Announcements

At MDPI, we strive to make your online publication process seamless and efficient. To achieve this, our team is continuously developing tools and features to make the user experience useful and convenient.

As the number of academic papers continues to grow, so does the need to analyze and work with them on a large scale. This prompted us to design a new feature aimed at helping researchers find journals that are relevant to their publication by matching their abstract topic. In this regard, we designed a similarity model that automatically identifies the most suitable academic journals for your paper.

We are pleased to introduce Journal Selector, a new feature that measures similarity in academic contexts. By simply entering the title and/or abstract into our Journal Selector, the author will see a list of the most related scientific journals published by MDPI. This method helps authors select the correct journals for their papers, highlighting the time of publication and citability.

The methodology is known as representation learning, where words are represented as vectors in hyperspace. Representation helps us differentiate between different concepts within articles, and in turn, helps us identify similarities between them.

We used an advanced machine learning model to better capture the semantic meanings of words. This helps the algorithm make better predictions by leveraging scientific text representation. In turn, this ensures high precision, helping authors decide which journal they should submit their paper to.

The goal is to support authors to publish their work in the most suitable journal for their research, as fast as possible, accelerating their career progress.

Contact: Andrea Perlato, Head of Data Analytics, MDPI (email)

John J. Kennelly, Professor Emeritus of University of Alberta, Canada, accepted our interview recently. The interview was conducted by Prof. Dr. Burim Ametaj, Editor-in-Chief of journal Dairy. The purpose of this interview was to honor and learn from distinguished scientists in the area of Dairy Science.

Prof. Dr. John J. Kennelly obtained his BAgrSc (First Class Hons) from University College Dublin in 1976 and his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in 1980. His career at the University of Alberta spanned a period of 40 years, including seven years as the Chair of the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Sciences and 10 years as the Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences (ALES). His research has focused on the nutrition and lactation physiology of dairy cattle. His publications include over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles as well as numerous book chapters, conference proceedings and extension articles.

The journal Dairy (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/dairy) has 81 prominent editorial board members (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/dairy/editors) from all over the world. It covers all areas of dairy science. Although the journal Dairy is a new journal, it is growing rapidly and has published multiple articles from renowned researchers from different countries.

Work–Life Balance and Main Fields of Interest

1. How did you get involved in dairy science?

I grew up in Ireland on a dairy farm. I was the second eldest of a family of eleven and I ended up dropping out of school at the age of 12 as my father needed help on the farm. I worked full time on the home farm until I was 21. I then took up a job on a dairy farm outside Cork City in Ireland. This allowed me to go to night school to complete my high school credits over two winters. I was admitted to the Science program at University College Cork in 1972, even though I was missing the required physics and chemistry courses. This requirement was waived on the basis that I was a mature student, however, it made for a challenging first year of university as I struggled to get up to speed on chemistry and physics. After spending the first two years at University College Cork, I then transferred to University College Dublin for the final two years as it had the only BSc agriculture program in Ireland. I graduated in 1976 with a BSc (Agr), first class honors.

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to get a job in my field upon graduation, so I decided to pursue graduate work in Canada where I obtained a scholarship from the University of Alberta. I arrived in Edmonton on January 1^st 1977 on a greyhound bus from Vancouver, where I had spent Christmas. It was −37 °C with howling winds and snow on my arrival. I decided then and there that I would complete my Ph.D. as quickly as possible and get out of Edmonton as I could not understand anyone living in those extreme weather conditions.

I completed my Ph.D. (Animal Nutrition) at the UofA in 1980. The Dairy Science Professor (Ross Grieve) in the Department of Animal Science retired that year, so I applied for his job. I did not really expect to get the job as my Ph.D. work was related to fibre utilization (microbial fermentation) in the hind gut of pigs. I was surprised to find that I was offered the job, I guess the university was not so picky in those days. I accepted the job fully expecting that I would only stay a few years and return to the balmier weather in Ireland.

