Note: Average publication time is 18 days between the final acceptance of revised manuscript and its publication
The Open Environmental Research Journal is an Open Access online journal, publishing original research articles, reviews and letters in the field of ecology, aiming to provide the most complete and reliable source of information on current developments in the field.
Each peer-reviewed article published in a Bentham OPEN Journal is universally and freely accessible via the Internet in an easily readable and printable PDF format.
An online submission and tracking service via Internet facilitates a speedy and cost-effective submission of manuscripts. The full manuscript has to be submitted online via Bentham's Manuscript Processing System (MPS) at https://bentham.manuscriptpoint.com/journals/toecolj / View Submission Instructions
Authors should ONLY submit their articles directly through our online system as we do not accept articles through intermediary companies or agents.
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Covering Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.
For all online submissions, please provide soft copies of all the materials (main text in MS Word or Tex/LaTeX), figures / illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG, and chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw (CDX) / ISISDraw (TGF) as separate files, while a PDF version of the entire manuscript must also be included, embedded with all the figures / illustrations / tables / chemical structures etc. It is advisable that the document files related to a manuscript submission should always have the name of the corresponding author as part of the file name, i.e., "Cilli MS text.doc" , "Cilli MS Figure 1", etc.
It is imperative that before submission, authors should carefully proofread the files for special characters, mathematical symbols, Greek letters, equations, tables and images, to ensure that they appear in proper format.
References, figures, tables, structures etc. should be referred to in the text at the place where they have been discussed. Figure legends/caption should also be provided.
A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding author within 72 hours of the dispatch of the manuscript. Any questions with regards to the preparation of and submission of your manuscript to the journal should be addressed to toerj@benthamopen.net and copied to info@benthamopen.net
NOTE: Any queries therein should be addressed to oa@benthamopen.net and copied to Jalil@benthamopen.net
Authors who publish in Bentham OPEN Journals retain copyright to their work. It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. Once submitted to the journal, the author may not withdraw their manuscript at any stage prior to publication.
Articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits the copying and redistribution of the material in any medium or format, as well as remixing, transformation, and building upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided appropriate credit is given, a link to the licence is provided, and provided it is indicated if any changes were made.
A signed copy of the downloaded copyright letter must also be submitted along with the manuscript by the author to whom correspondence is to be addressed Download the Copyright Letter
Published/reproduced material should not be included unless you have obtained written permission from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of your article for publication.
For obtaining permission for reproducing any material published in an article by Bentham OPEN, please fill in the request FORM and send to info@benthamopen.net for consideration.
The publication fee for each article published in the journal is US $950.
The publication fee includes basic copy editing services. Once the paper is accepted for publication, the author will receive an electronic invoice via email. Subsequent submissions from the Bentham OPEN Authors will receive a discount of US$ 100 on the total publication charges providing their previous submission did not avail any discount off the listed full author open access fee rate. Please click here to download the Fee Form.
Bentham OPEN offers a 50% discount off the Publication Fee for manuscripts of all corresponding authors who reside in countries which are categorized as low-income economies by the World Bank. To see if you qualify for the discount, please refer to the complete list of these countries click here.
An optional fast publication fee-based service called “QUICK TRACK” is available to authors for their submitted manuscripts.
QUICK TRACK allows online publication within 1 week of receipt of the final approved galley proofs from the authors. The total publication time, from date of first receipt of manuscript to its online publication is only 6 weeks, subject to its acceptance by the referees and modification (if any) by the authors within one week.
The Authors will be charged US $300 processing fee (non-refundable) and an additional $450 publication fee (refundable if paper is not accepted for publication). The quick track publication fee together with the Bentham OPEN publication charges, will be payable before online publication of the paper. If the paper is rejected, there will be no further charges other than the $300 already paid.
Please note that whether the author opts for the QUICK TRACK facility or not, standard reviewing practices will be followed, which will not in any way affect the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript by the reviewers.
Authors who have availed QUICK TRACK services in a Bentham OPEN journal will be entitled for an exclusive 30% discount if they again wish to avail the same services in any Bentham OPEN journal within the next 12 months.
For more information please contact the Editorial Office by e-mail at quicktrack@benthamopen.net
Bentham OPEN offers a 50% discount off the Quick Track Fee for manuscripts of all corresponding authors who reside in countries which are categorized as low-income economies by the World Bank. To see if you qualify for the discount, please refer to the complete list of these countries click here.
The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct and active style. All pages must be numbered sequentially, facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript.
Professional editing services may be availed by the team available at Bentham OPEN, for the correction of grammatical, scientific and typographical errors.
The journal accepts original research articles, review articles and letters written in English. Single topic/thematic issues may also be considered for publication.
Research articles should be of 4000-6000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.
The length of a published comprehensive review article is from 6000-10000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.
