First anniversary of the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis

Correspondence: Dr. Roland J.W. Meesters. Present address: Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Department of Life Sciences and Chemistry, De Boelelaan 1109, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands and and Universidad de los Andes, Department of Chemistry, Bogotá D.C., Colombia. Phone: +31 (0)681585826.

Citation:
Meesters RJ. First anniversary of the Journal of Applied J Appl Bioanal 2(1), 1-5 (2016).

Open-access and Copyright: ©2016 Meesters RJ. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

Funding/Manuscript writing assistance: The author has no financial support or funding to report and also declares that no writing assistance was utilized in the production of this article.

Competing interest: The author has declared that no competing interest exists.

Article history: Received: 7 December 2015, Revised 10 December 2015, Accepted 12 December 2015

Keywords

Open access week 2015, bioanalysis, Journal of Applied Bioanalysis anniversary.

Welcome to the second volume of the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis. In this special first anniversary issue of the new volume, I would like to take the opportunity to look back on the past year. Exactly, one year ago the first issue of the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis was published. In the first year of existence, the journal became accepted in the bioanalysis community. The publication frequency was four issues per year and in this year the publication frequency will be increased. The journal employed from the start for manuscript submission and peer-reviewing process, the author and peer-reviewer friendly cloud-based Scholasticahq academic journal management platform and accepts now even via the electronic pre-print repository arXiv manuscripts [1]. Manuscripts are peer-reviewed by the double-blind review process, in this ensuring that manuscripts submitted for publication are evaluated solely based on scientific merits. The journal obtained indexing at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The DOAJ is an on-line directory that indexes and provides access to high-quality, open access peer reviewed journals [2]. Being indexed at DOAJ demonstrates that Journal of Applied Bioanalysis adheres to highest quality levels of publishing services to authors which include: peer review, licensing terms, a strong and clear open access statement and a professional and functional editorial board. The publisher’s copyrights- and author self-archiving policies were deposit with the SHERPA-RoMEO organization [3]. The advantage of the deposition is the simplification of- and unlimited author’s self-archiving possibilities when the author wants to distribute articles via social media, corporate- and academic websites.
This shows that Journal of Applied Bioanalysis is an advocate journal for open science and free distribution of scientific research in the bioanalysis area. The possibilities the author obtains in this way are in strong contrast to subscription based journals where the author has to transfer the copyright of the article to the publisher. After copyright transfer by the author, automatically presentation of the article on websites or unauthorized distribution of article by the author will lead to an infringement of the copyrights and might result in possible legal penalties.

Number of issues

In the first four issues of volume one, the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis published a variety of articles in areas such as therapeutic drug monitoring, sample preparation, natural product research, food analysis, proteomics and other applications of bioanalysis. Published were editorial, expert opinion, original and review articles. In the last issue of the journal the Application Note paper was introduced. The Application Note paper is an advertorial type article that allows product manufacturers to present interesting (new) products or latest innovative applications. Here is a complied short list of the ten most accessed and downloaded papers published in the four issues of the volume one of the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis (Table 1).

What was the geographic location of the authors and readers of the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis?

The Journal of Applied Bioanalysis has developed in short time a diverse reader audience around the globe. Scientists/visitors from 115 different countries around the world viewed and/or downloaded articles published in the first four issues at the journal’s homepage [4]. The majority of journal’s homepage visits came from visitors located in the Americas (49.10%), Europe (26.9%) and Asia (11.3%).

Open Access Week 2015 survey

The field of academic publishing is changing rapidly towards open access publishing as it can be evidenced by the annual increase of the number of papers published in open access journals in recent years [5]. During the Open Access Week 2015 (19-25 October) [6] a journal survey was conducted. The survey was held among authors and readers to learn about the general views on open access publishing and the journal in the bioanalysis community. Survey results showed that the professional status of the responders was made up by one-third of scientists from academia (tenured) and one-third of scientists from the industry (Fig. 1A) as well from other professions.
A subdivision within the responder group based on their job’s description showed that two-third of the responders were employed as scientist and/or chemist and one-third of them were employed in management functions, or was a graduate student or had other job description (Fig. 1B).
The survey included twenty questions divided into two categories; one category contained questions about the respondent’s general views on academic open access publishing and the second category contained questions about the respondent’s general impression of the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis based on journal key aspects such as article quality, article processing fee and other journal specific aspects. In Fig. 1 the results from four selected survey questions are presented.

A further survey questions was “From your point of view could Open Access publishing increase the visibility of your published research?”
Approximately, three out of four responders (73.3%) confirmed the advantage of open access publishing for achieving a higher visibility and better (free) accessibility of scientific articles. The vast majority of the responders of the survey understood and confirmed the importance of high article visibility and free accessibility of scientific articles in the science community although the remaining 26.7 % of the responders had a neutral view on this issue. Important to know was that none of the responders considered open access publishing as a negative factor for visibility and accessibility of scholarly articles, showing that all responders learned already about these advantages of open access publishing in general (Fig. 1C).

In the survey authors/readers were also asked to comment on following survey question “Could Open Access publishing to your point of view improve the quality of the research that is being done in the field of Bioanalysis?”
According to almost two-third of the responders publishing scholarly articles in open access journals could improve the quality of the research done in the field of bioanalysis.
The results obtained from these few questions demonstrated a growing awareness in the bioanalysis community of one of the important advantages of open access publishing (Fig. 1D). Scientists who have no or little experience with open access publishing should first become familiar with it and then adopt open access practices.Learning about open access publishing will make them aware of the publication culture change they need to undergo.
Later this year all results from the Open Access Week 2015 survey will be published in the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis.

