There is no denying it: the scope of Patterns is vast. Since our launch in April 2020, we have published papers on topics from algorithmic bias to polymer informatics, and from natural language processing to quantum-processor-inspired machine learning. This “big picture” perspective is a delight—we can watch the stars collide as authors share spectacular innovations across domain boundaries—but it can be a challenge, to continue the metaphor, to grasp the nuances of orbital decay. That is why we are opening our discussions to you, our readers. We would like to invite researchers, no matter your career stage or background, to reach out to us and propose topics for our special collections. If you think it is critical to shine a spotlight on developments in your field, whether it’s augmented military technology or computer vision in zoology, we would like to hear from you.
We have two types of collections in Patterns: themed and special. Themed collections are handled by our internal editors and allow our readers to more easily navigate our wide range of scientific domains. Themed collections consist of articles that fall in a particular category of science (e.g., materials science, environmental science, etc.) These are collected into a list that is linked from our home page, enabling our readers to find and concentrate on their area of interest.
Special collections are collections of articles on an emerging or critical topic, chosen by a guest editor, that highlight facets of data science that are important in a particular scientific community, while being of interest to the wider community. Our special collections are an opportunity to propose an area of interest, refine the call for papers, and act as a guest editor to commission articles on the topic. The role of guest editor is centered around reaching out to leading lights and rising stars in the field and inviting them to participate in the call. There are no paper-handling duties, as the guest editor will be supported by our team of specialist editors. We will help you with managing the timeline, defining the parameters of your collection, and curating an appropriate invitation list. We welcome teams of up to three guest editors to apply and particularly encourage you to consider the diversity of your panel across career stage, domain, gender, location, race, and socioeconomic background.
In developing a proposal, we ask you to consider timeliness, broad appeal, and interdisciplinarity. It can be useful to consider a central question in framing a special collection about, for example, how researchers are reacting to a new development, which technologies are revolutionizing a field, or what the future of a field might be in the wider social context. Our special collections are similar to the special issues that you may have seen in other journals, in that they bring together articles on a central theme; the key difference is that we accept rolling submissions, so the individual articles may be associated with different journal issues. We approach our collections in this way to ensure that each article is immediately open and available to the reader and each issue of Patterns continues to represent our broad perspective, while collections offer the opportunity to dive deeply into a particular topic. As we are a digital-only journal, papers in our special collections are captured together on our website and are marketed as such across our channels. We ask the guest editor(s) to contribute an editorial article, in the format of our opinion article type, on the central theme to introduce our audience to the topic and set the context for the collection.
The process of running a special collection generally requires a light touch; our editors will work with you in the initial stages to develop the call for papers. We expect to run two calls: the first will go out to your curated list of invited participants, and the second will be a public call inviting responses from researchers around the world. The latter is optional and will be planned in discussion with our editors based on the value an open call can bring to the collection. The timeline can be flexible to accommodate your aspirations for the collection and the number of papers you hope to include, though we would usually publish around 8–15 papers, excluding the guest editor’s opinion piece, collected over approximately 6 months. We offer a range of article types to suit researchers from all backgrounds. Beyond the traditional research and review options we also offer descriptors, which facilitate the introduction of novel datasets, software code, algorithms, or other data science outputs; tutorials, which are designed to provide an overview and guidance on the usability of software or workflows; and perspectives, which present a forward-thinking view on an emerging topic. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the information for authors and should be submitted online via Editorial Manager.
We aim to be in a dynamic relationship with our readers and authors, providing an open and fair platform for anyone who deals with data. Patterns brings together everyone who is working with data, whatever your domain or background. We would like to hear from you, to learn from you and to help communicate your research across domain boundaries, increasing your impact. Let us know what topics are controversial and engaging in your domain, and we can help you to engage with the wider data science community, getting them involved in the discussion. Please come and talk to us if you would like to shine a spotlight on an emerging topic in your field, resurface topics that you would like to receive more attention, or connect with cross-domain researchers on interdisciplinary themes.
Diversity and inclusion important to both Cell Press and Patterns. Cell Press open access and hybrid research journals (https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/corporate/elsevier-expands-open-access-options-for-cell-press-journals-from-january-2021) support open access publication for groups of authors from Research4Life (R4L) countries (https://www.research4life.org/access/eligibility/). For papers where all of the authors are from a group A and/or group B R4L country, we will grant a waiver or discount of the standard publishing fee, as appropriate. For fully open access journals, the R4L eligibility check will be automatic. If authors from other countries find the publishing fee associated with an open access journal challenging to cover and can show that this is because of a lack of research funding, we will consider individual reduction and waiver requests on a case-by-case basis.
At Patterns we are seeking to represent the full range of voices in the global data science community, and we hope to see that reflected in our special collections. Please do reach out to us at patterns@cell.com to propose a topic or just discuss your ideas further.