Cheminformatics and Open Peer Review

Of al the things Open Science that the Journal of Cheminformatics does, Open Peer review is currently not one them. The option has been on our editorial desk where we discussed technical and social aspects ant the outcome was that we are not ready for it yet. The field has a number of journals (alphabetical order, see also doi:10.3390/ijms21155576):

• F1000Research Collection: Chemical Information Science
• Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling
• Journal of Cheminformatics
• Molecular Informatics

Screenshot of the F1000Research CIS page.

The first is not really a journal, but a collection, but I am happy to think of them as an overlay journal, and I'll use F1000Research CIS as name for now.

F1000Research CIS is of interest here, because F1000Research has Open Peer Review by design. Indeed, Professor Bajorath write in his 2015 editorial (doi:10.12688/f1000research.6101.1): "... the Chemical Information Science channel of F1000Research designed to collate high-quality publications and foster a culture of open peer review." Now, having publishing myself in F1000Research a couple of times and have acted as reviewer too, I very much see the appeal of the platform. That they were bought last year by a traditional publisher is something to monitor.

However, F1000Reserach CIS has not attracted many article. Bajorath reviewed the situation in a 2019 editorial (doi:10.12688/f1000research.19764.1) noting 16 papers in the first four year, with a total of 22 today. Honestly, I totally missed the introduction. One possible reason for this, discussed in the editorial, is that "a number of investigators do not feel comfortable with open peer review". That aligns with our analysis for the Journal of Cheminformatics.

I strongly recommend if you article it not fitting the Journal of Cheminformatics because it is not compliant with our Open Science expectations, to check out F1000Research Chemical Information Science: it is a full CC-BY journal (no hybrid), acceptable APC (not sure about their waiver options), rejects the use of the impact factor, and, as discussed, does open peer review.

About Open Peer Review in the Journal of Cheminformatics, we have an open mind. We already allow people to sign their reviews. We welcome all authors and reviewers to keep us informed about their expectations of our journal.