Unified Publishers

Independent publishing in Bioinformatics

Powered by the Unified Scholars Platform. Supports open access.
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Guide for Authors

Download Guide for Authors

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Download Template

Please use this template as a guide to arrange or format your paper. It is highly recommended but not compulsory. If no template is available, then use your own format.

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Plagiarism check

Please follow the links to do your plagiarism check before submitting your paper to the Unified Scholars Platform. And make sure your paper has <= 15% match, and the matching text is not one continuous block". We only accept either "Ithenticate" or "Plagscan" plagiarism checkers. No alternative plagiarism checking services would be acceptable to us, except the two mentioned here. Please keep some evidence of your paper's originality report. We may request it if issues are raised with your work.

You should only submit your paper to our platform after you have done the recommended plagiarism check with either Plagscan or ithenticate, and your paper has <= 15% match, and the matching text is NOT one continuous block.

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Check for writing errors.

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Abstracting & Indexing

Articles and/or metadata would be indexed by the following aggregators:

  1. Google Scholar
  2. Crossref
  3. CiteSeerX
  4. DBLP
  5. CORE
  6. EbSCO Host
  7. CNKI
  8. Dimensions
  9. BASE

Announcement

Submission

To submit a manuscript, you first have to register. After registration, your login details is emailed to you. Then you can login to submit your manuscript. This is the process for any submission- registration first. But if you have previously registered to the field you want to submit to, then you can use your past login details.

Please note: you select a field of specialization during registration. Hence, the login details is only valid for that field which it was generated for, and it would always take you to that field. If next time, you wish to submit to another field, you would need to register to get new login details for that field. Registration is easy and takes two minutes only. If you are not sure, check the login details you received, it contains the field it was generated for.

Every submission is automatically time/date stamped to protect the author, and saved in our repository; but only accepted papers are published. Please ensure you have done your plagiarism check before submitting to the platform. Kindly refer to the "guide for authors" document for detailed information.

High quality requirement

Kindly ensure that your paper is in the highest possible standard before you submit to the platform. Take your time and put in the effort to prepare your paper. This could guarantee a better outcome for you.

Also, we have a requirement that authors submit cutting-edge research to the platform. We want to publish papers that address significant research questions, that advance knowledge, that innovate and that solve critical problems. Kindly ensure that your research question is very significant and original, that your methods and techniques are thorough, and that the research is well presented, with sufficent facts, figures, data, references, if and where necessary. We frown at duplicated research/topics, that add no value to the field, or that are bereft of intellectual and scientific quality/rigour. We happily welcome the submission of high quality manuscripts to the platform.

Peer review process

Submitted manuscripts appear on a digitized peer review page, and professors are notified. Three professors (two reviewers, and one editor) would commit to evaluate [Review 1] your paper. They have 21 days to submit their feedbacks. Previously 25 days but was standardized to 21 days. You would be notified when [Review 1] is complete.

After Review 1, login to download the feedbacks. The download dumps 2 documents to your computer. The first document contains the feedbacks from the 3 reviewing professors, and the second document is the edited version of your paper. Use them to revise your manuscript and resubmit. Revision and resubmission should be done within few weeks, ideally 2 weeks. Your revised manuscript would be checked [Review 2] by the same editor and peer reviewers. If you have sufficiently improved your paper, it should be approved at this [Review 2] stage. 

If not, you would be notified for another revision. Revise and resubmit your manuscript for [Review 3]. This is the final review stage. There is no further revision after [Review 3]. Your manuscript is either accepted or rejected at [Review 3]. Hence, before resubmitting, it is important that you revise your manuscripts to a very good standard, as advised by the reviewers and the editor. You should also keep to time and resubmit within the allocated time. This helps in ensuring an efficient peer review process for you and for the professors who are evaluating your manuscript. Delays are usually flagged up and they do not reflect well on the author. Feel free to contact us for any issues whatsoever, or to offer suggestions to improve the platform/process. You can email us, or for urgent situations, you can Whatsapp us. We are available 24/7.

