Aims and Scope

microPublication Biology is an open-access journal that publishes research in the life sciences. The journal publishes brief scholarly reports on research findings based on data presented in a single multi-panel figure. Article content includes novel findings, new methods, and reagents. Unlike many other journals, negative results, replications that are successful (including being scooped), and replications that are unsuccessful, are also published. Studies can be observational or interventional/mechanistic. Articles are peer-reviewed for the data supporting the conclusions, scientific rigor, clarity of writing, and vetted for adherence to community standards in nomenclature and data reporting. All articles are findable through general indexers such as PubMed, PubMed Central, and Google Scholar.

microPublication Biology is also a home for publishing well-designed research conducted by undergraduates, where the single-figure short-article format facilitates educational uses. The journal provides a platform for mentor-guided undergraduate and graduate students to learn, as first-time authors, how to transform their research findings into a scholarly written article. microPublication Biology articles have been used as teaching cases in undergraduate classes for article writing, reviewing, and critical thinking. Additionally, the journal provides a mechanism for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and new faculty to hone their emerging skills in writing research articles and, correspondingly, to expand their publication record.

microPublication Biology is advancing scholarly communication by short-circuiting the publication-to-database data incorporation process, placing new findings directly into information discovery space upon publication. The journal collaborates with community-directed databases (e.g., the Alliance of Genome Resources, WormBase, FlyBase, PomBase, ZFIN, etc.); curators define copyediting guidelines that meet community nomenclature standards and reporting, reducing nomenclature errors and alerting the databases to newly identified bioentities. Thus, microPublication Biology, in part, turns the scientific publishing process into a curatorial one.

Criteria for Publication

microPublication journals only accept high-quality data and work. Reported results are original work that has not been published elsewhere. Each submission includes a complete description of the result with accompanying reagents, resources, tools, and methodologies that were used in the experiment and any analysis. Appropriate controls and replicates are expected for all results. We publish only those articles that have been through our peer-review system. See author guidelines for specific information about acceptable data. See our guidelines on peer-review for more information.

Plagiarism Detection

As part of microPublication Biology's commitment to protecting the integrity of the scholarly record, we employ iThenticate to detect plagiarism. iThenticate Similarity Reports provide an overall similarity index for each submission and inform editors on text copied from other sources without attribution. Plagiarized content will not be considered for publication. If plagiarism is identified, we will follow COPE guidelines.

Protection of Human and Animal Subjects

Authors must follow guidelines recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals at http://www.icmje.org: “When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.”

Informed Consent/Privacy and Confidentiality

Authors must follow guidelines recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals at http://www.icmje.org: “Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication. Patient consent should be written and archived with the journal, the authors, or both, as dictated by local regulations or laws." “Nonessential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained…If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance, and editors should so note, that such alterations do not distort scientific meaning.”

See our Privacy Notice and the General Data Protection Regulation Notice.

Prior Publication Policy

microPublication does not accept submissions of work that have been published in peer-reviewed journals or repositories. We do not consider publication as an academic thesis, electronic preprint, or abstract as a prior publication.

Readership

microPublication is an open-access journal available to anyone with online access. microPublication Biology in particular, publishes research relevant to all members of the science community interested in the biological sciences.

Publication Support

microPublication is currently supported by funding from the National Library of Medicine. As part of our long-term sustainability plan, starting April 2nd, 2022 we will charge $250 per article, upon publication acceptance, to cover costs but not new initiatives. No article will be refused because of an author's inability to pay page charges.

Why microPublish?

microPublication Biology accelerates scientific discovery by making technically sound research results freely open to the public through peer-reviewed publications and integration with other biomedical information via authoritative databases. Our articles provide researchers with credit for their findings through microPublication citations discoverable on PubMed.

What Should You microPublish?

• Exciting new research findings or reagents you want to rapidly place in the public domain; submitted microPublications can often be reviewed and published in microPublication Biology within a week.
• Experimental findings that did not fit into the narrative of an existing publication, and instead have remained in your lab notebook/file drawer/computer, ultimately unknown to the scientific community.
• New experimental findings that you do not anticipate fitting into future publications. Note: if your plans change, these findings can be included as a citable peer-reviewed publication that supports your work.
• An experimental finding that is viewed as a “negative result”, but is important for the field. For example, a null mutation in an organism that does not result in an obvious mutant phenotype (a wild-type null phenotype). Publication of these “negative results” provides potentially hypothesis-generating genetic information as well as can save other researchers from spending time and money repeating the same analysis.
• Experimental findings that provide valuable supporting information for a field – successful replication of recently published work, or just as important, cautionary information – unsuccessful replication of published work.
• Experimental findings included in an existing publication as an “unpublished observation” or ‘data not shown’ and thus not visible to the scientific community and not officially published.
• Experimental findings derived from small projects, for example undergraduate summer research projects, graduate rotation projects, that stand alone and are not necessarily part of a larger effort.
• You can include microPublication Biology articles in yourCurriculum Vitae. Note: To avoid confusion with other publications, we recommend that your microPublication articles are included in a separate section with the heading “microPublications”

Who Can microPublish?

microPublication submissions are open to all levels of researchers. Whether you are a Principal Investigator (PI), postdoctoral researcher, a current or recent graduate student, undergraduate, or work in industry, micropublishing provides a route for you to receive credit for your findings and to get those data that do not fit into full-length articles into the public domain. Please note that manuscripts need to be approved for submission by the funding-supported PI or group head. PI approval can be entered through the online data submission form on the microPublication Biology site.