Letters should be 3000-4000 words with 40 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.
This journal publishes open access reviews on recently published books (both print and electronic) relevant to the journal. Publishers and authors of books are invited to contact our book reviews editor at toerj@benthamopen.net with book review requests. All submitted books will be reviewed by an independent expert in the field. No page charges will be levied to authors for the publication of book reviews.
Editorials are short papers on important topics related to the journal. The total number of words in an editorial should not exceed 1000 to 1500, and it should contain only 10-15 references. An abstract is not required.
Commentaries present an analysis by scientists on different important issues related to the publications in the journal. Commentaries should contain less than 3000 words, including the abstract, main text, references, and figure legends. However, an abstract is not necessary.
A perspective provides a short overview of a research topic relevant to the field. The length of a published perspective ranges from 1500 to 1800 words, with 20 or more references, excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.
For proposals to publish conference proceedings in this journal, please contact us at email: proceedings@benthamopen.net.
The journal also considers Supplements/Single topic issues for publication. The Guest Edited Thematic Issues are published free of charge.
A Supplement/Single topic will be a collection of articles (minimum of 6, maximum of 20 articles) based on a contemporary theme or topic of great importance to the field. Mini-supplements consisting of between 3 to 5 articles are also welcome. The Guest Editors' main editorial task is to invite the contributors to the Supplement and to manage the peer review of submitted manuscripts. A short summary or proposal for editing a supplement should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief at e-mail to specialissue@benthamopen.net.
Industry News should provide important developments in industries related to the scope of the Journal, that could be of interest to the readers. The length of the submission should be about 1000 words, and it should ideally have 10 or more references (abstract is not required).
Patent News may present important information about recent important patents that have been granted, relevant to the scope of this journal. The length should be about 1000 words, and it should ideally have 10 or more references (abstract is not required).
There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables or additional files e.g. video clips, animation and datasets, that can be included with each article online. Authors should include all relevant supporting data with each article.
Manuscripts for research articles and letters submitted to the respective journals should be divided into the following sections; however, there can be an extension in the number of sections in review articles in accordance with the requirements of the topic.
The title should be precise and brief and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors should avoid the use of non-standard abbreviations and question marks in titles. The title must be written in title case except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions.
As recommended by the Reporting guidelines information about the study should be a part of the title (particularly for systematic reviews).
Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’. Title, running title, by line correspondent footnote and key words should be written as presented in the original manuscript.
The abstract of an article should be its clear, concise and accurate summary, having no more than 250 words, and including the explicit sub-headings (as in-line or run-in headings in bold). Use of abbreviations should be avoided and the references should not be cited in the abstract.
All the original research articles systematic reviews must be accompanied with a structured abstract. Ideally, each abstract should include the following sub-headings, but these may vary according to requirements of the article.
The headings can vary, but must state the purpose of the study, details of the participants, measurements, methods, main findings and conclusion.
6 to 8 keywords must be provided. Choose important and relevant keywords that researchers in your field will be searching for so that your paper will appear in a database search. The keywords should be contained in the title and they should appear several times in the article.
The main text should begin on a separate page and should be divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by the List of Abbreviations (if any), Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and Reference sections. For review, the manuscript should be divided into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by the Acknowledgements and Reference sections. The Review Article should mention any previous important recent and old reviews in the field and contain a comprehensive discussion starting with the general background of the field. It should then go on to discuss the salient features of recent developments. The authors should avoid presenting material which has already been published in a previous review. The authors are advised to present and discuss their observations in brief.
For Research Articles the manuscript should begin with the title page and abstract followed by the main text, which must be structured into separate sections as Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and References.
The manuscript style must be uniform throughout the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should be used. The full term for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. The reference numbers should be given in square brackets in the text. Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages should also be italicized e.g.per se, et al., etc.
If any of the following are to be used in the manuscript, follow the below details:
Section headings should be numbered sequentially, left aligned and have the first letter capitalized, starting with the introduction. Sub-section headings however, should be in lower-case and italicized with their initials capitalized. They should be numbered as 1.1, 1.2, etc.
The Introduction section should include the background and aims of the research in a comprehensive manner.
This section provides details of the methodology used along with information on any previous efforts with corresponding references. Any details for further modifications and research should be included. Sufficient details should be provided to the reader about the original data source in order to enable the analysis, appropriateness and verification of the results reported in the study.
It is important for the Method Section should be sufficiently detailed in respect of the data presented, and the results produced from it. This section should include all the information and protocol gathered for the study at the time when it was being written. If the study is funded or financially supported by an organization to conduct the research, then it should be mentioned in the Method Section. Methods must be result-oriented.
Repeated information should not be reported in the text of an article. A calculation section must include experimental data, facts and practical development from a theoretical perspective.
