【交流】《自然》推出开放获取期刊《科学报告》-NPG系统的PLOS ONE

《自然》推出开放获取期刊《科学报告》

在线出版；关注初级研究；接受所有自然科学领域投稿





据《自然》网站消息，《自然》近日新推出了一本开放获取期刊——《科学报告》（Scientific Reports），接受来自包括生物学、化学、物理和地球科学在内的所有自然科学领域的投稿。

据悉，《科学报告》将采取在线发表的形式，实行开放获取（Open Access），并关注初级研究。同时，该期刊组建了一个外部编委会，使用流水线类型的同行评审系统，对所有来稿进行快速、公平的评审，以保证其技术可行性。

目前，《科学报告》已开始接受投稿，并将于今年夏天出版第一期。

PS：估计将来和PLOS ONE有的一拚，应该是个潜力股

杂志链接：
http://www.nature.com/srep/marketing/index.html

Guide to authors
Aims and scope of the journal
Transfer service
Costs
Editorial board
Contact information
Format of articles
Online submission
Submission policies
How to submit
Initial submission
Peer review
Decision after review
Final submission and acceptance
Appeals
Editorial and publishing policies

Aims and scope of the journal
Scientific Reports is an online, open access, primary research publication covering all areas of the natural sciences — biology, chemistry, physics and earth sciences. Papers published by Scientific Reports will be technically sound, and of interest to specialists within their field.

The scope of the journal reflects Nature Publishing Group's desire to ensure there is a home for all scientifically sound research in the natural sciences. To ensure each field is adequately represented editorially, Scientific Reports is recruiting a multidisciplinary Editorial Board to manage the peer-review process.

Scientific Reports is committed to providing an efficient service for both authors and readers. A streamlined peer-review system managed by the Editorial Board — together with the support of an Editorial Advisory Panel and an in-house publishing team — allows for rapid and fair publication decisions. Prompt dissemination of accepted papers to Nature Publishing Group's wide readership and beyond is achieved through a programme of continuous online publication. Published manuscripts will be enhanced by the tools and technology found on nature.com.

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Transfer service
Scientific Reports is editorially independent, and its Editorial Board Members will make their own decisions independently from other Nature Publishing Group journals. It is for authors alone to decide where to submit their manuscripts. For papers that could satisfy the scope of more than one Nature Publishing Group journal, the choice of which journal to submit to first lies with the authors.

If a paper is rejected from a Nature Publishing Group journal, the authors can use an automated manuscript transfer service to submit the paper to Scientific Reports. Alternatively, authors may choose to submit afresh, in which case they should not use the automated transfer link, and the Editorial Board Member will evaluate the paper without reference to the previous process.

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Costs
Scientific Reports is an open access publication. To provide this service, all expenses, including peer review, production, and online hosting and archiving, are recovered via an article-processing charge (APC).

The 2011 APC* will be as follows, plus VAT where applicable:

$1,350 (The Americas)
?1,046 (Europe)
?142,500 (Japan)
?890 (UK and Rest of World)
* Authors accepted before January 2012 will receive a special launch discount of 20%. In January 2012, the APC will revert to the standard rate of $1,700 (?1,308/ ?178,000/ ?1,112), plus VAT where applicable.

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Editorial board
Editorial decisions on Scientific Reports are made by the Editorial Board – scientists from a broad spectrum of the scientific community – who will manage the peer-review process and decide which manuscripts should be published.

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Contact information
For general editorial enquiries relating to the launch of Scientific Reports, including manuscript submission queries, and for enquiries relating to the Editorial Advisory Panel or the Editorial Board, please contact scientificreports@nature.com.

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Format of articles
Scientific Reports will publish original research in one format, Articles, which may range in length from short communications through to more in-depth studies. In most cases we do not impose strict limits on word and page lengths, however we encourage authors to write concisely and suggest authors adhere to the guidelines below.

Articles should be no more than 11 typeset pages in length. The main text (not including Abstract, Methods, References and figure legends) should be no more than 4,500 words. The maximum title length is 15 words. The Abstract — which should be no more than 150 words long and contain no references — should serve both as a general introduction to the topic and as a brief, non-technical summary of the main results and their implications.

The main text of an Article should begin with an Introduction (without heading) of referenced text that expands on the background of the work (some overlap with the Abstract is acceptable), followed by sections headed Results, Discussion and Methods. The Results and Methods sections may be divided by topical subheadings; the Discussion should be succinct and may not contain subheadings. The Methods section should be limited to 1,500 words. Figure legends are limited to 350 words. References should be limited to 60. Footnotes are not used.

Depending on the word count, Articles may have up to 8 display items (figures and/or tables). In addition, a limited number of uncaptioned molecular structure graphics and numbered mathematical equations may be included if necessary. To enable typesetting of papers, the number of display items should be commensurate with the word length — those with word counts less than 2,000 should have no more than 4 figures/tables. Please note that schemes are not used; these should be presented as figures.

Articles are peer-reviewed and include received/accepted dates. Authors must provide a competing financial interests statement within the manuscript file.

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Online submission
All submissions must be made via our online submission system. Using this system, authors can upload manuscript files (text, figures, videos) directly to our office and check on the status of their manuscripts during the review process. In addition, reviewers can access the manuscript (in a highly secure fashion that maintains referee anonymity) over a direct internet link, which speeds up the review process. Please consult our technical information on file formats and tips for using the system effectively.