Geo-targeting 

During submission of manuscripts, authors can choose between "global peer review" and "regional peer review". Global peer review means that your manuscript would be evaluated by experts from anywhere in the world. And regional peer review means that your manuscript would be evaluated by experts from your continent/region. When choosing, you need to take certain factors into consideration, as advised in the guide for authors document. We believe that stratifying peer review into global and regional peer review allows less developed continents evaluate and publish research that is at their level of development. We happily introduce the world to a formal stratification of peer review. 

Payment

Independent peer review on the Unified Scholars Platform is a service. This means you will make payment, so that we can pay the professors who evaluate your manuscript and the publishers who publish it.

Before you submit your manuscript, please make sure that you have money to pay the fees. Payment would be made in two installments, not at once. This ensures that authors only pay for what they get. There is no payment during submission; but you would make one payment during resubmission [during Review 2], and another after your paper is accepted for publication. The article processing fee is $1250 ; paid in two installments.

  • During first resubmision, $750 is due for payment. 
  • When your paper is accepted, the balance of $500 is due for payment.  

You pay during the first resubmission [Review 2]; but for the second resubmission [Review 3], there is no payment. During resubmission, please be patient for the Paypal or Stripe systems to load up. Do NOT hastily navigate away from the page after resubmission. If you resubmit without the payment, your paper is held in pending and isn't available for further peer review. Hence, make sure the first installment of $750 is paid during first resubmission.

The second installment or balance of $500 is payable after your paper is accepted for publication. If your paper is rejected, you do not pay the second installment. This model ensures that you only pay for what you get. 

It also ensures that the peer reviewers get paid for the service they render, in all fairness. 

Note: if payment is not received, your paper would NOT be available for peer review. It would be submitted, but kept in pending, until payment is received. So, non-payment delays your manuscript as well as the profesors who have committed to evaluate it. In fact, it has serious knock-on effect and hinders efficient service. Hence, we frown strongly at it. And we reserve the right to bar authors who do not pay or who delay payment. The fee is affordable and is payable in two installments; there is no reason to disrupt the service with delays or non-payment. Note also, that the payment link is active for few hours only. If you have any issues with payment, kindly email admin@unifiedscholars.org , or send us a whatsapp message.

Kindly refer to the guide for authors document for datailed guidance. And we welcome you to the new way to publish. 

Guide for Editors/Peer Reviewers

Download Guide for Editors/Peer Reviewers

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Unified Scholars Platform
Bioinformatics


    Member Stats

  • Advisory board: 4
  • Professors: 8
  • Associate profs: 13
  • Assistant profs: 6
  • Editors: 8
  • Peer reviewers: 17
  • Geo-targeting: Yes

    Member Distribution


    Journal Metrics

The Unified Concept and its journals would not be associated with any journal metric.

It is our opinion that Journal metrics are marketing tools, and serve no purpose to authors. Journals don't write articles, authors do. So, authors should get the metrics, not journals.

The Unified Scholars Platform supports and uses Google's h-index, which is an Author metric, to temporarily assign roles to scholars.


Fees

Note: we pay our editors and peer reviewers for each manuscript they evaluate. To become an editor or a peer reviewer, please visit the onboarding page.

Article processing charge is $999 paid in two installments.

25% discount for the first 5 papers in this journal.

Equity/stock options for authors of the first 3 papers published by us.

Aims and Scope

Independent peer review is a new integrated service for scholars, which takes a manuscript from peer review to publication, in a transparent, fair, equitable and affordable way. It is powered by the Unified Scholars Platform- a computer controlled peer review platform which allows scholars to anonymously review manuscripts among themselves, as a service.

Independent peer review in Bioinformatics allows for the submission and the subsequent evaluation of manuscripts in the field of bioinformatics. Tens of professors and world-leading experts in bioinformatics and/or computational biology are available on the Platform to evaluate manuscripts.

The independent reviewing professors welcome original full length research in all aspects of bioinformatics. Critical review papers of high quality are also welcome.

The accepted manuscripts from this independent peer review process would be published in a new open access journal of bioinformatics, and indexed and promoted for maximum reach. We bear full responsibility for all that.