The important and main findings of the study should come first in the Results Section. The tables, figures and references should be given in sequence to emphasize the important information or observations related to the research. The repetition of data in tables and figures should be avoided. Results should be precise.
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, and present reproducible procedure. Extensive citations and discussion of published literature should be avoided.
The Results and discussions may be presented individually or combined in a single section with short and informative headings.
A small paragraph summarizing the contents of the article, presenting the final outcome of the research or proposing further study on the subject, may be given at the end of the article under the Conclusion section.
The authors need to declare the funding sources of their manuscripts clearly by providing the name of the funding agency or financial support along with allotted grant/award number in round brackets (if applied), for instance, “This work was financially supported by [Name of the funding agency] (Grant number XXX).
Similarly, if a paper does not have any specific funding source, and is part of the employment of the authors, then the name of the employer will be required. Authors will have to clearly state that the funder was involved in writing, editing, approval, or decision to publish the article.
The authors will be required to submit the Microarray experiment data to the ArrayExpress using the MIAMExpress submission tool (www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress/), which will be subjected to reviewing by the curation team and if accepted, an ArrayExpress accession number would be assigned for it. The ArrayExpress offers the facility to maintain the data until the related paper is published.
Microarray data should be made available for reviewers and editors at the time of manuscript submission in a MIAME compliant and widely accessible format. Submission of large raw and/or analyzed microarray data files as supplementary data to the journal should be discouraged, which may alternatively be submitted either to the Gene Expression Omnibus http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/ or ArrayExpress http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress repositories, thereby obtaining an accession number for the journal and any necessary passwords, to facilitate the reviewers and editors of a manuscript to access the data. The submission of the microarray data to either of these repositories should be done at or before acceptance of a paper for publication, with accession number being allotted well before publication.
All appropriate datasets, images, and information should be deposited in public resources. Please provide the relevant accession numbers (and version numbers, if appropriate) and any necessary passwords to enable the reviewers and editors of a manuscript to access the data.
Providing accession numbers facilitates linking to and from the established databases and integrates the article with a broader collection of scientific information, therefore list all accession numbers should be listed directly after the Supporting Information section.
All accession numbers for all entities such as genes, proteins, mutants, diseases, etc., for which there is an entry in a public database should be included in the manuscript. Experimental data should be submitted to the appropriate databases, with a release date corresponding to the date of publication.
Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting changes and get corrupted or lost during preparation of manuscript for publication. To ensure that all special characters used are embedded in the text, these special characters should be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result of any format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise they will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML.2
Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising a list of items relevant to their specific research design. All kinds of measurements should be reported only in International System of Units (SI).
If abbreviations are used in the text either they should be defined in the text where first used, or a list of abbreviations should be provided.
In case there is a need to present lengthy, but essential methodological details, use appendices, which can be a part of the article. An appendix must not exceed three pages (Times New Roman, 10 point fonts, 900 max. words per page).The information should be provided in a condensed form, ruling out the need of full sentences. A single appendix should be titled APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.
We do encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint file containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or PDF document showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the original data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files etc.) provided it is inevitable or endorsed by the journal's Editor.
Supportive/Supplementary Material intended for publication must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript but should not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations as well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary Material" before the "References" section should be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary Material and include a brief caption line for each file describing its contents.
Any additional files will be linked into the final published article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be displayed within the paper. They will be made available in exactly the same form as originally provided only on our Web site. Please also make sure that each additional file is a single table, figure or movie (please do not upload linked worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/ Supplementary material must be provided in a single zipped file not larger than 4 MB.
Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for publication but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal only.
All potential conflicts of interest (competing interests) that could have a direct or indirect influence on the work must be disclosed by the authors. Even if an author does not have a conflict, disclosing affiliations and interests allows for a more comprehensive and open approach, which leads to a more accurate and objective evaluation of the work. Conflicts of interest, whether genuine or imagined, are a perspective to which the readers are entitled.
The publication of a conflict statement in the article itself, as well as the submission of the conflict disclosure form, is required for all types of papers. It is not necessarily the case that a monetary relationship with examination support or funding for counseling work is inappropriate. Even if the authors do not have any conflict of interest, they still need to provide a confirmation statement in their manuscripts, i.e., “The author(s) confirm(s) that there is no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.”
The following are some examples of potential conflicts of interest that are directly or indirectly related to the research:
Financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):
Financial conflicts of interest can be personal as well as institutional. Personal conflict of interest occurs when a contributor involved in the publication process either receives an amount of money or expects to receive some financial help (including any other financial benefits such as patents or stocks, gifts or services) that may impact the work related to a specific publication. More importantly, in academic research, such financial relationships can lead to institutional conflicts of interest (COIs) because the economic interests of the institution or institutional representatives may unsuitably affect the decision-making process.
