2023/11/01 by Patrick D. Schloss, Christina A. Cuomo · 1 voice
Decision Sciences · Neuroscience · #Functional Brain Connectivity Studies #Meta-analysis and systematic reviews #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · doi:10.1128/spectrum.03496-23
openalex publication_date 2023/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
At the same time, the ASM Journals Committee appreciated that many authors, including ASM members, were leaving ASM's journals after receiving a rejection and then publishing their work elsewhere.Our assessment was that, in many cases, the papers were sound but perceived by reviewers and editors as being of limited impact or novelty.Regardless, considering so many papers were leaving the ASM's Journals Program, it was clear that we were not adequately serving the needs of the ASM community.Rather than retire Microbiology Spectrum and create another journal title, we saw an opportunity to rebrand Microbiol ogy Spectrum as a "sound science" journal that emphasized the scientific rigor rather than the potential impact or significance of the manuscript.The new Microbiology Spectrum was launched in June 2021 under Christina Cuomo, PhD, as its new Editor in Chief (1).Despite being only a little over 2 years old, by prioritizing an open process for joining the editorial board, Dr. Cuomo and the journal team have developed an amazing, interna tional, and very diverse community of over 450 editors.The journal has also developed a mentoring program that allows early career scientists to be mentored into Editorial roles.We believe that the journal will continue to thrive because of its commitment not only to sound science but also to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the editorial and peer review process.As we worked to rebrand the journal as an open access research title, there was a special interest in openness of data, publishing negative and confirmatory results, and publishing work that was perceived to be sound.This included studies too specific to a subfield or geographic region to be as impactful as the work published in the other ASM journals.There has also been an emphasis on recruiting editors and associate editors to reflect the broad geographic, gender, racial, and scientific diversity of ASM.Papers published in Microbiology Spectrum are accepted by transferring manuscripts rejected from other ASM journals with their peer review history or by de novo submissions.From the outset, Microbiology Spectrum decided that it would not accept review articles because we wanted to focus on the mission of publishing sound science.Overall, we expected that without the requirement for novelty or potential impact of articles, most manuscripts published at Microbiology Spectrum may not garner a large number of citations.However, published papers would serve as a knowledge seed bank to provide a starting point for future disease outbreaks from previously poorly studied pathogens (e.g., Zika, SARS) and as a resource to help reduce the "file drawer effect" common in scientific publishing (2).We were amazed by the initial excitement to publish in the rebranded Microbiology Spectrum.We