All Microbiology Society journals to move to continuous publication model

From January 2017, all Microbiology Society journals will begin publishing articles using a model known as continuous publication.

Currently, the Society’s four print and online journals (Microbiology, Journal of General Virology, Journal of Medical Microbiology and International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology) are published in monthly print and online issues. This means that there can be a delay to final publication while the approved article waits for the issue to be ready.

With continuous publication (CP), as soon as an author has approved their copy-edited and typeset proof, the Microbiology Society’s Production Team will do a final check and then publish the article online. Each month, these will be grouped together into an issue online, which will also be printed and dispatched to subscribers.

The change means that readers will see the best version of the article as soon as possible. Authors can expect to see the final corrected proof of their article published online within approximately two weeks from acceptance. The uncorrected, author accepted article will no longer be published in favour of this higher-quality version. This change was supported by Microbiology Society authors; when surveyed, 61% said that they would prefer the first version of their article to be published in this format, while 17% preferred the raw, uncorrected version.

Of the move to continuous publication, Journal of Medical Microbiology’s Editor-in-Chief, Professor Pete Borriello, stated, “This is an exciting change for authors and readers alike. By taking away the wait for issues, articles will be published online in a better format much more quickly.”

The Microbiology Society has launched two online-only, gold open access journals in the last two years, both of which have benefitted from using the CP model. The change to the print and online titles will harmonise the systems and workflows across the Society’s portfolio and ensure that we can make the most of our online publishing platform.

Visit www.microbiologyresearch.org to find out more about the Microbiology Society’s journals.

RACHEL WALKER

Head of Publishing Operations