An institutional conflict of interest arises in a situation when financial interests of an institution or any institutional official (e.g., investments held by the university in a company) have the potential to unduly influence the research conducted by its employees or students, or pose an unacceptable risk to human subjects. Such conflicts usually arise in a state of affairs where a research project directly offers assistance or a benefit to an external entity via evaluation, validation, trial or test of an invention, product, drug, service or technology, and the institution holds a financial interest with the external entity. Such financial interests incorporate, but are not limited to, receipt of licensing payments or royalties from the external entity, or ownership interest with the external entity. When human subjects are involved in any research project, and the institution supports such a financial interest, the conflict of interest is speculated to be unreasonable.
Non-financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):
In addition, interests other than monetary and any funding (non-financial interests) should be declared if they are relevant to readers. Personal relationships or conflicting interests directly or indirectly related to research, as well as professional interests or personal opinions that may impact your research, are examples of these.
Intellectual property, in basic terms, refers to any intangible property that is the result of creativity, such as patents, copyrights, etc. Similarly, this section seeks to know about copyright and patent (licensed patent, pending or issued) and any payment received for intellectual property, such as:
All conflict of interest disclosure forms are collected by the corresponding author. It is sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors in author collaborations when legal agreements for representation allow it. The templates of the form can be found here.
Before the reference list, the corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the article that reflects what is reported in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form (s). Author(s) may declare(s) names of reviewers who they think might have a potential conflict of interest; therefore, Editorial Office could avoid inviting such reviewers for an unbiased opinion.
Undisclosed conflict of interest cases before or after the publication of an article are dealt with as per the guidelines of COPE.
For more information on COIs, see the guidance from the ICMJE.
Bentham Open tries to conduct a transparent peer-review process with the help of the reviewers who do not have any conflict of interest with the authors. In this connection, reviewers who belong to the same institute or countries as authors are not invited to review manuscripts. However, it is not possible for the Editorial Office to be aware of all competing interests; therefore, it is expected from authors to submit:
The Editorial Office expects reviewers:
During the submission of review comments, reviewers are asked to reconfirm that they do not have any conflict of interest related to the article. After confirming the below statement, they can submit their comments.
“I hereby confirm that I don’t have any conflict of interest related to the manuscript.”
If, however, there are still any remaining interests, then reviewers must mention those in the ‘Confidential’ section of the review form.
Reviewers are not encouraged to contact authors directly regarding any of their conflicts of interest. Peer reviewers should follow journals’ policies in situations they consider to represent a conflict to reviewing.
If reviewers intentionally undisclosed any conflict of interest, then they will be blacklisted for any future peer reviewing activity of the journal.
The Editorial Office always ensures that an author, if added after peer review activity of a manuscript, is not part of the reviewers’ list who have conducted a peer review of the same manuscript.
Editors must not review submitted manuscripts if they have any personal, professional or financial involvement/conflict of interest with the authors of the manuscript. Every participant involved in the peer review process, including editorial board members, reviewers, and editors, must declare any potential conflicts of interest to ensure a transparent and unbiased review activity.
Editors-in-Chief or Editors who are responsible for the initial and final decision should recuse themselves to review or take decisions on any manuscript that is written by authors affiliated to the same institute as of editor, or if they have been a family member, competitor, collaborator, or have published any manuscript in last 3 years with the authors associated with the manuscript. They can however nominate someone else on the Board who could provide a neutral opinion on the manuscript.
The Editorial office recommends editors to follow COPE and WAME guidelines to process such manuscripts which involves their personal relationship.
Manuscripts submission by an Editor/Editor-in-Chief
The initial and final decision on the manuscripts submitted by an Editor/Editor-in-Chief will be taken by any other member of the Board. The Editorial Office will identify members who do not have any potential conflict of interest with the Editor or Editor-in-Chief.
All individuals listed as authors must have contributed substantially to the design, performance, analysis, or reporting of the work and are required to indicate their specific contribution. Anyone (individual/company/institution) who has substantially contributed to the study for important intellectual content, or was involved in the in drafting or revising the manuscript must also be acknowledged.
Guest or honorary authorship based solely on position (e.g. research supervisor, departmental head) is discouraged.
If the manuscript has an individuals’ data, such as personal detail, audio-video material etc., consent should be obtained from that individual. In case of children, consent should be obtained from the parent or the legal guardian.
Post-publication discussions are well-timed and engaging scientific remarks and justifications on research articles published in “The Open Environmental Research Journal”. These remarks must be based on the information concurrent with the original study and not on the scientific advancements being made subsequently.
Manuscript Preparation, Submission & Editorial Process:
Any queries therein should be addressed to info@benthamopen.net
Formatting of references follows the Harvard system. References should be indicated in the text by surname of the author(s) followed by the year of publication as shown below.
