10 September 2018
The Microbiology Society has announced the launch of their new open science journal, Access Microbiology. The journal will publish replication studies, negative or null results, research proposals, data management plans, additions to established methods, and interdisciplinary work.
The thinking is that many of these valuable research outputs have been lost because they are not seen as ‘high impact’, creating a situation in which research is re-done in multiple labs for no gain. Access Microbiology aims to reduce this kind of research waste, so the publication criteria are based on methodological rigour rather than novelty, and the journal is completely open access. To further support this goal, authors are encouraged to make their data and methods available through initiatives such as figshare and protocols.io, respectively.
The journal’s scope covers:
- the full spectrum of microscopic life forms, from bacteria and viruses to fungi, protists, archaea, and algae
- all approaches, from computational, biotechnology, and laboratory work, to environmental, clinical, and veterinary studies
- various article types including research articles, short communications, methods, and cases
Simultaneously with the launch of Access Microbiology, the Society are closing submissions for JMM Case Reports, the standalone journal for medical microbiology case reports. The Microbiology Society is committed to ensuring long-term financial sustainability across all activities, and are closing JMM Case Reports only because Access Microbiology offers an alternative, sustainable, means of publishing case reports. The journal and every article published in it will remain available on the Society’s journal website. Everything is also stored for long-term preservation in both Portico and CLOCKSS.