Publishing in an ASPET Journal – What’s in It for You?

Mary Vore

doi:10.1124/dmd.117.081034

ASPET has published The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics since 1909. Pharmacological Reviews began in 1949, followed by Molecular Pharmacology in 1965 and Drug Metabolism and Disposition in 1973. Pharmacology Research & Perspectives, jointly published with the British Pharmacological Society and Wiley, published its first issue in 2013. The Society’s publications program provides the majority of income for ASPET and funds scholarly and professional initiatives and activities of importance to its members and the discipline. That is laudable—it’s what people expect a nonprofit scientific society to do. But what do ASPET’s journals offer to its authors?

On an ongoing basis, ASPET’s Board of Publications Trustees works to improve the Society’s journals for the benefit of all—including authors. Perhaps the results of these efforts have not been communicated as well as they could have been, and I want to address that here.

ASPET’s journals were among the first to make the manuscript version of all primary research articles freely available immediately upon acceptance. We’ve done that since 2005, and it provides access to research articles at no cost to authors or funders. The copyedited and fully formatted version of all articles becomes freely accessible after 12 months. ASPET provides an open access option for those who want it or where funding agencies require it.

All ASPET editors are highly qualified researchers actively engaged in the discipline, as are the associate editors and members of the editorial boards. Peer review is done by active and accomplished scientists for fellow scientists. ASPET’s peer review process is done in a timely, thorough, and professional manner. ASPET’s journals strongly support the goals of reproducibility and rigor in scientific publication, and also provide statistics review of manuscripts to ensure proper experimental design and analysis. Trainees in particular should publish their work in journals that adhere to such high standards.

ASPET has invested in quite a few technologies and services to benefit authors and readers:

Since 2009, the Society has deposited with PubMed Central the copyedited and formatted version of articles citing support from the NIH, the Wellcome Trust, and the Research Councils UK, saving authors this work. Those deposits have been made continuously since 2017 to get them into PubMed Central faster and generate PMCIDs for authors sooner.
All of ASPET’s journals have used continuous publication since 2013. Articles are assigned to an issue, but the formatted version appears online as soon as ready.
The journals have supported the use of ORCiDs since 2013, facilitating unambiguous identification of authors.
Since 2014, ASPET’s journals have been freely available in developing countries through the World Health Organization’s Hinari and Research4Life programs, increasing exposure of content.
The use of Similarity Check (formerly called CrossCheck) to detect plagiarism to keep authors out of trouble and enhance the reputation of ASPET’s journals has been in place since early 2015.
ASPET journals support the use of visual abstracts, a feature added in early 2015.
The use of image forensics, also begun in 2015, prevents well-intentioned image manipulation that could give the appearance of inappropriate behavior (while also catching manipulation that is intentionally deceptive).
ASPET journal content has long been indexed in traditional databases such as PubMed/Medline, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Science Citation Index, Scopus, and others. Additional visibility and discoverability are provided to authors by indexing in ReadCube, BenchSci, and Meta.
We work with Publons to confirm the hard work of reviewers and editorial board members.
Single-PDF manuscript submission was implemented in 2016; source files are not required until a manuscript is accepted for publication.
ASPET supports the use of preprint servers and has enabled the easy transfer of manuscripts from bioRχiv to DMD, JPET, and Molecular Pharmacology for submission.
TrendMD brings articles in ASPET’s journals to the attention of readers, in ASPET’s journals and others, based on what they read.
Altmetric badges allow authors to measure the attention their articles receive from social and traditional media and other sources.
Article data feeds to Kudos make it easy for authors to explain and promote their research through social media.

Although long, this list is not exhaustive. ASPET continuously looks for ways to improve the communication of research presented in its journals.

The BPT recently surveyed researchers at various career stages and found an appreciation for peer review done by scientists who know the science being presented. Whether you call yourself a pharmacologist or not, your pharmacologically based research will be reviewed by true peers when submitted to an ASPET journal. We welcome your manuscripts and assure you that they will be reviewed professionally and in a timely manner, and that published manuscripts will be widely disseminated.

Footnotes

This editorial is being simultaneously published in Drug Metabolism and Disposition, The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and Molecular Pharmacology.