Metabolomics Society Forum

• Open access at sane prices
• Double blind review
• free color figures. no need to spend money on print
• Require description of the identification of each compound (beyond MSI)
• Require reprodudible data analysis (i.e. no black box in house methods)
• Require raw data available
• Description of data analysis methods uninteresting without available implementation

The question of a new journal does not exist in a vacuum and this question of how the Metabolomics journal was handled is absolutely relevant.

• CC-BY license for the article, CCZero for all supplemenatary information and data in the article
• identifiers for all discussed metabolites ((Standard) InChI key, preferably; consider additional use of SMILES, molfiles, and/or (preferably) CML)
• deposition of the full papers in EuropePMC
• top notch data and software citation standards (see DataCite, etc, etc)
• no use or advocacy of the journal using the impact factor (use citation distributions)
• experimental and computational (broadest sense) work can all be reproduced (if closed software is used, all intermediate data is provided)
• tight integration and collaboration with metabolomics related databases
• support non-traditional paper types (like project proposals, project deliverables, etc) (see the work of RIO Journal)
• data in the paper is machine readable (e.g. tables downloadable as CSV)
• all figures and tables are uploaded to FigShare (ore similar; see PLOS journals)
• full journal support of LaTeX
• required use of ORCIDs during submission (and allow authors to *only* provide ORCIDs during the submission process)
• strongly favor vector graphics for images (and don't complain about bitmap screenshot resolution)
• use microformats and/or RDFa, etc in HTML version of papers
• support easy bookmarking of papers in CiteULike

"After ten years of close affiliation between the Metabolomics Society and Springer’s journal Metabolomics, the relationship comes to an end on 31st December 2015. The Society was instrumental in making Metabolomics a leading journal in the field and many members have served on the Editorial Board along with Editor in Chief Prof Roy Goodacre. Roy is to be commended for his central role in establishing and growing the journal. He will continue to serve as Editor in Chief as Springer continues to publish Metabolomics.  Springer’s Metabolomics will therefore no longer be the “Official Journal of the Metabolomics Society”. Many members access Metabolomics through their institutional subscription, and for them nothing will change. Those Members using their Society membership to access Metabolomics are advised that they will need to find an alternative mechanism to do so after 31st December 2015.

The Society will be pursuing other avenues for Society-related scholarly publications that will serve the interests of the whole Metabolomics Society. The Publications Committee looks forward to any suggestions or comments at publications[at]metabolomicssociety.org.

Ute Roessner, President
Dan Bearden, Treasurer
Tim Ebbels, Secretary

On behalf of the Board of Directors "

Quote from: billwikoff on July 12, 2016, 05:36:01 PM

The question of a new journal does not exist in a vacuum and this question of how the Metabolomics journal was handled is absolutely relevant.

This forum topic raises a lot of questions with me too. The reasons why the current journal is no longer suitable, sound like the key things the new journal must improve.

Dear @billwikoff and @egonw, I do agree with both for you on transparency and engagement with community, hence one the reasons forum was updated to engage better with you. While I seek a more official and transparent reply to your questions, I'm sharing an email send around to members on 25 November 2015.
Reza

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The email send to the community

Quote

"After ten years of close affiliation between the Metabolomics Society and Springer’s journal Metabolomics, the relationship comes to an end on 31st December 2015. The Society was instrumental in making Metabolomics a leading journal in the field and many members have served on the Editorial Board along with Editor in Chief Prof Roy Goodacre. Roy is to be commended for his central role in establishing and growing the journal. He will continue to serve as Editor in Chief as Springer continues to publish Metabolomics.  Springer’s Metabolomics will therefore no longer be the “Official Journal of the Metabolomics Society”. Many members access Metabolomics through their institutional subscription, and for them nothing will change. Those Members using their Society membership to access Metabolomics are advised that they will need to find an alternative mechanism to do so after 31st December 2015.

The Society will be pursuing other avenues for Society-related scholarly publications that will serve the interests of the whole Metabolomics Society. The Publications Committee looks forward to any suggestions or comments at publications[at]metabolomicssociety.org.

Ute Roessner, President
Dan Bearden, Treasurer
Tim Ebbels, Secretary

On behalf of the Board of Directors "

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Just a quick comment on Jan's wishlist - why double blind review? Why not consider the other way and have open review - to get back to #transparency :-) As a reviewer I appreciate knowing who the work comes from, it is often obvious (but not always and guesswork is not a great idea). If I want to discuss the work with authors beyond the review, I would like the opportunity to do so; I have also considered identifying myself in some reviews, my husband always does and receives very positive feedback. I feel this way is more constructive than double blind, but that's my personal opinion.