Growth of the editorial board

During its first year of existence the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis grew in number of editorial board members. At time of launch of the journal (15 January, 2015) the journal’s editorial board consisted out of twenty editorial board members and by the moment issue four was published, the editorial board consisted out of 24 editorial board members. In the editorial board now a strong and highly professional diverse group of editorial board members, mainly located in Europe and the United States of America, and working in academia, industry and contract research organizations (CROs) are represented.

Journal of Applied Bioanalysis on social media

The Journal of Applied Bioanalysis understands the importance social media has for achieving a strong presence in the bioanalytical community and on the web. Social media is a great medium to reach out to readers, authors and the general public interested in bioanalytical chemistry and its applications. To show its presence on social media, a LinkedIn group [7], a Twitter account [8] as also a Google + [9] and Facebook page [10] were created. On these different social media sites the journal provides its followers/members with the latest journal updates, news or other interesting information. The journal also has created a free e-newsletter.
If you would like to stay up-to-date and you are at this moment not receiving the latest free e-newsletter you can easily sign-up at the journal’s website or follow the journal via its social media accounts.

Figures and Tables

[Click to enlarge]

I would like to invite you kindly to contact the editorial office if you have a proposal for a special issue based on a topic of high current interest that is broad enough to attract a reasonable audience, but at a topic that is also narrow enough to keep a strong focus. Last year with the launch of the Journal of Bioanalysis, I was very hopeful and curious that the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis would become a successful journal [21] as also that it would be adopted as a new qualitative and professional journal in the bioanalysis community. Now looking back, exactly one year later after the launch of the journal and publication of four issues later I became even more hopeful for this next year. I am convinced that the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis will become even more successful in its second year of existence. The journal will keep contributing in the growth of free accessible high quality bioanalytical articles as well continuing in playing its part in making the bioanalytical community (more) aware of the great possibilities of open access publishing, specific in this exciting and constantly changing area of analytical chemistry.
Last but not least, I like to thank the dedicated support of all editorial board members, authors, peer-reviewers and last but not least all readers and thank them with the knowlegde that without them the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis would not have been possible. The journal started successfully in its first year, especially when it has to compete with established journals in the field. From my metaphoric point of view, I see this competion like the fight between David and Goliath, and most of you know how this story ended. I do hope that you also will enjoy volume two of the journal.

Prof.dr. Roland J.W. Meesters
Editor-in-Chief

References

1. www.scholasticahq.com
2. www.doaj.org
3. www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
4. www.betasciencepress.com
5. http://science-metrix.com/files/science-metrix/publications/d_1.8_sm_ec_dg-rtd_proportion_oa_1996-2013_v11p.pdf
6. www.openaccessweek.org
7. www.linkedin.com
8. www.twitter.com/JABeditor
9. www.google.com/+Betasciencepressjab
10. www.facebook.com/JABjournal
11. Wassenaar S, Koch BCP. Direct biomarkers to determine alcohol consumption during pregnancy, which one to use? J Appl Bioanal 1(3), 76-79 (2015). [CrossRef]
12. Beck O. Can Pharmacometabolomics and LC-HRMS develop a new Concept for Therapeutic Drug Monitoring? J Appl Bioanal 1(2), 42-45 (2015). [CrossRef]
13. Koster RA, Touw DJ, Alffenaar J-WC. Dried blood spot analysis; facing new challenges. J Appl Bioanal 1(2), 38-41 (2015). [CrossRef]
14. Elian AA, Hackett J. Urine analysis of buprenorphine/norbuprenorphine/naloxone in Drugs and Driving Cases. J Appl Bioanal 1(3), 80-88 (2015). [CrossRef]
15. Moorthy GS, Stricker PA, Zuppa AF. A simple and selective liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for determination of ε-aminocaproic acid in human plasma. J Appl Bioanal 1(3), 99-107 (2015). [CrossRef]
16. Sturkenboom MGG, van de Lijke H, Jongedijk EM, Kok WT, Greijdanus B, Uges DRA, et al. Quantification of isoniazid, pyrazinamide and ethambutol in serum using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. J Appl Bioanal 1(3), 89-98 (2015). [CrossRef]
17. Pinilla-Gil E. Wearable electrochemical sensors: innovative tools for the emerging mobile health ecosystem. J Appl Bioanal 1(3), 68-71 (2015). [CrossRef]
18. Tosco A, Chobelet A, Bathany K, Schmitter J-M, Urdaci MC, Buré C. Characterization by Tandem Mass Spectrometry of Biologically Active Compounds Produced by Bacillus Strains. J Appl Bioanal 1(1), 19–25 (2015). [CrossRef]
19. Carrano L, Marinelli F. The relevance of chemical dereplication in microbial natural product screening. J Appl Bioanal 1(2), 55–67 (2015). [CrossRef]
20. Oosterink JE, Schierbeek H. Quadrupole versus linear iontrap for determination of tracers with LC/MS. J Appl Bioanal 1(4), 108–111 (2015). [CrossRef]
21. Meesters RJ. Welcome from the Journal of Applied Bioanalysis. J Appl Bioanal 1(1), 1-2 (2015). [CrossRef]