References to more than one publication by an author in the same year should be distinguished with lower-case letters, e.g. (Smith 2003a, 2003b). The abbreviated author and date reference should be placed in parentheses unless the name forms part of the text, e.g. “Jones (2005) has established that….” If no person is named as author, the name of the appropriate body should be used, e.g. (Ecological Society of America 2006).
Unpublished studies and personal communications should be referred to in the text only, using the authors’ initials and surname.
The references should be relevant to the study and should refer to the original research sources. Self-citation and self-interest should be avoided by the authors, editors and peer-reviewers.
All authors’ names should be listed in the references. The full list of references including names of all authors should be typed in alphabetical order and double-spaced at the end of the article, in accord with the following examples. Journal titles should be in full, not abbreviated. Below are a few examples of references listed in the Harvard style.
Some important points to remember:
The source of data and materials should be mentioned in the manuscript, in support of the findings. Sharing research data is integral to its transparency and reproducibility. Data sharing involves the citation and availability of data that support the findings of the research.
Bentham Open encourages authors to share the source of data and materials in the manuscript, in support of the findings.
The four types of research data policies are mentioned below.
Wherever appropriate and possible, the journal encourages authors to publish data to support their research findings in a public repository. Any datasets mentioned in the article that are available in external repositories should be cited.
How to Cite the Data?
Whether the data was developed by the author(s) or researcher(s), all publicly available data referenced in the preparation of an article should be cited in the text and reference list. The references relating to the data availability should be presented in the following format:
Example: Name of author(s), the title of data set, data repository, document version (e.g., most recent updated version), Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and Bentham Open reference style should be included in data citations.
When authors submit a paper to a journal, the authors agree that the data provided in the publication, including the relevant raw data, will be freely available to any researcher who wants to use these for non-commercial reasons without jeopardising participant anonymity.
Data availability declarations are required under Bentham Open research data policy types.
The statement relating to the data availability should be presented in the following format under a separate section for ‘Availability of Data and Materials’ in the manuscript:
Additional Data Availability Statements
Authors can add or change the statement(s) above, to fit their work the best. Depending on the nature of the research, several assertions may need to be merged.
All datasets on which the paper's conclusions are based must be made accessible to reviewers and readers, according to the journal's rules. Prior to peer review, authors must either deposit their datasets in publicly accessible repositories or provide them as supplementary materials with their submission.
Authors may deposit their datasets openly to Zenodo Repository, in addition to their own or their institutional archives.
Zenodo - a repository which is funded by the European Commission, CERN, and OpenAIRE—features a Data for Policy community.
Data for Zenodo site is primarily being used to host Data for Policy for conference papers and posters. However, we also encourage authors, who are already submitting to Data and Policy, to use Zenodo for presenting content associated with their articles.
Additionally, Zenodo can be used as a repository to host data and other materials that are referred to in the Data Availability Statement. These may include:
Moreover, authors who wish to cite any relevant materials could use the unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) that Zenodo assigns to the uploaded content.
Authors may provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data. if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
All authors must strictly follow the guidelines below for preparing illustrations for publication in The Open Environmental Research Journal. If the figures are found to be sub-standard, then the manuscripts will be rejected.
The authors are expected to submit good quality figure(s) in PDF, PPT, MS Word, TIFF or JPEG versions, which, if required, should be improved yourself or by professional graphic designers of your organization/ country. You may even consider approaching our contracted service providers Eureka Science for Graphics Enhancement Services.
The Graphics Designing team at Eureka Science can assist in improving the quality of your images at affordable rates. Eureka Science has contracted special rates with us of US $135 for the improvement of up to five figures, with any additional figures being charged at US $21 each.
The quality of Graphic Enhancement Services offered by Eureka Science can be viewed at http://www.eureka-science.com/images/Binder1.pdf, along with valuable feedback on their services at http://www.eureka-science.com/testimonials.php. You may contact Eureka Science at info@eurekascience.net
Note: Availing Graphics Enhancement Services do not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript for publication. The final acceptance/decision on the manuscript is taken by the EiC.
Illustrations must be provided according to the following guideline:
Line Art image type is normally an image based on lines and text. It does not contain tonal or shaded areas. The preferred file format should be TIFF or EPS, with the color mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200 dpi.
Halftone image type is a continuous tone photograph containing no text. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 300 dpi.
Combination image type is an image containing halftone , text or line art elements. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.
Illustrations may be submitted in the following file formats:
Bentham OPEN does not process figures submitted in GIF format.
For TIFF or EPS figures with considerably large file size restricting the file size in online submissions is advisable. Authors may therefore convert to JPEG format before submission as this results in significantly reduced file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality. JPEG is a lossy format. However, in order to maintain acceptable image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved at High or Maximum quality.
Zipit or Stuffit tools should not be used to compress files prior to submission as the resulting compression through these tools is always negligible.
Please refrain from supplying:
Technical requirements for graphic/ figure submissions.
