F1000Research to publish new ISCB Community Journal online

Journal will provide dedicated channel for ISCB conference research; ISCB holds open Call for Editors

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) and F1000Research are pleased to announce the formation of an innovative partnership to produce the ISCB Community Journal - a new, dedicated, digital channel on the F1000Research publishing platform.

The ISCB Community Journal will be launched on F1000Research this summer to provide the ISCB’s growing membership and conference attendees with an affordable, open publishing platform for research presented at official and affiliated ISCB conferences.

Scientists who belong to the ISCB’s Communities of Special Interest (COSIs) or who attend its Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings will also be able to take advantage of the new channel.

The initiative will enable ISCB to support the publication of research in a range of formats in one centralised channel for the first time.  Articles based upon the research presented at official and affiliated conferences will be published using F1000Research’s immediate publication and transparent peer review model, without limitation on article size, type, or perceived impact.

ISCB conference attendees will also be able to share and publish the academic posters and slides that are presented at each conference and host them in one easily searchable domain.

Diane E. Kovats, Executive Director, ISCB, said: “F1000Research’s platform offers a viable alternative to traditional scholarly society journals."

 “A lot of high-quality and valuable science that is shared at conferences, including posters and slide presentations, never gets published, and essentially becomes ‘lost’ research. In the digital age, it should be possible to share all the science presented at conferences quickly and easily.”

Michael Markie, Associate Publisher of F1000Research, said: “There is always a treasure chest of research that is presented at academic conferences that never sees the light of day. This research often contains early findings, in order to obtain feedback or to identify potential collaborators. All this research takes significant time, effort and cost, but may be viewed by only a small number of conference participants before the work disappears. This represents a huge waste of funding and researcher time, leads to studies being needlessly repeated, and slows scientific progress.”

Rebecca Lawrence, Managing Director of F1000Research, said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with the ISCB on creating and publishing their innovative ISCB Community Journal. F1000 and the ISCB have always shared closely aligned goals in wanting to find ways to enable the rapid dissemination of all types of research outputs. It is particularly fitting that our first society channel is with the ISCB.”

For more information on the ISCB Community Journal, read the F1000Research blog http://blog.f1000research.com/2015/04/30/f1000research-to-publish-the-iscb-community-journal

Call for Editors – ISCB Community Journal

ISCB is seeking scholars interested in serving as volunteer editors for the ISCB Community Journal.  If you are interested, please submit your nomination using our online system.  If you have a colleague who may enjoy serving as a volunteer editor for ISCB, please feel free to forward this information.

The primary responsibility of an editor will be to oversee the content on the ISCB Community Journal homepage. Editors will work with the conferences and have the final decision on the selection of  conference editors and editorial board proposed by the conferences. Editors will supervise the conference referee process and ensure the quality standards of referee reports, editorial decision and published papers. Editors will help to promote the journal and to increase the number of conferences publishing in the journal.   The ISCB Community Journal editors will work closely with F1000Research to keep improving the journal and make sure it is meeting the aims and objectives of the ISCB.

Editors are appointed by the ISCB Board of Directors and will serve a three-year term* with the option to be renewed for one additional term.