Science is not democratic. (3) Chief Editors have complete oversight of all manuscripts in their section/journal and can access them at any time; they can intervene and take any action they consider necessary at any time during the review process. So the question “why is Frontiers designed this way” is not so pertinent. Materials Publication of a research article in Developmental Biology is taken to imply that the authors are prepared to distribute all non-commercially obtained materials used in the experiments (e.g. While still in his post, Molnár protested about the unrejectable manuscript to the Frontiers in Medicine “Editorial Office” – actually a publisher-run department outside of any academic editor control. Yet just in the previous sentence, the journal manager also explained: “Regarding rejecting before interactive review: the reason we strongly discourage this is because Frontiers wishes to overcome one of the common concerns that authors have – that the editors have overruled their chance to discuss their paper with the reviewers”. There is basically hardly anyone to issue a rejection. It is also the 2nd and 3rd largest journal in all of psychology and neuroscience, respectively.”, http://blog.frontiersin.org/2015/11/20/quality-and-impact-analysis-frontiers-in-human-neuroscience/. Globally, the blue water footprint (i.e. the consumption of surface and groundwater resources) of food wastage is about 250 km3, which is equivalent to the annual water discharge of the Volga river, or three times the volume of lake Geneva. Transcriptional and epigenetic control of cell fate specification. Of course, for journals covering a very broad field, the role of the EIC is taken over by associate/specialty editors. Yet under certain conditions, Frontiers has no problems with rejections at all, even of positively reviewed manuscripts. Macchiarini’s trachea transplant patients: the full list, “Manifesto of Editorial Independence”, Amedeo Avogadro University of Eastern Piedmont, http://www.rug.nl/about-us/organization/rules-and-regulations/algemeen/gedragscodes-nederlandse-universiteiten/code-wetenschapsbeoefening-14-en.pdf, http://ukrio.org/wp-content/uploads/UKRIO-Code-of-Practice-for-Research.pdf, http://blog.frontiersin.org/2015/05/07/frontiers-acts-to-defend-distributed-editorial-independence/, http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/medicine#editorial-board, http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/medicine#archive, Recommended reads #63 | Small Pond Science, http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fvets.2015.00022/full, http://www.labtimes.org/editorial/e_631.lasso, Join the Committee, ignore Publication Ethics | For Better Science, http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/02/nature-publishing-group-buys-into-open-access-publisher.html, http://deevybee.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/my-collapse-of-confidence-in-frontiers.html, http://www.frontiersin.org/Design/pdf/ReviewGuidelines.pdf, http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01082/abstract, http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/bioling/PAVIA2015/program.htm, http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01463/abstract, http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01355/abstract, http://biolinguistics-bcn.info/about/research-lines-and-funding/, Frontiers removes junior peer reviewers | For Better Science, Follow For Better Science on WordPress.com, Schneider Shorts 29.10.2021 – Down by Law, Paul Craddock’s “Spare Parts” – Book Review, Schneider Shorts 22.10.2021 – Faking for Putin. How Dr Robert Malone invented Antivaxxery. Greenhouse gas emissions by the livestock sector could be cut by as much as 30 percent through the wider use of existing best practices and technologies. My present information was based on the facts that: Cardiovascular medicine is a branch of internal medicine and requires an utterly different medical specialization than cardiac surgery. Frontiers Media SA. that is all. cellbiology@frontiersin.org, Tel +41(0)21 510 17 10 The Lausanne-based publishing house Frontiers, founded by the neuroscientists Henry and Kamila Markram, has been recently added to the Beall’s List of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers. Or several of small tips, just increase the amount as you like (2x=NZD 20; 5x=NZD 50). This is why there are strict ethical rules and quality guidelines for clinically relevant medical publications, as issued by the ICMJE and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). The Journal Chief Editors, as clearly explained on our journal websites, remain the ultimate editorial authority for their respective Frontiers Journals. ER stress at the normal level can promote cell self-renewal, while long-term or severe ER stress can cause cell dysfunction and death (Li et al., 2020). How can a publisher which helped pioneer such innovations as open access and name-signed peer review, have come to this? Cell & Developmental Biology is an official peer-reviewed journal that publishes innovative research covering all aspects of Cell and its development. Any Repository, arXiv, +3. Medical ethics requirement for publication, originally introduced by the previous chief editors, were not implemented in the Frontiers instructions for authors. Cell Death and Survival seeks to publish outstanding research in the general area of cell death. Cell Death and Survival welcomes submissions of the following article types: Brief Research Report, Correction, Data Report, Editorial, General Commentary, Hypothesis and Theory, Methods, Mini Review, Opinion, Original Research, Perspective, Review and Technology and Code. The system is designed to cater to the ivory towers, everything, whether to send out or not for review, which reviewers, when to send out for more, everything is biased. By Leonid Schneider, on research integrity, biomedical ethics and academic publishing. Anyone who wants to read the articles should pay by individual or institution to access the articles. interest than academic interest, and they are always prepared to account for their actions. 