There are many software packages, many of them freeware or shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.
General tools for image conversion include Graphic Converter on the Macintosh, Paint Shop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick, available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.
Bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted to EPS as they result in a much larger file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, and poor quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported as, EPS format. If the images were originally prepared in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, original Office files should be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format of low quality.
Chemical structures MUST be prepared in ChemDraw/CDX and provided as separate file.
[As according to the ACS style sheet]
| Drawing Settings | |
| Chain angle | 120° |
| Bond spacing | 18% of width |
| Fixed length | 14.4 pt (0.500cm, 0.2in) |
| Bold width | 2.0 pt (0.071cm, 0.0278in) |
| Line width | 0.6 pt (0.021cm, 0.0084in) |
| Margin width | 1.6 pt (0.096cm) |
| Hash spacing | 2.5 pt (0.088cm, 0.0347in) |
| Text settings | |
| Font | Times New Roman |
| Size | 10 pt |
| Under the Preference Choose | |
| Units | points |
| Tolerances | 3 pixels |
| Under Page Setup Use | |
| Paper | US letter |
| Scale | 100% |
Bentham OPEN requires that all individuals listed as authors must have made a substantial contribution to the design, performance, analysis, or reporting of the work. The role of authors is judged on the basis of ICMJE and COPE guidelines.
All contributing authors are required to sign a copyright letter, mentioning complete details, including full name, affiliation, email address, ORCID ID and their role in the article. After successful electronic submission of a manuscript, a system-generated acknowledgement will be sent to all authors on their provided email addresses.
Authors must provide a final list of authors at the time of submission, ensuring the correct sequence of the names of authors, which will not be considered for any addition, deletion or rearrangement after final submission of the manuscript. The email address of the principal author should be provided with an asterisk. However, the complete address, business telephone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail address of the corresponding author must be stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs. Bentham OPEN recommends that all contributors regularly update their profiles on SCOPUS/ORCID and other databases.
Authors are strongly recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration. Alternatively, they can acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process. For more information about ORCID IDs, visit here.
At the time of initial submission, the finalized list of authors in correct sequence should be provided, which will not be changed once the publication process has started.
If any change is essential, then it can only be done after the approval of the Editor-in-Chief upon receiving the following details from the corresponding author:
Any amendment to the authors’ list will only be considered and approved by the Editor-in-Chief after complete verification. Publication of the manuscript will be withheld during consideration of the request. However, if the manuscript has already been published online, requests approved thereafter by the Editor-in-Chief will result in an erratum or corrigendum. The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining permission from all co-authors for any changes in the authorship.
Here is some advice by COPE on authorship issues. Bentham strives to follow these guidelines.
Advice on how to spot authorship problems
Corresponding author requests addition of extra author before publication
Corresponding author requests removal of the author before publication
Activities such as the acquisition of funding, general supervision of a research group or general administrative support, writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading alone do not qualify any contributor for authorship. Such contributors may be acknowledged individually or together as a group in the acknowledgement section. Further details for writing acknowledgements are available here. Persons not meeting authorship criteria can be acknowledged in the acknowledgement section of the article rather than being enlisted as authors.
All contributing authors should contribute substantially to the article and sign the copyright letter. Bentham OPEN discourages authorship based solely on position (e.g., a research supervisor or a departmental head). We use COPE guidelines for identifying any suspected ghost, guest or gift authorship.
Manuscripts containing language inconsistencies will not be published. Authors should seek professional assistance for correction of grammatical, scientific and typographical errors before submission of the revised version of the article for publication. Professional editing services may also be sought by the team available at Bentham OPEN.
Authors are required to proofread the PDF versions of their manuscripts before submission. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned within 48 hours. Major changes are not acceptable at the proof stage. If unable to send corrections within 48 hours due to some reason, the author(s) must at least send an acknowledgement on receiving the galley proofs or the article will be published exactly as received and the publishers will not be responsible for any error occurring in the manuscript in this regard.
The corresponding author will be solely responsible for ensuring that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating all the submitted corrections receives the approval of all the authors of the manuscript.
All papers submitted for publication are immediately subjected to preliminary editorial scrutiny by the Editor-in-Chief regarding their suitability. The Editor-in-Chief determines if the manuscript:
(a) falls within the scope of the journal and
(b) meets the editorial criteria of Bentham OPEN Publishers in terms of originality and quality.
Manuscripts that appear to be suitable are then subjected to single-blind peer-review by, usually three, neutral eminent experts. The services of eminent international experts are sought through invitations to conduct the peer-review of a submitted manuscript, keeping in view the scope of the manuscript and the expertise of the reviewers. The identity of the reviewers is not disclosed to the authors. The anonymity of reviewers ensures objective and unbiased assessment of the manuscript by the reviewers.
