Let’s talk about money and open access

Short 2022 report about Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale:

• Submitted papers: 508
• Accepted papers: 137
• Rejection rate: 73% (94% in the last three months!)

We are grateful for the help of editors, members of the editorial boards, reviewers and, obviously, authors: it is only thanks to this wonderful community that it was possible for Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale to improve year after year its quality and its usefulness for our community. 

This amazing result was possible only to their help and … to money! Money is not for salaries (nobody is paid in our journal… we are all volunteers!) but it is necessary for the publication of the papers.

According to Google, “Diamond Open Access refers to a scholarly publication model in which journals and platforms do not charge fees to either authors or readers. Diamond Open Access journals are community-driven, academic-led, and academic-owned publishing initiatives”.

Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale is a “diamond” open access journal. 

But the publication of an OA paper has a cost … considering the cost of Journal website maintenance, templates and plug-ins, DOIs, Crossref, Plagiarism check software, Reviewers acknowledgment service, Flipping book software and miscellanea, the final amount is about 12000 euros per year. 

For the Gruppo Italiano Frattura (IGF, the journal publisher) the only way to publish the journal is to find about 12000 euros per year. The “business model” adopted by IGF is really simple:

• IGF organizes conferences (with really low fees);
• The money collected with the fees is completely used for the conferences organization and for the journal.

For this reason, if you love Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale and the possibility it offers to our community to publish papers with a good quality standard (without APC!), join the events organized by IGF!

The next event organized by IGF is IGF27, the 27th International Conference on Fracture and Structural Integrity (February 22-24, 2023)

The registration and abstract submission deadline is not far! Join us and enjoy the conference and the journal! Ciao

Visual Abstracts: Report and suggestions

 

Since July 2018 (issue 45), we “forced” all the authors to submit a Visual Abstract with the paper to be published in Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale. We opened a YouTube channel dedicated to the FIS Visual Abstracts and we started publishing the Visual Abstracts … we think that after four years we have to check if it was a good idea and if this channel is useful for the authors to spread their own papers and if this channel is appreciated by the readers.

But first of all… what is a Visual Abstract (VA)? There is not a “standard” definition! For Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, a VA is short length presentation (2 minutes max) with the “core” of the paper. Longer VA are accepted, but we warmly advice all our authors to submit short VA, as the readers strongly appreciate them. We offer a tutorial to help the authors to prepare these visual abstracts: LINK.

At the moment, we have 51488 visualizations with 534 subscribers. The result is really interesting and it confirms the channel usefulness… but let’s check some diagrams.

Visualizations vs time

Viewers age

Traffic sources

Considering the diagrams above, the main comments are:

• The channel visibility and usefulness is more and more increasing: the visualization vs time diagram clearly shows this trend.
• VAs usefulness is confirmed, especially with younger researchers (more than 88% of our viewers is younger than 34!);
• The VA channel usefulness is confirmed by the traffic sources: only about 20%  of the views are due to links with the journal website or to links in playlist. About 80% of the views are due to searches that are “external” or directly on YouTube!

But … we want more! 

Please, post your comments and your suggestions… they will be warmly appreciated!

How to publish in FIS - Suggestions

Dear friends,

the FIS rejections rate is higher than 90%. It is evident that some suggestions are necessary! Here you can find a short list:

- prepare always the paper using the journal template following the authors' guidelines. This is mandatory. In particular, please, prepare the Refs. using the journal style.

- do not submit a paper that is not focused on one of the journal topics. Please, consider that the title of the journal is "Fracture and Structural Integrity". It means that either "fracture" or "structural integrity" must be evident in the paper! As a consequence, we will reject at the desk:

• Papers with only some mechanical tests results, without any discussion about the damaging mechanisms;
• Papers with only some numerical results, without any validation;
• Papers with some mechanical tests results, but with a focus that is clearly far from the journal's main topics.

- we check the plagiarism/self-plagiarism using iThenticate. There is not a defined threshold, as we check also the "quality" of the plagiarism/self-plagiarism. It means that a paper with a plagiarism/self-plagiarism score that is quite low (e.g., 20%), but that is due to a "copy and paste" of a paragraph, is rejected. In addition, we reject also papers with figures that are not original (we can accepte them only if the ref is clearly shown in the caption and a written permission is submitted to the journal).

- suggest the reviewers, but, please, avoid reviewers from your own country. They will not be accepted.

- after a review round, please, send the new version within one month (with all the requested files. After 30 days from the editor decision, the paper will be considered as withdrawn.

- after being accepted, the author receive the proofs. Please, send the proofs acceptance (or amendments) as soon as possible with the Visual Abstract;

- Visual Abstract is a short video presentation with the "core" of the paper: 2 minutes is the maximum suggested lenght. Longer videos are accepted, but we warmly advice to respect the maximum lenght (readers appreciate short videopresentations!).

Last but not least... the journal is a "Diamond" open access journal. No fees for the readers. No APC for the authors. Nobody is authorized to ask for money to publish a paper in Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale. In case of problems, send an email to gruppofrattura@gmail.com.

Please, share your opinions/suggestions!

Article Review Acknowledgement - NEW

​Dear friends,

we wish to thank all our reviewers for their help. Their crucial activity is already acknowledged with  "Clarivate" (formerly Publons) and "Reviewer Credits" (you find the links at the end of the reviewing process).

Starting from December 2022, we offer our reviewers the further possibility to obtain an immediate reviewer certificate and 10 euros of discount for the fees of the events that will be organized by IGF in 2023 (discounts are cumulable and can be used only for one event): LINK.

This is only a small reward to confirm our appreciation for the time and effort  spent by the reviewers.

By the way, don't forget the next IGF event:

IGF27, the 27th International Conference on Fracture and Structural Integrity

(February 22-24, 2023)

The event will be held at the Engineering Faculty of Rome "Sapienza", but remote participation will be also allowed (all the remote participants will be allowed to participate to all the sessions and discussion).

Please, don't forget that IGF conferences allow to Frattura ed integrità Strutturale to be a "diamond" open access journal, with no fees to either readers or authors... so... join us in Rome (or in remote!).

Please, share with us your comments and suggestions!