When submitting your manuscript, please note that there are restrictions on the types of files that you are able to upload. This will enable a faster production process. Accepted article and figure types are as follows:

For Article Text – txt, doc, docx, tex
For Figures – eps, ai, pdf and tif, jpeg
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Submission policies
Submission to Scientific Reports is taken to imply that the submitted manuscript has not already been published elsewhere. If similar or related work has been published or submitted elsewhere, then the authors must provide a copy with the submitted article. Authors may not submit elsewhere while the manuscript is under consideration at Scientific Reports.

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated.

If the manuscript includes personal communications, please provide a written statement of permission from any person who is quoted. E-mail permission messages are acceptable.

Please visit the Guide to referees for further information on the peer review process.

Contributors are sent proofs, and will be able to correct major scientific errors or inaccuracies in the title or author list, but Scientific Reports reserves the right to limit the scope of changes.

Scientific Reports reserves the right to reject a paper even after it has been accepted if it becomes apparent that there are serious problems with the scientific content or with violations of our publishing policies.

For information relating to submission of a competing financial interests statement, pre-publication publicity, deposition of data as a condition of publication, availability of data and reagents after publication, human and animal subjects, digital image integrity, biosecurity, corrections and retractions, duplicate publication, confidentiality and plagiarism, please visit Editorial and publishing policies of Scientific Reports.

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How to submit
For detailed information about how to submit to Scientific Reports, please view the How to submit information.

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Initial submission
Manuscripts should be submitted via the online submission system. Copies of any papers containing similar or related work that are under consideration or in press at other journals should be included with the submission as additional supplementary information.

Each new submission is assigned to an Editorial Board Member, who will read the paper and evaluate the appropriateness for the journal. Manuscripts that are within scope and seem, on initial assessment, to be technically sound, will be peer reviewed.

If a paper had previously been submitted to another Nature Publishing Group journal, authors can use an automated manuscript transfer service to transfer their paper to Scientific Reports via a link in their decision letter. Alternatively, authors may choose to submit afresh, in which case they should not use the automated transfer link.

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Peer review
The corresponding author will be notified by e-mail when the Editorial Board Member decides whether or not the paper will be peer reviewed. At this point the Editorial Board Member has two options:

The Editorial Board Member may choose to contact one or more referee(s) not associated with Scientific Reports to conduct the peer review.
The Editorial Board Member may choose to conduct the peer review themselves, based on their own experience and expertise.
After consideration the Editorial Board Member will make one of the following decisions:

Accept, with or without editorial revisions
Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached
Reject, but indicate to the authors that further work might justify a resubmission
Reject outright
At the submission stage, authors may indicate a limited number of scientists who should not review the paper. Excluded scientists must be identified by name. Authors may also suggest potential reviewers; these suggestions are often helpful, although they are not always followed. By policy, referees are not identified to the authors, except at the request of the referee.

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Decision after review
In cases where the referee has requested well-defined changes to the manuscript that do not appear to require extensive further experiments, the Editorial Board Member may request a revised manuscript that addresses the referees' concerns. The decision letter will specify a deadline, and revisions that are returned within this period will retain their original submission date.

In cases where the referees' concerns are more wide-ranging, the Editorial Board Member will normally reject the manuscript. If the Editorial Board Member feels the work is of potential interest to the journal, however, they may express interest in seeing a future resubmission. The resubmitted manuscript may be sent back to the original referees or to new referees, at the Editorial Board Member’s discretion. In such cases, revised manuscripts will not retain their earlier submission date.

In either case, the revised manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter explaining how the manuscript has been changed.

An invited revision should be submitted via the revision link to the online submission system provided in the decision letter, not as a new manuscript.

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Final submission and acceptance
When all editorial issues are resolved, the paper is formally accepted. The received date is the date on which the editors received the original (or if previously rejected, the resubmitted) manuscript. The accepted date is when the Editorial Board Member sends the acceptance letter.

Contributors will be sent proofs; however, the production process does not allow minor changes. Only changes in the title, author list or major scientific errors will be permitted at this stage. All corrections will be approved by the publishing team. Scientific Reports reserves the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures.

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Appeals
Even in cases where Scientific Reports do not invite resubmission, some authors may ask the Editorial Board to reconsider a rejection decision. These are considered appeals, which, by policy, must take second place to the normal workload. In practice, this means that decisions on appeals often take several weeks. Only one appeal is permitted for each manuscript, and appeals can only take place after peer review. Final decisions on appeals will be made by the Editorial Board Member in conjunction with the relevant member of the Editorial Advisory Panel (for more information on the Editorial Advisory Panel please visit the FAQs).

Decisions are reversed on appeal only if the relevant Editorial Board Member, in conjunction with a member of the Editorial Advisory Panel, is convinced that the original decision was a serious mistake, not merely a borderline call that could have gone either way. Further consideration may be merited if a referee made substantial errors of fact or showed evidence of bias, but only if a reversal of that referee's opinion would have changed the original decision. Similarly, disputes on factual issues need not be resolved unless they were critical to the outcome. Thus, after careful consideration of the authors' points, most appeals will be rejected.

If an appeal merits further consideration, the Editorial Board Member and Editorial Advisory Panel Member may send the authors' response or the revised paper to the original referee, or may obtain advice from an additional referee.

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Editorial and publishing policies
For detailed information about the publication policies of Scientific Reports, please view Editorial and publishing policies of Scientific Reports. The following information can be found in this document:

Author responsibilities
Licence agreement and author copyright
Embargo policy and press releases
Use of experimental animals and human subjects
Competing financial interests
Availability of materials and data
Digital image integrity and standards
Biosecurity concerns
Refutations, complaints and corrections
Duplicate publication
Confidentiality and pre-publicity
Plagiarism and fabrication
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