MBoC: community, communication, and innovation

As we navigate a changing landscape in scientific publishing and work to realize the potential of digital communications, I am honored to serve as the next Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC). I follow in the footsteps of giants—founding editors Erkki Ruoslahti (of Cell Regulation) and David Botstein and Keith Yamamoto (of MBoC) and their successors Sandy Schmid and David Drubin. As a result of their capable and visionary leadership, MBoC is highly respected for its dedication to serving the scientific community and facilitating the communication of work that significantly advances knowledge in cell biology.

However, MBoC faces challenges, which it shares with other scientific journals. As journals proliferate, particularly due to for-profit publishers leveraging their brands to roll out ever-expanding offerings, authors confront a growing and sometimes bewildering array of publishing options. As public and private funders rightly insist on open access to work they paid for, journal subscription income diminishes. Further, as the pace of publishing accelerates, there is an increasing need to assist readers in tracking and engaging with the ballooning volume of new content. My goal is to take on these challenges and use them as a springboard to generate new opportunities for MBoC and the membership of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB).

Authors also face challenges. We want to find a journal that will evaluate our work fairly, constructively, and quickly. Moreover, once it is published, we want our work to be read and appreciated for its quality and impact. Given these challenges, why should we choose to publish our work in MBoC? I highlight here four reasons why MBoC should be your first choice for publishing your newest work.

OFFERING EXCEPTIONAL PROFESSIONALISM AND SERVICE, FROM SCIENTISTS, FOR SCIENTISTS

MBoC has succeeded in, and never wavered from, its mission of serving its authors and readers.—David Drubin, MBoC Editor-in-Chief (Drubin, 2010)

MBoC has built a reputation for exceptional service in two key areas: speed and professionalism. With regard to speed, here are MBoC’s numbers: 3 days from submission to a decision to peer review; 27 days to an initial decision following peer review; and 14 days from acceptance to publication. I intend to improve on these already good numbers, because I know speed is a key consideration for many authors.

With regard to professionalism, the MBoC editorial board, which consists exclusively of practicing scientists, has established an unparalleled reputation. This includes selecting quality peer reviewers and providing constructive feedback, all while maintaining a commitment to publishing rigorously conceived, executed, and interpreted studies.

MBoC’s editorial board establishes the culture and maintains the quality of the journal, and it is imperative that the board represent the diversity of topics and people in the field of cell biology. To ensure that the board reflects the highest standards of quality and diversity, I intend to rotate board members at more regular intervals, and you will notice new names starting with this issue. I am proud to say that we will make a decisive move toward gender parity on the board with the appointment of these new editors. I also want to heartily thank the retiring members of the board for their hard work and dedication to the journal.

HELPING AUTHORS COMMUNICATE, AND READERS APPRECIATE, THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLISHED WORK—INTRODUCING SCIENCE SKETCH VIDEO ABSTRACTS

We believe that the reporting of science is an integral part of research itself and that scientific journals should be instruments in which scientists are at the controls.—“The Philosophy of MBoC”

Journals should assist authors with communicating the impact of our work to a broad audience, both within and beyond our immediate field. MBoC will leverage the advantages of digital publishing to help authors rise to this challenge. I am excited to start a new partnership with Science Sketches, an organization that “encourages all scientists to tell their own stories to a broad audience” by making short, accessible, and easily produced videos featuring narrated sketches that articulate the key advances of their research.

The founders of Science Sketches, Lisa Dennison from UT Southwestern Medical Center and Liam Holt from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, have agreed to serve as Science Sketch editors on the MBoC editorial board. Authors of manuscripts that are undergoing final revisions will be invited to submit a Science Sketch video abstract and will be provided with instructions and feedback from the Science Sketch editors to assist them with producing a high-quality product. I hope authors take advantage of this resource to draw attention to their work and communicate the impact of their findings to as broad an audience as possible.

INNOVATING WITH PEER REVIEW, COMMUNICATING IMPACT, AND CURATING THE LITERATURE

The quote (paraphrased a bit from the ASCB Newsletter, December 3 2019, President’s column) is as follows:“I strongly support the goal that MBoC should participate in guiding the publishing revolution, and make a journal that is more accessible and more exciting to authors and readers, while maintaining our commitment to publishing rigorously conceived, executed, and interpreted science.”—Andrew Murray, 2019 ASCB President

One of my favorite MBoC editorials was David Drubin’s “Any Jackass Can Trash a Manuscript, but It Takes Good Scholarship to Create One” (Drubin, 2011), in which he articulated 10 rules to make the process of peer review more constructive and civil. One of my goals is to further experiment with peer-review innovations to maintain rigor while enabling more efficient and constructive communication among reviewers, editors, and authors. MBoC is also experimenting with ways of making peer review more flexible, giving authors more control over when and what they publish. Recently, MBoC became affiliated with Review Commons, a new platform that will peer review manuscripts before they are submitted to journals, encouraging reviewers to focus on the science and not on the “fit” to any particular journal. To promote transparency, MBoC has also begun posting editorial correspondence and peer reviews with each paper. Moving forward, we will consider experiments such as posting brief editorial peer-review summaries with badges to indicate the extent to which major reviewer concerns were addressed.

MBoC has also consistently promoted the philosophy that a paper’s impact should be assessed independent of where it is published. This was clearly articulated by Editor-in-Chief David Botstein when he wrote, “Our view is that judgments of reviewers and editors should be limited to questions of scientific merit and basic biological significance. Whether a paper is ‘exceptional’ or of ‘general interest’ should be left to posterity to decide” (Botstein, 1992). MBoC’s criteria for publication can thus be summed up in seven words: “Is it new and is it true?” MBoC’s editors have also taken a strong stance against the tyranny of the journal impact factor as initial signatories to the “Declaration on Research Assessment” (DORA). To advance the philosophy of DORA and improve the “ways in which the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated,” MBoC will innovate by piloting, for example, the inclusion of impact statements that clearly articulate the importance of each paper. MBoC will also experiment with curating the literature, with the goal of identifying preprints or papers of special interest for our readership. To initiate these and other innovations, I am excited to announce the recruitment of new senior editors to the board, including Karen Oegema from the University of California, San Diego, and Karsten Weis from the ETH in Zurich. We will also replace our board of reviewing editors with a board of early-career editors who will provide fresh ideas and help pilot initiatives, while also being mentored in editorial practices.

MAINTAINING A SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN MBoC AND THE ASCB

MBoC serves as an instrument of the ASCB membership and as such advocates the interests of contributors and readers. In other words, MBoC is our journal.—Sandy Schmid, MBoC Editor-in-Chief (Schmid, 2005)

It is important that we all appreciate the symbiotic relationship between MBoC and the ASCB. When you publish your work in MBoC, you benefit twice over. First, you benefit from the exceptional service provided by MBoC’s editors (your scientific peers) and editorial staff. Second, you reap the added benefit of supporting the ASCB’s scientific, career development, and advocacy programs, which directly enrich members and nonmembers alike. It is a classic win–win scenario. This contrasts with publishing in journals run by for-profit publishers, which does not provide the same benefits, as was forcefully argued in a recent MBoC Perspective by Peter Walter and Dyche Mullins (Walter and Mullins, 2019).

THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY

I’ll leave you with one closing thought: If we work together as a community to communicate and innovate, using MBoC as one of our key vehicles, we will successfully navigate the challenges ahead and create a vibrant platform for facilitating the publication of work that significantly advances knowledge in cell biology.