2021. Exemplified by the uniform orientation of bristles covering the insect epidermis or of the hairs covering the mammalian body surface (Fig. Cell death is crucial to life in multicellular organisms. Editorial independence is a concept focused on the content that a journal publishes, not about whether there is a strong editor in chief calling all the shots. For example, Barton and colleagues stipulated that “For each manuscript submitted, every author needs to electronically complete and sign the COI form provided by ICMJE [International Committee of Medical Journal Editors], and all completed COI forms need to be submitted with the manuscript”. Matthias Barton, cardiology professor at the University of Zurich and former EiC of Frontiers in Medicine and Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, told me that when he and his fellow editors were sacked, their ethical policies were also shown the door. All this was explained in detail in our blog post Frontiers acts to defend distributed editorial independence, which can be accessed on our blog (http://blog.frontiersin.org/2015/05/07/frontiers-acts-to-defend-distributed-editorial-independence/). If not, how is the peer-review process maintained uncompromised?  There, the Markrams’ COI statement always proclaims “the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest”. Meanwhile, Frontiers manages according to own website “54 open access journals, 55,000 editors, 38,000 articles”. It is not like elife is doing a social work. It is, instead, able to change its own structure and function, even into old age.Psychiatrist and researcher Norman Doidge, MD, travelled around the United States to meet the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity, and the people ... ISSN: 2296-634X (Electronic) 2296-634X (Linking) (NB, She was not involved in drafting this statement.). International Scientific Journal & Country Ranking. One could assume that NPG has sold or withdrawn their investment in Frontiers, however one fact suggests that there has not been a total financial divorce: Nature journals keep advertising for the Frontiers-owned academic social network, Loop, by posting links to authors’ Loop profiles (which are created automatically for all Frontiers authors) on their article websites. support@frontiersin.org. However, the processes are declared clearly on the publisher’s site and we do not believe there is any attempt to deceive either editors or authors about these processes. Please take a look at any Frontiers journal and you will see that the number of editors is much higher than the number of articles published so far. (2018). This COI might influence the peer review done by these editors in place of proper, independent reviewers. The Frontiers Editor-in-Chief oversees the Frontiers principles and publishing model and appoints Chief Editors, who are proposed for appointment after extensive discussions and research and after assurances that the Chief Editors understand the Frontiers model. Since then, their Intense World Theory (formerly Intense World Syndrome) has been published in various Frontiers neuroscience-related journals. Cell Dev. At this point we have no concerns about Frontiers being a COPE member and are happy to work with them as they explore these new models. Cell & Developmental Journal with highest impact factor offers Open Access option to meet the needs of authors and maximize article visibility. The article is also found on the Frontiers in Public Health website. Cell 159 884-895. Also in the case of Frontiers in Medicine, someone is acting as editor, one way or the other. Because metabolism & physiology overlap, this unique book waves a tapetry uniting & blending the explanations to yield a thorough discussion of both. Instead, as the sacked medical chief editors have experienced, these journal managers interfered with the editorial process, by occasionally advising these editors to keep recruiting further reviewers or dissuading them from rejecting a manuscript. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fvets.2015.00022/full 도입. “the next point of contact for editors who are having problems handling a manuscript or needing advice, and authors, who may be upset with decisions and want to contact someone other than the editor who handled the manuscript”. I never heard any colleague submitting to Frontiers because the paper could not be rejected there (for increased acceptance rate yes, but this is common to so many journals). Loop | Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology. New medical ethics guidelines, which he and his colleagues had established to preserve clinical safety and patient protection, were revoked. A., Qiang H., Ko C. P. (2000). Today, however, there is no requirement or even option for every author to provide a signed COI statement at Frontiers in Medicine, despite ICMJE guidelines. Status Publisher Keeper From To Updated Extent of archive; Preserved. No reply. Each issue is thematic, devoted to an important topic of interest to cell and developmental biologists, focusing on the … Frontiers Editorial Office Avenue du Tribunal Fédéral 34 CH – 1005 Lausanne Switzerland Tel +41(0)21 510 17 40 Fax +41 (0)21 510 17 01, cellbiology.editorial.office@frontiersin.org, Frontiers Support Tel +41(0)21 510 17 10 Fax +41 (0)21 510 17 01 support@frontiersin.org, Avenue du Tribunal Fédéral 34 CH – 1005 Lausanne Switzerland, Tel +41(0)21 510 17 40 Fax +41 (0)21 510 17 01, For all queries regarding manuscripts in Review and potential conflicts of interest, please contact There is a waiver policy for these charges. Therefore, there can be many reasons for a submitted manuscript to be rejected. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. support@frontiersin.org. Many scientists convincingly argue that every single research study should be published and judged by the scrutiny of scientist colleagues in post-publication peer review. Diverse integrated approaches, including advanced proteomic techniques combined with functional genomics, bioinformatics, metabolomics and molecular cell biology, are presented in several chapters, making this book a valuable resource for a ... Editors' geographical locations. Maybe this is why Frontiers in Virology is one of the best cited Frontiers journals, because the chief editors are free to do their jobs? We note that there have been vigorous discussions about, and some editors are uncomfortable with, the editorial processes at Frontiers. The associate editor cannot reject a paper, and can only recommend rejection to EiC or chief speciality editor. Expect on average 14 weeks from submission to publication. The opposite is rarer, but I have seen cases where a reviewer clearly was going over board with his/her criticisms, which I then chose to ignore. Was this decision justified? Theoretically, this can go on back and forth until two positive peer reviews are finally obtained. "Tooth Enamel: Frontiers in Mineral Chemistry and Biochemistry, Integrative Cell Biology and Genetics" incorporates the proceedings of the 9th International Enamel Symposium (Enamel 9) hosted in the UK and chaired by Professor Jennifer ... The anaphase-promoting complex: proteolysis in mitosis and beyond. Pingback: Frontiers removes junior peer reviewers | For Better Science. Journal List; Front Cell Dev Biol; Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology Vols. In addition to . indeed, chief editors have ultimate power. Your generous patronage of my journalism will be most appreciated! Doctors adjust their patient treatments according to recent developments and publications in their field. Major efforts to study fibroblastic characteristics have . The Signaling section in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology is devoted to the publication of high quality research that covers all facets of signaling, from single cells to multicellular organisms, and how cells interact among themselves and with the external environment. The impact factor (IF) 2019 of Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology is 5.186, which is computed in 2020 as per it's definition.Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology IF is decreased by a factor of 0.02 and approximate percentage change is -0.38% when compared to preceding year 2018, which shows a falling trend. Schneider Shorts 15.10.2021 – Russophobia! This sounds somewhat like a Catch-22 situation, in which the very act of sending out a paper for peer review precludes the ability to reject this paper on the basis of the review, should it turn out negative. Molecular Medicine is committed to understanding the molecular cell biology of all disease stages (onset, progression, and reversal). “Frontiers in Zoology” is published by Biomed Central and “Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology” is published by Elsevier. Frontiers Cell and Developmental Biology. I have no mandate or authority to decide on content or the validity of any editorial project. My reviewer made reasonable objections, most of which I accepted, but some (e.g. In fact, for the Loop project, NPG is a “customer” of Frontiers Media. The new edition continues its success with updated research on microRNAs in B cell development and immunity, new developments in understanding lymphoma biology, and therapeutic targeting of B cells for clinical application. With the support of the journal’s Chief Editor, the rejection was final. Her manuscript was assigned an associate editor, but soon rejected. Maniatis later published her criticisms on PubPeer and PubMed Commons and was finally able to engage with the authors of the paper. Cell & Developmental Biology is a scientific . What is the “better” in science? I am not sure where this rumour started, but it is obviously not true. On the other hand, Frontiers is quite popular with many scientists and research organisations. In general, it would be very useful to obtain information on Frontiers acceptance/rejection rates. See also in the article above: PLoS Genet. In their scientific or scholarly activities, academic practitioners are led by no other Their role is to ADVICE the editors about the quality/suitability of a manuscript. More to the (worrying) point, do people at Frontiers take some kind of action when readers alert them about potential conflicts of interest? Within the CNS, the retina has long served as an excellent . “22) Associate Editors can recommend the rejection of an article to the Chief Editor, who needs to check that the authors’ rights have been upheld during the peer-review process, and who can then ultimately reject the article if it is of insufficient quality, has objective errors or if the authors were unreasonably unwilling to address the points raised during the review.”. (B) Representative images of S9.6 staining in siCTRL, siERCC6, siTOP2A and siTOP2B knockdown at transcription on (TA-KR) or off (tetR-KR) genomic loci in U2OS TRE cells. Furthermore, no-one is obliged to submit their manuscripts there if they don’t want. Instead, their COPE contacts are exclusively the employees of the publisher, working in managerial capacities – and not involved in the editorial process of the journals. Some of these associate editors are no strangers to controversy themselves; Alfredo Fusco, who is also a frequent author at Frontiers in Medicine, has had several of his papers retracted and is facing a criminal investigation over alleged data manipulations. Such students are unable to get a degree. Impact Factor 6.684 | CiteScore 2.7More on impact ›. No mention is made that human patient identity must be specifically respected and protected, in fact the new Frontiers guidelines there are same as for horses and cattle. The better the board, the better the chance to get expert opinions on your manuscript 🙂, Pingback: Join the Committee, ignore Publication Ethics | For Better Science. 