Name of product: F6Publishing

Publisher: Baishideng Publishing Group Inc

Date product launched: March 11, 2017 

Product website: http://www.f6publishing.com

Office address: Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA

Full contact details of person submitting the application: Lian-Sheng Ma, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA 

E-mail: l.s.ma@wjgnet.com

Telephone: +1-925-223-8242

Fax: +1-925-223-8243

Statement of Innovation

F6Publishing is an artificial intelligence-based system that integrates the functions of online manuscript submission, peer review, manuscript revision by authors, manuscript production, manuscript publishing and release, editing and publishing management, and statistics of publishing fees and costs. F6Publishing complies with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics. The main innovations include functionalities for published articles’ processes, release of manuscript-related documents together with the manuscript, and all-article search across journals. F6Publishing facilitates the healthy development of open access (OA) journals, allowing more efficient and effective services for authors and readers.

What are the main features and functions of the product?

F6Publishing is an artificial intelligence-based system that integrates the functions of online manuscript submission, peer review, manuscript revision by authors, manuscript production, manuscript publishing and release, editing and publishing management, and statistics of publishing fees and costs.

The main functions of F6Publishing include Submit a Manuscript, Manuscript Reception by Assistant Editor, Send a Manuscript for Peer Review, Peer Review, Send a Manuscript for Revision by Author(s), Review by Journal Editor-in-Chief, Decision by Journal Editor-in-Chief, Review by Company Editor-in-Chief, Decision by Company Editor-in-Chief, Charging Publication Fee, Release of Manuscripts to be Published, Language Editing, Manuscript Production by Electronic Editor, Release of Publishing Process, Release of Featured Articles, Release of Electronic Version Articles,  Release of Online Version Articles, Article Search, and Manuscript Statistics. Importantly, as an integrated, artificial intelligence-based editing and publishing platform, F6Publishing complies with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

What was the background and research behind its development or launch?

Starting in 2004, we began to develop an innovative platform that integrates online manuscript submission, peer review, and manuscript release. This led to the birth of our first-generation system called Express Submission and Peer-review System. The following 12 years of practice, with continual focused research and development, culminated in our upgrading the system by integrating all the resources, optimizing the publishing process, and improving the functional requirements. As of May 03, 2017, the upgraded system has passed our tests using 42 English-language journals and was named F6Publishing, having an independent website at http://www.f6publishing.com/.

What resources went into its creation?

First, F6Publishing integrates all of the manuscript-related document resources and publishes them online together with the manuscript. These documents include Peer Review Report, Answering Reviewers, Human or Animal Research Ethical Approval Statement, Clinical Trial Registration, Biostatistics Statement, Funding Sources, Copyright Transfer Statement, Language Editing Certificate for non-native English speaking authors, Scientific Research Process, and Academic Misconduct Detection Report. In addition, F6Publishing encompasses a system for evaluating the influential power of academic papers and graphically displays the metrics in numbers of clicks (clickthrough rate reflecting audience interest) and downloads (click-to-open rate reflecting deeper audience interaction) for manuscripts. For more information, please visit http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/full/v23/i15/2771.htm.

Second, F6Publishing integrates global resources of leading scholars in fields of biological and medical sciences by including an evolutionary database of Highly Influential Scientists (currently composed of 1,074,399 scholars, including 17,675 editorial board members of our 43 journals and 23 senior scholars). This database allows for ready identification and invitation of global scholars to conduct peer review or contribute topically relevant commentary articles that address the current trends in the literature.

Finally, F6Publishing allows linkage of a manuscript’s title to the Google platform and the ORCID platform for each author. Thus, science editors and peer reviewers can obtain the academic background of authors and determine whether there is any academic misconduct in the manuscript based on Google and ORCID records.

What makes it significant and innovative?

Our objectives in developing the artificial intelligence-based F6Publishing system were to improve the working efficiency of science editors, peer reviewers, journal editors-in-chief, and company editor-in-chief, to facilitate manuscript production, to process each manuscript in a more open and transparent manner, and to provide better services for authors and readers. The main innovations of F6Publishing include:

1 Articles in Press. Manuscripts are finally accepted by journal editors-in-chief and the company editor-in-chief. Once the Accept button is clicked, F6Publishing will automatically release the manuscript on the Articles in Press platform. For more information, please visit http://www.f6publishing.com/ArticlesInPress.

