Editorial policies of Cell Methods
Adama Sidibé1,*,# 
1-Editor-in-Chief of Cell Reviews, Rviews Press, 13010, Marseille, France
*Correspondence: asidibe@rviews.org
#Cell Methods journal office: cellmethods@rviews.org
Abstract
Cell Methods is a peer-reviewed open access journal aiming at publishing original articles and reviews that present new and high-quality standards methods allowing to address current issues in life science. Here are the journal aims and the editorial policies.
Keywords
editorial policies, aims and scope, Open Access, copyright, licensing, APC, digital preservation plans
Policies of Cell Reviews
Aim
views Press introduced Cell Methods journal to serve as the protocol, method, resource and tool publishing journal that follows our mission and vision. Cell Methods is a peer-reviewed open access journal that is focused on experimental methods of broad importance allowing outstanding discoveries in cell biology as well as all areas of life science. Cell Methods as all journals of Rviews Press promotes a responsible, transparent, rigorous and fair communication of relevant and reproductible experimental methods, resources and tools of high quality and ethical standards in step-by-step description. Cell Methods aims at publishing original primary, review, commentary and discussion articles of experimental processes. To allow easy replication, the detailed description of the experimental process is critical. This is indispensable for improving responsibility and the experimental reproduction by peers. Cell Methods follows the mission and vision of Rviews Press and is part of three sister journals (with Cell Reviews and Cell Biology) that embody the founding values of our scholarly publishing concept and model.
Cell Methods supports the vision of Rviews Press to open the public access to all scientific primary discoveries and inspire public implications in scientific knowledge acquisition.
Cell Methods journal propels an ecosystem of public spreading relevant and reproducible experimental methods as well as new tools and resources to foster public knowledge acquisition. Cell Methods shares the aims of Rviews Press to allow an equal commitment of institution-appointed researchers as well as independent scientists in a responsible scholarly publishing, identification and long-term preservation of primary scientific documents and data.
Scope
The scope of Cell Methods includes but is not limited to : original primary as well as review articles on the resources, methods and tools used in life science fields such as development, stem cell biology, metabolism, glycobiology, cell biochemistry, cell adhesions, migration, lipid and membrane biology, cell division, cell death, DNA repair, genetics, omics, translational biology, system biology, developmental biology, plant biology, gene expression, protein folding and structure, tissue stroma and matrices, cell communication, cell and microorganisms, epigenetics, organelle organization and regulation.
Cell Methods also promotes method articles of broad interest for life scientist and clinician community in the following subjects: molecular biology, microbiology, neuroscience, physiology, pathology, immunology, inflammation, mechanisms of diseases, vascular biology, cancers and oncology, chronic inflammatory diseases, biomarkers and treatment approaches, translational medicine, biotechnology, synthetic biology and new field conception in life science.
Open Access policies
As part of Rviews Press journals, Cell Methods promotes editorial policies that are compliant with the Plan S initiative for Open Access publishing.
The Plan S is an initiative of the cOAlition S1, which is an international consortium of national research funding organizations that received support from the European Commission. Plan S supports that all scientific publications resulting from research funded by all private and public grants must be published in Open Access journals or platforms since 2021.
Cell Methods requires the authors to understand and agree with the fact that once accepted and published in Open Access, their materials including but not limited to articles, resources, tools, associated images or data, will be freely accessible by anyone under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY)2. This means that anybody will be free to use, modify and redistribute in any form possible on condition that the primary authors are credited of the authorship of the original work and publication.
Consistent with the vision of Rviews Press, Cell Methods endorses the full free public access to primary scientific publications and the total disposal for reanalysis, reproducibility study and fostering the public learning of relevant and reproducible experimental methods and implications in knowledge acquisition.
Copyright and licensing policies
The authors of articles published in Cell Methods retain the copyright at no extra cost after the article publishing charge (APC) payment or its waiver in agreement with the journal office.
All articles in Cell Methods are distributed by Rviews Press under the license CC BY as explained above.
