The American Society for Microbiology have launched a full online only, open access journal, known as mBio.
In an attempt to “break away from the current publication model”, mBio editors will “either accept or reject manuscripts and will request only minor revisions; editors generally will not require authors to make extensive modifications or perform additional experiments. mBio’s streamlined decisions do not mean less rigorous peer review, however. mBio editors, invited editors, and external referees are all active working scientists who are in the best position to judge the quality and importance of the work.“
Another innovative development is the requirement for authors to explain, in plain English ,why the work is important. mBio editors hope that this development “will allow the importance of the work to be appreciated by nonspecialist scientists and critical nonscientific audiences, such as lay media, policy makers, and the general public.” An example of this feature can be seen here.
All articles published in mBio are licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
The publication fee (article process charge) is $2000 for ASM members and $3000 for non-members.
All articles will be made freely available from UK PubMed Central and PubMed Central.
