ASM to launch mSphereDirect, a new, innovative science publishing pathway
Dec. 12, 2016 - After much discussion of the new opportunities in publishing, ASM is proud to announce a new pathway of manuscript review and submission for mSphere, called mSphereDirect. This new pathway aims to take the mystery out of the peer review process by allowing authors to choose the most appropriate reviewers of their work, making peer review a more constructive experience since reviewers can provide candid advice to the authors. Publication decisions will also be made within a faster time frame.
"We have decided to embark on an experiment that gives authors more control over the peer review process and, as such, introduces significantly more transparency and speed into the system," said Mike Imperiale, Editor-in-Chief, mSphere.
The key features of mSphereDirect include:
- Rapid decisions made on manuscripts with 5 business days with no requests for re-reviews
- Rapid dissemination of science. Papers submitted through the pre-print server, bioRxiv, will immediately be flagged as pending publications by mSphere. Final papers will be available within weeks and bioRxiv will direct everyone to it.
- Rapid publication of work in an open-access, pan-microbial science journal.
ASM launched mSphere as an open-access, online, pan-microbial sciences journal a little over a year ago. Since it's launch, the ASM journals staff has worked to ensure that mSphere is a medium for publishing cutting-edge science and implementing policies and processes to make the publication process less burdensome for authors. ASM continues working toward this goal with the launch of mSphereDirect.
"Since I started at ASM, my goal has been for ASM to be a visionary society that is constantly innovating, especially as the physical and digital forum for the microbial sciences, said Stefano Bertuzzi, CEO, ASM.
"mSphereDirect is doing just that by introducing new, experimental ways of peer review and publishing that puts ASM at the leading edge of innovation," he said. ASM is excited to be at the helm of innovation and allowing authors to publish faster, moving research forward.
An editorial authored by Mike Imperiale, Tom Shenk and Stefano Bertuzzi will be available on Monday in mSphere, highlighting the key points of mSphereDirect.
Provided by American Society for Microbiology