From Bioblast
MitoFit Preprints
- The Open Access preprint server for mitochondrial physiology and bioenergetics
About MitoFit Preprints
General
- MitoFit Preprints is a non-commercial, Open Access online distribution service for unpublished preprints in mitochondrial physiology and bioenergetics. Before posting preprints on MitoFit Preprints, authors should clarify if the journal intended for final publication accepts manuscripts published as preprints in MitoFit Preprints. Today scientists may decide to submit manuscripts exclusively to journals which accept the concept of preprints.
- MitoFit Preprints is linked to the journal Bioenergetics Communications.
- An article must be submitted to MitoFit Preprints before it is accepted by a journal. If an article has been submitted to a journal but not yet been accepted for publication, it can be submitted to MitoFit Preprints.
- MitoFit Preprints started 2019-Feb-12 under the name 'MitoFit Preprint Archives', inspired by the classic Preprint server arXiv (Paul Ginsparg, 1991). arXiv receives preprint publications from >100,000 coauthors per year, mainly in physics, mathematics, and chemistry. arXiv is frequently cited in the following context.
- MitoFit Preprints is hosted, maintained and operated by the MitoFit DOI Data Center (http://www.mitofit.org) with guidance by the MitoFit Preprints advisory board.
- Conflict of interest / Disclaimer: MitoFit Preprints is operated by the team of Oroboros Instruments. Guidance by the expanding Member and Scientific Advisory Boards adds to our mission of handling submissions on a non-commercial basis, independent of the use of any products related to commercial interests of scientific organizations and companies including Oroboros Instruments.
Scope
- The areas covered in MitoFit Preprints include mitochondrial physiology, bioenergetics and ergodynamics. We recommend other preprint servers for manuscripts which do not belong to areas covered by MitoFit Preprints.
- Format: manuscripts in English
The MitoFit Digital Object Identifier
- Manuscripts published Open Access (exclusively scientific research content; not peer reviewed) in MitoFit Preprints are fully citable, each with a unique DOI number (compare arXiv identifier):
- doi:10.26124/mitofit:YY####
- doi:10.26124/mitofit:eaYY.ConferenceName#### - for extended abstracts for scientific events.
- Once a DOI number has been assigned to a preprint including supplementary material, it cannot be changed, except for comments posted on the preprint page. A preprint version can be removed only in exceptional cases, clarified on an individual basis.
- Open Access preprints (not peer-reviewed) are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License BY-NC-ND license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited. © remains with the authors, who have granted MitoFit an Open Access preprint licence in perpetuity.
- MitoFit Preprints support the FAIR principles of Findable, Accessable, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR Principles)
- Disclaimer: "Papers will be entered in the listings in order of receipt on an impartial basis and appearance of a paper is not intended in any way to convey tacit approval of its assumptions, methods, or conclusions by any agent (electronic, mechanical, or other). We reserve the right to reject any inappropriate submissions"' (citation from arXiv).
Moderation
- MitoFit Preprints reserves the right to remove any articles that contain any material published without author consent, without an appropriate declaration of conflicts of interest, plagiarized material or describe experimental work that is not performed in accordance with the ethical standards for research using animals or human subjects.
- Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication in a scientific journal, MitoFit Preprints accepts an updated new preprint version only in line with the policies of the specific scientific journal. As soon as a preprint has been published as a final manuscript on the website of a journal, the full citation is added to the preprint page in MitoFit Preprints. It is the obligation of the corresponding author to immediately inform the editor(s) of MitoFit Preprints on the full citation.
- It is not appropriate to copy text from articles published by the same group or by others. - Citron DT, Ginsparg P (2015) Patterns of text reuse in a scientific corpus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 112:25-30. - »Bioblast link«
- References to methods papers should inform about original publications. It is inappropriate to refer in the methods section to a previous paper, where reference is made to another paper ..
Open Access Acknowledgements
- To promote transparency, MitoFit Preprints encourages Open Access to relevant scientific contributions of acknowledged persons, even though it may not be possible to provide a fully balanced account of the correspondence and personal discussions.
- Authors may choose to submit an additional file with contributors comments to be posted on the website. See »Gnaiger 2021 MitoFit BCA - Acknowledgements« for an example.
- Consent must be obtained by the author from contributors before submitting to MitoFit Preprints for inclusion online.
Commentaries as comments
- What does arXiv say?
- Drama-free: "arXiv has very vocal users who are not just mildly negative about comment threads, but adamantly opposed to having them mediated via the main site. This attitude was recently reinforced by a broad user survey. Authors regard the drama-free minimalist dissemination as a prominent virtue, which contributes to arXiv’s success." - Ginsparg P (2017) Preprint Déjà Vu: an FAQ. arXiv:1706.04188. - »Bioblast link«
- Authors may invite members of the 'Scientific advisory board' to join a scientific discussion, which may be published as a MitoFit Commentary with independent DOI.
- Readers and journal clubs are encouraged to discuss preprints with the original authors, to submit a MitoFit Commentary with independent DOI.
- Avasthi P, Soragni A, Bembenek JN (2018) Point of View: Journal clubs in the time of preprints. eLife 7:e38532. - »Bioblast link«
- Sarabipour S, Debat HJ, Emmott E, Burgess SJ, Schwessinger B, Hensel Z (2019) On the value of preprints: An early career researcher perspective. PLoS Biol 17(2):e3000151. - »Bioblast link«
- Commentaries are an integral concept of Preprints and can contribute to the advancement of science. Editors will forward Commentaries to the authors of a preprint or a corresponding publication, to provide the option of a joint commentary before it is posted on MitoFit Prep.