10.1016/j.cell.2014.09.055 [PMC free article] [Google Scholar] Matoba S., Zhang Y. This volume presents a review of metapopulation biology. It describes key theories of study and applies the best field studies to the conservation of species in fragmented landscapes. —————. c) If the authors’ rebuttal is deemed unsuccessful by the reviewers they can say so, and the associate editor can then propose that the ms should be rejected. “we are frequently called upon to politely nudge late reviewers, when the editor and journal managers have been unsuccessful, or if there is an editor who is slow in the review process”. The rejection decision was not accompanied by any negative review either by the second reviewer or by the Associate Editor (who, as Mr. Schneider points out, didn’t have the remotest connection to the field). The statement below is COPE’s position on Frontiers. Dear Guillaume, thanks for your comment. 10.1371/journal.pgen.0030202 [Europe PMC free article] [Google Scholar] Peters J. M. (2002). This book will be useful for nano-microelectronics scientists, engineers, and visionary research leaders. It is also recommended to graduate students working at the frontiers of the nanoelectronics and microscience. Instead, the corresponding author simply has to make one click to verify COI status on behalf of others. This however may be still confusing, and has been used for a long time to lure authors, reviewers and editors to Frontiers Media. Blind peer review. Dr. Kamila Markram, co-founder and CEO of Frontiers, in her reply to the concerns raised by Prof. Dorothy Bishop writes at http://deevybee.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/my-collapse-of-confidence-in-frontiers.html the following: “Let me reassure you that the Frontiers process works extremely well for the vast majority of papers that are peer-reviewed. The metric tide is certainly rising. Unlike King Canute, we have the agency and opportunity – and in this book, a serious body of evidence – to influence how it washes through higher education and research. Embryonic development following somatic cell nuclear transfer impeded by persisting histone methylation. Your message states that Dr. Henry Markram is “simultaneously Editor-in-Chief of all Frontiers journals”, which is factually incorrect; he is Editor-in-Chief – i.e., a senior manager – of Frontiers as an organization, responsible for its ethical and publishing policies. Two more ridiculous and contradictory things with Frontiers: Your message refers to publication of articles by Dr Kamila Markram and Dr Henry Markram in Frontiers titles. I balked at paying to publish, but in my case the fee was waived. I provide a senior point of contact for our editors. The Chief Editor may override an Associate Editor’s recommendation to reject the manuscript and insist to call in further reviewers to continue the review process.” Open biology; Seminars in cell & developmental biology; Cell and tissue biology; Molecular vision; Journal of experimental zoology. Only they can endorse a rejection by reviewers and editors. Obviously, not endorsing a rejection is tantamount to acceptance. The statements of Anne Simon, professor at the University of Maryland in the USA, and the statements of Tamas Szakmany of Cardiff University in UK are thus in agreement with each other. My own experience at Frontiers in Neuroscience was quite positive. I believe this final stage was recently introduced as a response to the critique from the FI Medicine editors (who did not like the idea that associate editors had the power to accept manuscripts). In skeletal muscle cells, morphologically and functionally distinct subpopulations of mitochondria have been identified, but the mechanisms by which the subcellular specialization of mitochondria contributes to energy homeostasis in working muscles remains unclear. FOUND AT:. – There are much more editors than authors: thousands of editors against hundreds articles published!!! Articles published (total) Articles published (cumulative per year) Article views & downloads (total) Sections (total) Editors (total) Top Institutions. What is even more disturbing is that the above article does not mark a single incident of what looks as a potential failure to adhere to the ethical standards that Frontiers seeks to meet. Like the DOAJ does now, COPE has a rigorous and stringent process for scrutinizing members before they are accepted and we review this process as needed. Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email. Indexed in: Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), CLOCKSS, CrossRef, DOAJ, Google Scholar, OpenAIRE, PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), Scopus, Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, Web of Science Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). In multicellular organisms, the ability of cells to adhere and migrate is essential for normal development and healthy life because cell adhesion and migration are needed for individual cells to . All readers of this blog with experiences with students and with assessing the (scientific) output of students will be aware that almost all students are able to work together with the teachers to improve the (scientific) level of their output. I was invited to contribute an article on paradigm shifts in neuroscience, and even though most historians of science now reject the concept I rose to the challenge based on the quality of the other contributors to the issue.