Article Processing Charges
Cell Methods applies article processing charges (APC) to cover the cost of the editorial process, persistent identification, indexing, global distribution through networks and libraries, and the long-term preservation of the articles published in the journal. Rviews Press uses the APC application as a sustainable financial model that support the free access of the public to costly produced scientific articles and sustain the accomplishment of our mission.
Thus, for none-invited articles, Cell Methods applies a transparent APC that is fixed by the journal office in advance and in agreement with Rviews Press, and visibly posted on the journal homepage.
The APC for suitable articles in Cell Methods can also be found in the “About Cell Methods” section of the journal website. This is also announced to the author during submission and throughout the different editorial steps. The payment of APC or its waiver is formally due before publication.
Authors from low-income countries and APC waivers
Cell Methods participates in the pricing accommodation policies of Rviews Press to encourage the active implication of scientists in financial needs or researchers from low-income countries in the global knowledge acquisition. Cell Methods encourage authors in demonstrated financial need and those from low-income countries to publish quality original primary or review articles.
Indeed, Rviews Press promotes responsible and fair scholarly publishing in life science community providing the same opportunity to all institutional and independent scientists around the world, without any distinction of origin, gender, financial situation, belonging institutions or independency. Only the reel science and knowledge matters.
Thus, Cell Methods provides APC waivers or discount to authors from low-income economy countries, lower middle-income economy countries, as well as authors with demonstrated needs3.
Editorial timeline
Cell Methods aims at accelerating the communication of primary discoveries in life science. Cell Methods supports a rapid editorial process and publishing articles without compromising the rigor needed for high-quality standards in evaluation and copyediting. We aim at offering a rapid and effective article processing for an enhanced publishing experience.
The editorial timeline for a peer-reviewed manuscript is as follows:
- Editorial initial decision: 6 days
- Peer-review evaluation: 2-3 weeks
- Editorial development and production: 1-2 weeks
This is an estimated timeline of the editorial process from submission to publication online. The actual timeline may be different and may reflect specific cases.
Cell Methods in line with Rviews Press mission supports the formation of early career life scientist in the reviewing and improvement of scholarly research primary articles for high quality, timely and rapid publishing experience.
Editorial timeline
Cell Reviews aims at allowing a rapid and effective article processing for an enhanced publishing experience. The editorial timeline for a peer-reviewed manuscript is as follows:
- Editorial initial decision: 6 days
- Peer-review evaluation: 2-3 weeks
- Editorial development and production: 1-2 weeks
These are estimated durations of the editorial process from submission to publication online. The actual timeline may be different and may reflect specific cases.
Long-term digital preservation policies
Cell Methods adheres to the archiving and preservation policies of Rviews Press. The journal uses two long-term preservations and self-archiving plans:
- The Public Knowledge Project preservation Network (PKP PN) through the LOCKSS network.4,5
- The internet Archives initiative6.
The published issues and the articles are automatically dark archived through PKP PN process. The published volumes are annually archived through the Internet Archives plan.
Reviewing policies
Cell Methods follows a reviewing policy that is compliant with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor (ICMJE) according to the Mission and vision of Rviews Press7-9.
By submitting, the authors attest that neither the manuscript nor the associated contents were previously published and that they are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. However, we encourage reproduction study reports but should be clearly exposed in the manuscript key sections such as title, abstract and in the background information section.
Cell Methods supported by Rviews Press uses several open-source and commercial tools for plagiarism detection during evaluation. Scientific misconduct including data fabrication, falsification, non-declaration of conflicts of interest and plagiarism are taken seriously and will be addressed following the guidelines of necessary authorities.
All manuscripts are evaluated or moderated by editors and/or external experts prior to publication, excepted the two types of articles mainly published by members of the editorial team namely: Editorial instructions and Editorial communications. This policy is explained for each type of article in the guidelines for authors10.