Before sending the manuscripts to reviewers, Bentham OPEN seeks consent from potential reviewers about their availability and willingness to review. Correspondence between the editorial office of the journal and the reviewers is kept confidential. The reviewers are expected to provide their reports in a timely fashion since a prompt review leads to timely publication of a manuscript which is beneficial not only to the authors but to the scientific community as well.
The editorial process and peer-review workflow for each journal are taken care of by a team of Senior Editors, Editorial Board Members (EBMs) and dedicated Journal managers who have the required expertise in their specific fields.
Bentham OPEN Publishers carries out independent review of all articles. The reviewers are selected according to their expertise, from our, regularly updated, referee database.
On the basis of reviewer comments, the Editors may recommend acceptance, revision or rejection of a manuscript.
After review of the manuscript by at least three independent experts, in addition to the views of the Editor, the decision is relayed to the authors, which may be categorized as:
Bentham OPEN requests not to have the manuscripts peer-reviewed by those experts who may have competing interest with the author(s) of a submitted manuscript. It is not possible for Editors to be aware of all competing interests; it is therefore expected that the reviewers would inform the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if they notice any potential competing interest during the course of review of a manuscript. Moreover, the reviewers are expected to inform the Editors or editorial office of the journal if they have a conflict of interest in carrying out the review of a manuscript submitted by any author/contributor of the manuscript.
The authors are usually requested to resubmit the revised paper within 15 days and it will then be returned to the reviewers for further evaluation. The publishers normally allow one round of revision and, in exceptional cases, a second round of revision may be allowed. If further revision is needed, then the manuscript is rejected and the author is requested to resubmit the manuscript for fresh processing.
The final decision regarding acceptance or rejection is that of the Editor-in-Chief, depending on the quality of the revision and his assessment of the quality of the manuscript. In rare cases, manuscripts recommended for publication by the referees may be rejected in the final assessment by the Editor-in-Chief.
The time frame for revision of any article may vary from one to four weeks, depending on the nature of the revision required (minor or major). However, authors who need extra time for revision should consult the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor with valid reasons and the submission date of the revised manuscript may be extended if the request is genuine.
After the successful completion of the review and acceptance of the article, the articles are typeset and proofs are dispatched to authors for any corrections prior to final publication.
Bentham OPEN uses the iThenticate software which detects instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. This software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. If the similarity seems legitimate, the article will be proceeded for further review process; however, in cases of superfluous plagiarism, the authors have to revise the text as per editorial instructions.
Bentham OPEN strictly follows the COPE guidelines to detect plagiarism; for more clear insight, authors may refer to flowcharts provided by COPE by clicking here or by visiting COPE website.
The text of every submitted manuscript is checked by using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but which may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. If the similarity level is significantly high, then the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.
It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.
There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. For instance, a manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15 % similar text taken from a single article; the similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.
We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after a thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore, not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:
Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the journal concerned.
For further details, please visit: https://benthamopen.com/journal/research-misconduct.php?journalID=TOECOLJ.
To ensure the scholarly integrity of every article, Bentham OPEN will publish post-publication notices. The authors of the published articles, or those who have submitted the manuscripts with false information, or fabricated the supporting data or images, will be liable for sanctions, and their papers will be retracted. For further details, please visit complete guidelines at: https://benthamopen.com/fabricating-and-stating-false-information.php
Generally, the editorial decisions are not reverted. However, authors who think that their manuscript was rejected due to a misunderstanding or mistake may seek an explanation for the decision. Appeals must give sound reasoning and compelling evidence against the criticism raised in the rejection letter. A difference of opinion as to the interest, novelty, or suitability of the manuscript for the journal will not be considered as an appeal. The EIC and other relevant editors will consider the appeal and the decision thereafter taken by the journal will be deemed final. Acceptance of the manuscript is not guaranteed even if the journal agrees to reconsider the manuscript, and the reconsideration process may involve previous or new reviewers or editors and substantive revision.
Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer them to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal concerned. Complaints to the Publisher may be emailed to info@benthamopen.net
Bentham OPEN is constantly striving to improve its publication practices. If you are not satisfied with any procedure of the processing of your manuscript, then please let us know at the following email address with full details:
For Assistance please contact: info@benthamopen.net
For complaints please contact: complaint@benthamopen.net
Extend the scope and visibility of your research by creating an animated abstract. Bentham OPEN has collaborated with Focus Medica, one of the world’s largest publishers of expert animated atlases and videos in medicine and science.
An animated abstract will help summarise the essential discoveries/ key findings of your published research or review article. Each professionally produced full-coloured animated abstract in video format (length 3-5 minutes) is accompanied by an English spoken or foreign language commentary. The animated abstract will be published online along with the published article.
