Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Microbes is multidisciplinary international, open access, peer reviewed scientific journal committed to publish original research, critical reviews, and short communications, reporting theoretical, experimental, applied, and descriptive work in all aspects of microbial science.

 

The journal aims to serve the research community by providing a platform for researchers to publish quality research in both fundamental and applied microbiology. The journal considers submissions on microbes infecting or interacting with microbes, plants, animals, and humans covering the following aspects:

  • Agricultural microbiology

  • Beneficial microbes

  • computational, systems, & synthetic microbiology

  • Environmental microbiology

  • Food microbiology

  • Industrial microbiology

  • Medical & pharmaceutical microbiology

  • Microbial physiology & ecology

  • Microbial biochemistry

  • Microbial genetics & genomics

  • Microbial biotechnology

  • veterinary microbiology

 

Section Policies

Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

Peer review policy is devised to ensure the validity, quality and the originality of articles submitted for publication. The said policy aimed to maintain the Journal’s highest integrity by filtering out invalid or poor quality articles in order to support fine quality original publications. The peer-review process is based on trust and active participation of the scientific community where everyone took responsibility to act sensibly and ethically. Journal took an obligation to devise fair and transparent policies for fast track peer-review process.
 

Editorial board members of microbes in connection with Editor-in-Chief guarantee the ethical and honest accountability to support the researchers in publishing their original valuable research work. Flaws in the papers are communicated well and research integrity is maintained by validating the research methodology, data clarity, and final conclusions supported by data presented.


Criticism within the context of peer review is a supportive tool to improve the quality of the paper. Each manuscript submitted to Microbes will be subjected to an initial quality check by the journal’s editorial office before passing it through a peer-review process. Editorial office checks the paper’s quality and ensures that the submitted article falls under the journal’s scope to go through online peer-review process. Journal follows a very vigorous double blind review process in determining which articles are accepted and eventually being published. In order to maintain the highest of standards and transparency, authors are communicated clearly on what grounds editorial decision is made.


Once the review process is complete, the submitted article is passed to the Editor-in-Chief to make the final decision on its acceptance keeping in view the comments and remarks of at least two subject experts. The corresponding author is informed about the editorial decision through e-mail and online tracking system.
 

The revision should also be accompanied by a point-by-point response (Response letter) to referees explaining how the manuscript has been changed and these changes must be clear and highlighted. Constructive review and feed-back from the rewires will help the authors to improve their paper in the best possible way. The revised paper may then be sent back to the original referees or to new referees, at the editor's discretion, if needed.
 

It is mandatory for the corresponding author to communicate in writing if there are any competing or conflicting interests among the authors. This competing interest could be personal, financial, professional, political or religious in its nature.


Authors are encouraged to resubmit rejected articles after addressing all the valid suggestions.

When all editorial issues are resolved, the manuscript is formally accepted for publication. After acceptance, authors are sent proofs of their manuscript but only typo mistakes or errors introduced during production process or that directly compromise the scientific integrity of the paper are permitted. All corrections are approved by the production team. Journal reserves the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures.
 

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

 

Editorial Policy

Microbes is International peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal dedicated to publish high quality reviews, research papers, and short communications in microbiology and its related disciplines and scope of the Journal is not confined to any country or region.


Microbes demands author(s) to strictly follow the ethical standards and any kind of misconduct is treated seriously. Authors are required to submit high quality and original research work that should be clear and understandable. Manuscript submitted to Microbes has not been published or is not under consideration for publication in any other Journal. We also encouraged the author(s) to submit their papers that have been presented in National and International conferences (author’s guideline is mandatory to follow before submission).

 

Corresponding author is responsible to make sure that there is no conflict of interest and all the authors are agreed to publish the paper. Author-dispute related issues will not be entertained after the publication of the research. Corresponding author will also be liable to provide permission letter (if needed) when paper is coming from a particular institute.
 

Microbes does not require authors to assign copyright of their published original research papers to the journal. Authors publishing with Microbes retains the copyright to their work allowing the articles to be re-used and re-distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is correctly cited. Authors do not need prior written permission from Microbes journal to post their own published paper on personal, social or University websites. The responsibility to the contents and its authenticity rests solely with the authors and they will solely be responsible for originality of published work.

 

Microbes support the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing.