Briefly, the submitted manuscripts undergo the initial evaluation by the handling editor to check for the journal quality standards and fitting within Cell Methods aims and scope. The authors are notified for the editorial decision whether to pursue with further scientific, technical and ethical evaluations through peer-reviewing. The peer-reviewing steps in Cell Methods aims at evaluating the methods and the resulting results as well as reproducibility data. This may allow the building of a strong story by the authors with forward-looking perspectives in collaboration with the editors and the peer-reviewers. Correspondences are established between the authors, editors and reviewers until the manuscript complies with the highest quality standards for publication in Cell Methods. The manuscript is then accepted, copyedited and published in agreement with the authors, editors and reviewers.
Cell Methods and Rviews Press recognize the effort and expertise provided by the reviewers and academic editors during the manuscript evaluation as well as through the editorial development process. Thus, the names of the editors and reviewers are included in a dedicated special section within the published article allowing them to record and track their roles through several services including ORCID, ResearchGate, LinkedIn and others.
In addition, Rviews Press provides the editorial advisors and reviewers with incentives including APC waivers, credits and discounts on their own publications in our journals. In the cases of independent or professional reviewers, the gratification can be cash to encourage further participation of qualified enthusiastic independent scientists in the process.
Rviews Press through Cell Methods aims at fostering the commitment of young researchers and independent researchers. Thus, we solicitate the implication of earl career life scientists also in the evaluation and editorial processes.
Post-publication discussion
Cell Methods encourages discussion of a published articles for free through Correspondence and News&Views articles that are assessed and if accepted will be published under the CC BY license.
Declaration of interests
Adama Sidibé is the Editor-In-Chief of Cell Reviews, Cell Biology and Cell Methods, three sister journals of Rviews Press, Marseille, France.
Adama Sidibé is the founder of Rviews Press.
This document declares the policies governing the editorial process of the journal: Cell Methods (Marseille, France). This is consistent with the mission and vision of Rviews Press supporting its foundation.
Declaration concerning generative AI use
The author declares that no generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools were used to make this manuscript.
Citing the article
Please cite this article as: Sidibé, A. (2024) Editorial policies of Cell Methods. Cell Methods 1(1):1-5, July 2024, DOI: https://doi.org/10.70296/cm-1ndmg4b176, URL: https://rviews.org/index.php/cellmethods/article/view/11, ARK: https://d.x-ark.org/ark:/70296/cm-1ndmg4b176
References
1. cOAlition S Why Plan S | Plan S. https://www.coalition-s.org/why-plan-s/ .
2. Creative Commons Deed - Attribution 4.0 International - Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 .
3. World Bank World Bank Country and Lending Groups – World Bank Data Help Desk. https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups .
4. SFU-PKP PKP Preservation Network. Public Knowledge Project. https://pkp.sfu.ca/pkp-pn/ .
5. LOCKSS Program LOCKSS Program. https://www.lockss.org/ .
6. Internet Archive Bienvenue sur Open Library | Open Library. https://openlibrary.org/ .
7. COPE COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics. COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics. https://publicationethics.org/ .
8. WAME Resources for Medical Journal Editors || WAME. https://www.wame.org/resources/publication-ethics-policies-for-medical-journals?searchterm=misconduct .
9. ICMJE ICMJE | Home. https://www.icmje.org/ .
10. Sidibé, A. (2024). Guidelines for publishing in Cell Methods. Cell Methods 1, 6–26. https://doi.org/10.70296/cm-1gs81qbrtr.
Legal notice
Publisher : Rviews Press, 181 rue Pierre DOIZE, 13010, Marseille, France (https://www.rviews.org)
Journal : Cell Methods (Marseille, France)
Producer: Dr Adama Sidibé
Editor: Dr Adama Sidibé
Director of publication: Dr Adama Sidibé
Contact: asidibe@rviews.org
Copyright © 2024 The author, distributed by Rviews Press under the license CC BY
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury to persons or problem of products liability or otherwise, or from any use of any methods, products, instructions or as simple as ideas contained in this material.
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