The payment for an animated abstract will be US$ 1190 for English language, and US$ 1690 for Foreign language articles. Initially, an advance amount of US$ 700 will be payable to the Publisher to start work on the Animated Abstract, while the balance of US$ 490 (English language) or US$ 990 (Foreign language) will be payable on completion of the Animated Abstract.
Authors will be asked whether they wish to opt-in for this paid animated abstract service, and if not, the article will be published as normal. Animated abstracts are available as open access (free viewing) for maximum visibility and awareness to readers at anytime, anywhere. The animated abstracts are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Antimicrobial resistance represents a significant challenge to future healthcare provision.An acronym ESKAPEE has been derived from the names of the organisms recognised as the major threats although there are a number of other organisms, notably Neisseria gonorrhoeae, that have become equally challenging to treat in the clinic. These pathogens are characterised by the ability to rapidly develop and/or acquire resistance mechanisms in response to exposure to different antimicrobial agents. A key part of the armoury of these pathogens is a series of efflux pumps, which effectively exclude or reduce the intracellular concentration of a large number of antibiotics, making the pathogens significantly more resistant. These efflux pumps are the topic of considerable interest, both from the perspective of basic understanding of efflux pump function, and its role in drug resistance but also as targets for the development of novel adjunct therapies. The necessity to overcome antimicrobial resistance has encouraged investigations into the characterisation of resistance-modifying efflux pump inhibitors to block the mechanisms of drug extrusion, thereby restoring antibacterial susceptibility and returning existing antibiotics into the clinic. A greater understanding of drug recognition and transport by multidrug efflux pumps is needed to develop clinically useful inhibitors, given the breadth of molecules that can be effluxed by these systems. This review discusses different bacterial EPIs originating from both natural source and chemical synthesis and examines the challenges to designing successful EPIs that can be useful against multidrug resistant bacteria.
Bentham OPEN offers waivers and discounts to those corresponding authors who are based in low-income countries*.
The authors who wish to avail this offer should request for a waiver or discount at the time of submission of their manuscripts to Bentham OPEN.
Bentham OPEN offers 50% discount on Open Access fee for manuscripts of the corresponding authors based in countries categorized as low-income economies by World Bank (list given below).
For more information regarding Publication Fee of Bentham OPEN journals, please click here: https://benthamopen.com/publication-fee.php
Bentham OPEN offers ‘Complimentary Membership’ to International R & D organizations, institutes and universities. Bentham OPEN Membership entitles authors from different member institutes to a special discount of 20% on the open access publication fee on their submissions to Bentham OPEN journals. Additionally, input and contributions from associate institutes would also be recognized and a link to their respective website would be displayed on the Bentham OPEN membership page. The member institution’s logo will also be published on the same page.
Bentham OPEN Membership provides the following advantages:
The complimentary membership is valid for a span of one year and upon completion of the prescribed period, it is renewed by mutual interest and agreement.
If you find the above mentioned details relevant, then kindly contact us via e-mail at membership@benthamopen.net or oa@benthamopen.net.
Bentham OPEN is a publishing partner of Kudos. All authors who publish in this journal will receive an invitation to join the Kudos platform, an entirely free service for authors. Kudos enables authors to help broaden their audience and readers, increase their professional profile and reputation, and establish an impact for their publications. The website link is www.growkudos.com.
Kudos provides a free platform to researchers to have their publications accessible, read and cited across multiple networks and channels available to researchers for the dissemination of their work. It takes on average 15 minutes and leads to 23% higher growth in full-text downloads.
Authors are encouraged to explain their work in clear English and to attract researchers of the relevant communities, share a trackable link that you can email to your existing network of contacts, or share on social media and academic websites, and track how well the articles are performing through the summary of views, downloads, citations, and altmetrics on the Kudos dashboard.
Authors may also use the new shareable PDF (S-PDF) service. The S-PDF provides researchers with the means to write and share a high-level overview for each of their publications. Kudos thereby provides researchers, and their publishers and institutions, with a rich understanding of which channels and activities are most effective for broadening the reach and impact of published science.
Bentham OPEN provides excellent professionally printed reprints, each inside a beautiful journal cover, which you can proudly send to colleagues and scientists in your field. These reprints with cover are available at concessionary rates. The minimum limit of reprint order is 25 copies.
If the article was originally printed in color, the reprint will be an exact replication of the original for an additional charge.
Company logos and foreword can be published on the printed reprint cover page in sponsored reprints.
Orders Above 500 reprint copies: A quotation for orders above 500 can be obtained by emailing at reprints@benthamopen.net.
Printed covers are available at extra cost.
Reprints are dispatched to the customers by airmail. Airmail and handling costs will be invoiced additionally with the reprints. Our shipping department requires the name and telephone number of the recipient of the order. These quotes are in US Dollars and are valid for 30 days.
Once confirmed, your order will ship to deliver in 35 business days from the day the proofs, if required, have been approved or from the day of confirmation. Expedited delivery option is also available.