 

Articles are published under a CC-BY license (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License). The CC-BY license allows for maximum dissemination and re-use of open access materials and is preferred by many research funding bodies. Under this license, users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit) and remix (adapt) the contribution including for commercial purposes, providing they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor. For any reuse or distribution, users must make clear to others the license terms of this work, preferably using a link to the Creative Commons webpage.

 

Manuscripts submitted for publication in Microbes are peer reviewed by at least two subject reviewers. A decision of the editorial board member on the choice of reviewers is final.

 

Microbes publishes three times a year. However, being an Online Journal, it allows fast track publication of articles of urgency and critical importance to the researchers and community. Such articles of 'Current Interest' and relevant editorials may be published frequently as 'Supplements', based on editorial board decision or on the requests/ suggestions of the readers of the journal.


Microbes shall not take any responsibility for the contents of articles published and all such responsibility shall lie with the author/s. The opinions expressed in the articles are solely of the author/s and Microbes may not agree with such opinions in part or in full.

 

Publication Ethics

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT
Microbes aimed to publish high quality work which is an essential building block in the development of knowledge based network of researchers. It is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher.

Publication decisions
The editor of the Microbes will be responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal will be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. The decision on a paper is made purely on the scientific and technical grounds to maintain the quality of publications and to ensure publication ethics.

Transparency in Conduct
Editors of the Journal put a significant contribution in Peer-review process and they are selected on the basis of their scientific knowledge, expertise in a particular field and reputation. The editor will evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality
The editor and editorial staff of Microbes will be bound to ensure confidentiality. They shall not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. The Editors shall not disclose any content (full or partial) in any media (online or print) before publication or without the prior written consent of the authors.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript will not be used in an editorial board or editor’s own research without the written consent of the author. The Editor must not be involved in such papers which are submitted by colleagues, research group or relatives or in which the editor has a personal interest. All such submitted papers shall pass through a normal peer-review process to make a fair decision without the involvement of relevant Editor.

Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer-review play significant role to ensure publishing of high quality papers with significant addition in existing scientific knowledge. Peer-review assists the editor in making fair editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper as suggested by the potential reviewers.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible due to other responsibilities should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor. Reviewers will only access the manuscript to evaluate in on scientific and technical grounds to ensure the quality of the research. The reviewers shall not disclose any content (full or partial) in any media (online or print) before publication or without the prior written consent of the authors.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively and reviewers shall be bound to follow the standards set by the journal. Personal criticism is inappropriate and reviewers should express their views on scientific and technical grounds along with supporting arguments.  Once the review process is complete, comments on a manuscript shall be conveyed to the editor through the online system of the journal.

Acknowledgement of Sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers shall not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

AUTHOR’S LIABILITIES
Corresponding Author’s Responsibilities
The corresponding author shall be responsible for communicating with the Microbes and for managing communication between co-authors. Before submission, the corresponding author shall ensure that all author’s names are correctly mentioned in the author list, its order has been agreed by all authors, and that all authors are agreed to submit the manuscript. The corresponding author shall be responsible to declare that the work reported in the manuscript is original, free from plagiarism and no author has a conflict of interest. After acceptance of the reported work for publication, the proof will be sent to the corresponding author. Microbes will not necessarily correct errors after publication if they result from errors that were present on a proof that was not shown to coauthors before publication. The corresponding author shall be responsible to ensure the accuracy of all content in the proof, in particular, the typographic errors, names of co-authors, and their current addresses and affiliations. The corresponding author is expected to acknowledge the other’s work (of any individual researcher, company or institution) and must cite it clearly.

Confidential Process
Microbes treat the submitted manuscript and all communication with authors and referees confidentially. Authors are also expected to keep the communication with the journal confidential: correspondence with the journal, referee reports and other confidential material must not be posted on any website (scientific or social) or otherwise publicized without prior permission from the editorial office, regardless of whether or not the submission is eventually published.

Reporting Standards
Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient scientific details and references to permit other researchers to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication
An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in other journals than Microbes. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. The author shall declare that the manuscript is not submitted or under consideration in any other journal.

Acknowledgement of Sources
Proper acknowledgement of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.
The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects
If the research work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s liability to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Referee suggestions
Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent referees when they submit their manuscript, but these suggestions may not be used by the editorial office. Authors may also request that the Microbes excludes a few (usually not more than two) individuals or laboratories. The editorial office sympathetically considers such exclusion requests and usually honours them, but the decision of the Editorial Board Member on the choice of referees is final.