6. Users can change or pseudonomyse their personal data, or deactivate their accounts at any time through the functionality available in the User’s personal profile. Deactivation or pseudonomysation will not affect the appearance of personal data in association with an already published work of which the User is author, co-author, editor, or reviewer.
  7. Users can report to the Journal uses of their personal data, that they might consider not corresponding to the current Terms of Use.
  8. The User’s personal data is processed by the Journal on the legal basis corresponding to Article 6, paragraph 1, letters a, b, c and f. of the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter referred to as GDPR) and will be used for the purpose of Journal’s services in accordance with the present Terms and Use, as well as in those cases expressly stated by the legislation.
  9. User’s consent to use the information the Journal has collected about the User corresponds to Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR.
  10. The ‘legitimate interest’ of the Journal to engage with the User and enable him/her to participate in Journal’s activities and use Journal’s services correspond to Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR.

Services and Prices

The Provider reserves the right to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the services provided by the Journal. Plans and prices are subject to change upon 30 days notice from the Provider. Such notice may be provided at any time by posting the changes to the relevant service website.

Ownership

The Authors retain full ownership to their content published in the Journal. We claim no intellectual property rights over the material provided by any User in this Journal. However, by setting pages to be viewed publicly (Open Access), the User agrees to allow others to view and download the relevant content. In addition, Open Access articles might be used by the Provider, or any other third party, for data mining purposes. Authors are solely responsible for the content submitted to the journal and must confirm [during the submission process] that the content does not contain any materials subject to copyright violation including, but not limited to, text, data, multimedia, images, graphics, photos, audio and video clips. This requirement holds for both the article text and any supplementary material associated with the article.

The Provider reserves the rights in its sole discretion to refuse or remove any content that is available via the Website.

Copyrighted Materials

Unless stated otherwise, the Journal website may contain some copyrighted material (for example, logos and other proprietary information, including, without limitation, text, software, photos, video, graphics, music and sound - "Copyrighted Material"). The User may not copy, modify, alter, publish, transmit, distribute, display, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works or, in any way, exploit any of the Copyrighted Material, in whole or in part, without written permission from the copyright owner. Users will be solely liable for any damage resulting from any infringement of copyrights, proprietary rights or any other harm resulting from such a submission.

Exceptions from this rule are e-chapters or e-articles published under Open Access (see below), which are normally published under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC-BY), or Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC-BY), or Creative Commons Public Domain license (CC0).

Open Access Materials

This Journal is a supporter of open science. Open access to content is clearly marked, with text and/or the open access logo, on all materials published under this model. Unless otherwise stated, open access content is published in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC-BY). This particular licence allows the copying, displaying and distribution of the content at no charge, provided that the author and source are credited.

Privacy Statement

  1. Users agree to submit their personal data to this Journal, hosted on the ARPHA Platform provided by Pensoft.
  2. The Journal collects personal information from Users (e.g., name, postal and email addresses, affiliation) only for the purpose of its services.
  3. All personal data will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the website and will not be made available for any other purpose or to third parties.
  4. In the case of co-authorship of a work published through the Journal services, each of the co-authors states that they agree that their personal data be collected, stored and used by the Journal.
  5. In the case of co-authorship, each of the co-authors agrees that their personal data publicly available in the form of a co-authorship of a published work, can be distributed to external indexing services and aggregators for the purpose of the widest possible distribution of the work they co-author.
  6. When one of the co-authors is not registered in the Journal, it is presumed that the corresponding author who is registered has requested and obtained his/her consent that his/her personal data will be collected, stored and used by the Journal.
  7. The registered co-author undertakes to provide an e-mail address of the unregistered author, to whom the Journal will send a message in order to give the unregistered co-author’s explicit consent for the processing of his/her personal data by the Journal.
  8. The Journal is not responsible if the provided e-mail of the unregistered co-author is inaccurate or invalid. In such cases, it is assumed that the processing of the personal data of the unregistered co-author is done on a legal basis and with a given consent.
  9. The Journal undertakes to collect, store and use the provided personal data of third parties (including but not limited to unregistered co-authors) solely for the purposes of the website, as well as in those cases expressly stated by the legislation.
  10. Users can receive emails from Journal and its hosting platform ARPHA, provided by Pensoft, about activities they have given their consent for. Examples of such activities are:
    • Email notifications to authors, reviewers and editors who are engaged with authoring, reviewing or editing a manuscript submitted to the Journal.
    • Email alerts sent via email subscription service, which can happen only if the User has willingly subscribed for such a service. Unsubscription from the service can happen through a one-click link provided in each email alert notification.
    • Information emails on important changes in the system or in its Terms of Use which are sent via Mailchimp are provided with "Unsubscribe" function.
  11. Registered users can be invited to provide a peer review on manuscripts submitted to the Journal. In such cases, the users can decline the review invitation through a link available on the journal’s website.
  12. Each provided peer review can be registered with external services (such as Web of Science Reviewer Recognition Service, formerly Publons). The reviewer will be notified if such registration is going to occur and can decline the registration process.
  13. In case the Journal starts using personal data for purposes other than those specified in the Terms of Use, the Journal undertakes to immediately inform the person and request his/her consent.
  14. If the person does not give his/her consent to the processing of his or her personal data pursuant to the preceding paragraph, the Journal shall cease the processing of the personal data for the purposes for which there is no consent, unless there is another legal basis for the processing.
  15. Users can change/correct their personal data anytime via the functionality available in the User’s profile. Users can request the Journal to correct their personal data if the data is inaccurate or outdated and the Journal is obliged to correct the inaccurate or outdated personal data in a timely manner.
  16. Users may request the Journal to restrict the use of their personal data insofar as this limitation is not contrary to the law or the Terms of Use.
  17. Users may request their personal data to be deleted (the right to be forgotten) by the Journal, provided that the deletion does not conflict with the law or the Terms of Use.
  18. The User has the right to be informed:
    • whether his or her personal data have been processed;
    • for which purposes the Journal processes the personal data;
    • the ways in which his/her personal data are processed;
    • the types of personal data that Journal processes.
  19. The user undertakes not to interfere with and impede the Journal’s activities in the exercise of the provided rights.
  20. In case of non-fulfillment under the previous paragraph, the Journal reserves the right to delete the user's profile.

Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability

Neither Pensoft and its affiliates nor any of their respective employees, agents, third party content providers or licensors warrant that the Journal service will be uninterrupted or error-free; nor do they give any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from use of the journal, or as to the accuracy or reliability of any information, service or merchandise provided through Journal.

Legal, medical, and health-related information located, identified or obtained through the use of the Service, is provided for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for qualified advice from a professional.

In no event will the Provider, or any person or entity involved in creating, producing or distributing Journal or the contents included therein, be liable in contract, in tort (including for its own negligence) or under any other legal theory (including strict liability) for any damages, including, but without limitation to, direct, indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages, including, but without limitation to, lost profits or revenues, loss of use or similar economic loss, arising from the use of or inability to use the journal platform. The User hereby acknowledges that the provisions of this section will apply to all use of the content on Journal. Applicable law may not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability or incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to the User. In no event will Pensoft’s total liability to the User for all damages, losses or causes of action, whether in contract, tort (including own negligence) or under any other legal theory (including strict liability), exceed the amount paid by the User, if any, for accessing Journal.

Third Party Content

The Provider is solely a distributor (and not a publisher) of SOME of the content supplied by third parties and Users of the Journal. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including information providers and Users, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and not of the Provider.


Cookies Policy

Cookies

a) Session cookies

We use cookies on our website. Cookies are small text files or other storage technologies stored on your computer by your browser. These cookies process certain specific information about you, such as your browser, location data, or IP address.  

This processing makes our website more user-friendly, efficient, and secure, allowing us, for example, to allow the "Remember me" function.

The legal basis for such processing is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. b) GDPR, insofar as these cookies are used to collect data to initiate or process contractual relationships.

If the processing does not serve to initiate or process a contract, our legitimate interest lies in improving the functionality of our website. The legal basis is then Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR.

When you close your browser, these session cookies are deleted.

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About Pensoft

History & Overview

Pensoft is an independent academic publishing company, well known among biodiversity scientists worldwide for technologically cutting-edge open access journals, such as: ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ)PhytoKeys, MycoKeys, Nature Conservation,NeoBiota, and Comparative Cytogenetics. Founded in 1992 in Bulgaria, "by academics, for academics", initially focusing on book publishing, it has grown to become an innovative and leading open access journal publisher. Pensoft has published more than 1000 books and over 4,000 open access articles, mostly in the field of natural history.

Innovation

In 2010, Pensoft was the first publisher to implement semantic tagging and enrichment of published articles as a routine editorial practice. The company is actively developing novel tools, workflows and methods for text and data publishing, dissemination of scientific information, and technologies for semantic enrichment of content. In 2013, Pensoft launched the first ever end-to-end XML-based authoring, reviewing and publishing workflow, as demonstrated by the Pensoft Writing Tool (PWT) and the Biodiversity Data Journal (BDJ). The company has also developed several tools for semantic publishing, such as the Pensoft Markup Tool (PMT), Pensoft Taxon Profile (PTP), Pensoft Wiki Converter (PWC), the literature and data discovery tool Refindit.org, and others.

Pensoft is a member or partner of:  CrossRef, OASPA, CLOCKSS, Research Data Alliance (RDA), OpenAIRE, Dryad Data Repository, GBIF, Encyclopedia of Life, and others.

Pensoft journal content is indexed by:  PubMedCentral, ISI Web of Science, Scopus, BIOSIS, Google Scholar, DOAJ, Zoological Record,CAB AbstractsWikispeciesVifabioBHL CitebankGlobalnamesJournalMap.


Journal Info

 

Journal Name BioDiscovery
Journal URL https://biodiscovery.pensoft.net/
ISSN (online) 2050-2966
ISSN (print) -
Content Provider ARPHA
Publisher Pensoft Publishers
Journal Owner Pensoft Publishers
Owner URL https://pensoft.net
Start Year 2012
Review Type single-blind
Publication Frequency continuous
APC Accepted manuscripts are subject to APC (for more details see here)
License Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)

 


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