Manuscripts can be submitted anytime to the platform. There are no deadlines.

The independent reviewing professors welcome you and your manuscript to be a part of change and a part of history. 

Please check the 'announcement' tab of this webpage for very important information.

 

Editorial Board

Independent scholarly publishing is based on a model that is fundamentally different from the conventional journals. And this is a fact we are happy to announce. 

Independent publishing is based on scholars doing their peer reviews among themselves, anonymously, with the aid of a platform that is specially developed for this purpose. The publishers have no involvement or control of this process. It is scholars doing their own thing among themselves, for themselves, by themselves. The accepted papers are published in a journal that was established solely to disseminate the knowledge from this independent process. 

While conventional journals establish editorial boards to perform certain roles; independent publishing relies on a computer-controlled platform, in which the roles of an editorial board have been incorporated in the software/algorithm. For example, the duties, policy implementation, ethics, equality, diversity, etc., that an editorial board would have performed are already incorporated in the platform's algorithm by design, and implemented by the computer. Hence, our computer-controlled independent scholarly publishing needs no editorial board, and has none. 

The platform has thousands of world-leading professors who anonymously evaluate your manuscript. They work as either an editor who edits your paper, or as a reviewer who reviews your paper. They don't sit on a board, they evaluate papers. All professors on the platform evaluates papers, whilst the computer controls the process. This is how independent scholarly publishing operates. 

However, authors can view the names of the editors on the peer review page of the platform. And the overall member statistics for this field/journal is displayed on the left side of this webpage. The advisory board in the member stats refers to the company's advisory board, not this journal's editorial board.

The Independent reviewing professors welcome scholars and researchers to submit their manuscripts for high quality peer review by experts in the field. Accepted papers would be published in a new world class journal, which is currently being finalized and not yet online. All published papers would be given genuine DOIs, indexed and widely promoted.

 

Independent Publishing for Scholars - An Overview

Unified Scholars is currently pioneering the entry of "Independent publishing" to scholarly journals. ...It isn't an easy task, nor do we expect a smooth ride. Nevertheless, we are committed to this endeavour and we draw strength from the positive reactions we are getting from scholars.

"Independent publishing", "self-publishing" and "traditional publishing" are three (3) models of publishing. To understand each model, you may need to read this article: https://lnkd.in/e5xvxzcW

Currently, all three models are used in book publishing, and book authors have the option to publish via any of the three models. .... But in journal publishing, only one model is in use; and that is the centuries old traditional publishing model. The self-publishing and independent publishing models are non-existent in journal publishing; which means scholars are unable to explore other publishing "routes/options" and enjoy the benefits they offer. And quite alarmingly, unlike book authors, scholars are unable to break free from the big spell.

Whilst self-publishing and independent publishing afforded book authors alternative publishing routes to break free from the big spell; they are not available to scholars, partly because of the complexity of scholarly peer review. Hence, the publishing of Journals still depend on the traditional publishing model, which by modern standard, should be obsolete; and which in reality, is the basis of the complex problems facing scholarly publishing.

The coming of Unified Scholars & Publishers however promises to change all that, and bring independent publishing to scholars. Unified Scholars devised an ingenious way of adapting independent publishing to journals through the use of an independent platform [Unified Scholars Platform(USP)] and independent reviewing professors. The independent reviewing professors aided by the USP can now do high quality peer reviews anonymously and independently as a service to other scholars. Hence, solving the peer review complexity problem and making independent scholarly publishing a possibility.

We are hopeful that this new model would establish independent publishing as an alternative route/option for scholars to publish their manuscripts in a seamless, fair, equitable and affordable way; and as a fundamental solution to endemic problems in scholarly publishing. I would write about this later.

We welcome scholars to our world of independent scholarly publishing, which gives them the chance to break free from the big spell as book authors have done. And we encourage them to use the service. The model worked for books; there is no reason it wouldn't work for journals.

Unified Scholars and the independent reviewing professors welcomes scholars onboard.

More information is available in the "Announcement" tab of this webpage. 

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