2 Manuscript Content Release. Production of finally accepted manuscripts is arranged by the Editorial Office Director. Once the Release button is clicked, after the whole production process is completed, F6Publishing will automatically release the manuscript together with the related documents. For examples, please visit http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/full/v23/i16/2912.htm.

3 Published Articles Processes. Published Articles Processes are released simultaneously together with the manuscript. For more information, please visit http://www.f6publishing.com/PublishedArticlesProcesses.

4 Keyword Search Published Articles Processes. Keyword Search Published Articles Processes are released simultaneously together with the manuscript content. For more information, please visit http://www.f6publishing.com/ArticleKeywords?Type=2.

5 Featured Articles. The executive science editor selects important articles in each issue based on the peer reviewers’ comments and the academic and language quality classifications assigned by journal editors-in-chief. Once the Featured Articles button is clicked, F6Publishing will automatically release the featured articles. For more information, please visit http://www.f6publishing.com/FeaturedArticles.

6 All Journal Articles. Searches can be conducted for each journal based on manuscript ID, article title, manuscript source, author, and year published. Search results include specialty, manuscript sources, article types, source titles, publication years, funding agencies, review classifications, countries/territories, and high impact articles. For more information, please visit http://www.f6publishing.com/PublishedArticlesSearch.

7 High Impact Articles. High Impact Articles are the top 50 articles that have more than 500 downloads. The academic influence of each article is metrically assessed based on numbers of clicks, downloads, and citations. For more information, please visit http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/highimpact.htm.

8 Editorial Board Members. The invitation, rejection, acceptance, and release of journal editorial board members are all performed via F6Publishing. For examples, please visit http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/editorialboard.htm.

9 Number of Total Visits. The country/region distribution of the number of total visits to the website is automatically analyzed by F6Publishing. For examples, please visit http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/totalvisits.htm.

10 Number of Downloads. The country/region distribution of the number of total downloads is automatically analyzed by F6Publishing. For examples, please visit http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/downloads.htm.

11 Reviewer Acknowledgment. The number of manuscripts reviewed by each peer reviewer and the peer reviewer ranking are automatically analyzed by F6Publishing. For more information, please visit http://www.f6publishing.com/HighlyInfluentialPeerReviewers.

What value does it offer, how is this measured?

In the current era of Internet and OA publishing, if a journal aims towards better development and attracting high-quality articles, peer reviewers and readers worldwide, its core competitiveness lies in whether it has a unique and powerful artificial intelligence-based online submission, peer review, production and content publishing system.

F6Publishing is of great significance in promoting the robust and ethical development of OA journals.  Nowadays, OA journals face many significant challenges in these realms, including plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification, duplicate publication, peer-review fraud, predatory publishing, and non-compliance with academic rules and norms. These problems have great impact on the credibility of scientific research and the publishing industry. In 2016, our 42 journals received a total of 8,115 invited or submitted manuscripts, of which 455 (5.6%) did not conform to the academic rules and norms. These manuscripts were not sent for peer-review and were directly rejected, and all of the authors of these manuscripts were included in our database of academic misconduct and blocked from submitting any manuscripts to F6Publishing again.

With the help of F6Publishing, we can strictly standardize the working process of authors, peer reviewers, scientific editors, journal editors-in-chief, company editor-in-chief, language editors, and electronic editors, thereby strictly controlling the quality of each step of the manuscript publishing process, including manuscript submission, peer review, editing, production, and online release. All task lists are published with the manuscript, and all readers can download and read them for free.

What is its business model and what is the scope for further expansion?

The current business model of F6Publishing is buying points on demand for publishing academic papers. In the Internet age, the publication of academic papers in this way will significantly reduce the publishing costs while simultaneously improving the core competitiveness of journals in this field.

The scope of further expansion of F6Publishing includes artificial intelligence-based screening of peer reviewers.  For peer review of a manuscript, about 15 peer reviewers are usually invited. Intelligent matching of reviewers’ field and keywords with manuscript fields and keywords in the shortest possible time to select candidate peer reviewers, from which science editors can choose 15 most suitable ones, will further improve the quality and efficiency of peer review, overcoming one of the most longstanding problems in peer-review, its slowness that impedes the overall progression of science and medicine.