- Superficial comments are not posted on MitoFit Preprints websites. Comments submitted without adhering to the format of a Commentary may simply be forwarded to the authors of a preprint.
- Links to MitoFit Commentaries are added to the corresponding preprint website.
Support of MitoFit Preprints
- Mitochondrial Physiology Society: unanimously approved by the MiPsociety Executive Committee by e-VOTE
- COST Action CA15203 MitoEAGLE: unanomyously approved by the Management Committee by e-VOTE (2019-04-01)
Author guidelines
Manuscript formats
- Regular communications (over 3 000 words)
- Short communications (under 3 000 words)
- Several types of communications and short communications are accepted:
Manuscript types
- Experimental Communications
- Original research articles, including 'negative' results (irrespective of supporting a working hypothesis) or 'confirmatory results' (demonstrating reproducibility and add to the statistical significance of published results)
- Confirmative or contradictory results, related to previous publications (reproducibility)
- Technical Communications
- Development or extension of techniques
- Quality control: instrumental and methodological details, experimental protocols
- Methods sections with application examples, prior to full manuscript submission
- Theoretical Communications
- Theoretical work with novel concepts
- Commentaries
- Perspectives
- Reviews
- Standard reviews (or minireviews, short overviews of recent progress in a specific area of bioenergetics and mitochondrial physiology)
- Focal reviews with meta-analyses
- Monographs
- For specific scientific events
- Extended abstracts
- Slides of oral presentations
- Posters
- Experimental Communications
Submission
Submit to MitoFit Preprints - click here to download the manuscript template and submission form
- Manuscripts can be submitted by email as a Word file together with the filled submission form.
- Send to: [email protected]
- As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with the items listed in the submission form. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines may be returned to authors.
- A manuscript template in .docx (text, Word) format is available, to be used to format your manuscript as a MitoFit preprint. Please prepare the manuscript with embedded figures. Avoid oversized submissions and reduce figure size as far as possible (see Bitmapping figures in arXiv). For conduct and reporting recommendations, authors should follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals' by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (see The Vancouver Protocol)
- If the manuscript will be submitted to Bioenergetics Communications (BEC), instead of following the steps above, it is possible to submit the manuscript directly to BEC and ask to have the mansucript posted as a MitoFit Preprint at the same time. For more instructions, please see BEC author guidelines and submissions.
Evaluation
- The authors are responsible for (1) the content, (2) the consent of all coauthors, (3) having performed the experimental work in accordance with the ethical standards for research particularly when using humans or animals, and (4) appropriate declarations of conflicts of interest.
- Manuscripts must adhere to SI units and IUPAC recommendations. MitoEAGLE recommendations on terms and symbols are to be implemented.
- The MitoFit Preprints Scientific Advisory Board reserves the right to reject a manuscript for preprint publication, explaining the rationale with reference to all names involved in the Open Access correspondence.
- For the concept of moderation, we refer to arXiv.
Publication
- The accepted manuscript will receive a doi and will be available as a .pdf on the corresponding page generated to host the article.
New versions
- Updated versions are accepted not earlier than 30 days after posting a previous version, except in particularly relevant cases. Authors may submit Minor corrections (e.g., an additional reference; corrections of simple typos) to the editors, who will post them on the preprint website. More important comments should be integrated into a new version of the preprint. An updated version will receive a new DOI number (v2; v3; ..), while every sequential preprint version with the original DOI number will remain available and traceable.
Preprints for Gentle Science
» MitoFit Preprints - the Open Access preprint server for mitochondrial physiology and bioenergetics
Editors
Editors |
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External advisory board
- The Bioenergetics Communications editors serve as an external advisory board – connecting the open-access, open peer-reviewed journal to the preprints and paving the way to Living Communications.
- The Bioenergetics Communications editors serve as an external advisory board – connecting the open-access, open peer-reviewed journal to the preprints and paving the way to Living Communications.
Responsibilities
- Advance the awareness on MitoFit Preprints in the scientific community.
- Extend the information content of MitoPedia: Preprints: description of relevant terms and references.
- Give advice concerning manuscripts submitted for preprint publication.
- Help to improve the standard of the Guidelines.
Preprint questionnaire
- 2019-02-12: Three questions on preprints were sent to all coauthors (Version 1: 530 coauthors) of the preprint Mitochondrial respiratory states and rates. 179 responded (2019-03-15).
- For a detailed summary, see Editorial: A vision on preprints
- 38 coauthors were unfamiliar with the concept of preprints. Among those, 20 responded positively to publish in MitoFit Preprints, whereas only 8 were against preprint publication. This indicates that our initiative is a positive contribution to make preprints more popular in mitochondrial physiology.
- Frequently asked questions are addressed here: »MitoPedia: Preprints
- Comments on 'Mitochondrial respiratory states and rates': Comments
- 2019-02-12: Three questions on preprints were sent to all coauthors (Version 1: 530 coauthors) of the preprint Mitochondrial respiratory states and rates. 179 responded (2019-03-15).
- MitoPedia
Description
MitoFit Preprints is an Open Access preprint server for mitochondrial physiology and bioenergetics.Abbreviation: MitoFit Prep
Reference: MitoFit Preprints
MitoPedia topics:
Preprints,
Gentle Science,
BEC