2. What are some of the most exciting aspects of your work in dairy science?

I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to start my academic career at the University of Alberta where senior faculty and staff were supportive of young faculty members like myself. It was also a time when there was superb funding for animal science research, so that within a couple of years we had an excellent group of graduate students, post docs and technicians to support our teaching, research and outreach programs. Perhaps the most exciting part of the research is that I was able to work with some wonderful people who helped build an integrated research program that spanned nutrition, ruminal fermentation and lactation physiology.

3. What key dairy initiatives had you pursued at your faculty?

My initial research focused on dairy cattle nutrition with an emphasis on enhancing the utilization of forages, grains and oilseeds grown in Alberta. Over the years, this research broadened to include ruminal digestion and the impacts of the end products of ruminal digestion on milk composition with particular emphasis on the fatty acid composition of milk. Research highlighting the important role that fatty acids, such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), play in human health inspired our research on the role of nutrition in enhancing these fatty acids in milk. 

4. What is happening in your country in terms of dairy science?

Canadian dairy scientists have access to some of the best equipped dairy facilities in the world that are located across the university sector as well as at Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. The significant investment in infrastructure over the past decade has provided a platform for dairy scientist that has enabled them to be at the forefront of many innovations in dairy science. Canada also has had a long history of working closely with dairy producers, and other dairy stakeholders. This has helped ensure that research innovations are effectively transferred to the end user. With many institutions facing substantial budget cuts, it will be difficult for Canada to maintain its leadership position in the years ahead.

5. How do you see your work in dairy being applied today or in the future?

Research is always a work in progress where scientists build on the work of their predecessors. Thus, other scientists have built on our work as the understanding of animal biology has evolved. One of the areas that I have always been interested in has been helping to ensure that the knowledge gained through research is transferred to dairy producers, and others within the industry, without undue delay so that the efficiency, sustainability and profitability of this important sector is enhanced. Thus, in 1982, I took the initiative to set up the Western Canadian Dairy Seminar (WCDS) and I served as Program Director for the first 26 years of the conference. The WCDS will celebrate its 40^th anniversary in 2022 and it is recognized as one of the premier dairy conferences in the world. Every year the seminar attracts over 700 people from all sectors of the dairy industry to Red Deer, Alberta, where the foremost experts from around the world present the latest information on all things dairy. I believe that the WCDS has been a major contributor to ensuring that Alberta, and indeed Canada, is at the leading edge of innovation in the dairy sector.

6. As you see it, what are dairy science’s greatest strengths?

Perhaps, the greatest strength of dairy science is that milk is such a fundamental product from a human health perspective. For thousands of years, milk has contributed nutrients to sustain human life and this continues today with the vast array of dairy products consumed by billions of people on a daily basis. One of the most fascinating aspects of dairy science is that it encompasses such a broad spectrum of research that includes production efficiency, metabolism, lactation physiology, food science as well as the role of milk and milk components in human nutrition and health. As our understanding of the link between nutrition and health has grown, so also has the key role that dairy products can play as part of a healthy diet.

7. What do you see as the greatest barriers for dairy research?

The costs associated with dairy cattle research tend to be higher than most other animal science research. This can be attributed to the high cost of housing for dairy cattle as well as to the long generation interval that often requires multi-year studies. As government funding for universities has declined, universities have difficulty supporting the costs associated with dairy research facilities. Working collaboratively with dairy producers to access their facilities is an option that has been successfully used by many scientists. However, there are significant limitations with respect to the type of research that can be conducted on commercial farms. Thus, in the absence of well equipped dairy facilities, it will be challenging to attract the next generation of dairy scientists.

8. What improvements, technological or otherwise, need to take place for dairy science to push it to the next level?

In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on the mechanisms underlying feed utilization, milk synthesis and overall efficiency and health of dairy cattle. Whether it is an understanding of the genetic basis for feed efficiency, milk yield, or milk composition, an understanding of the underlying mechanisms is the key to helping ensure the long-term sustainability and profitability of this sector. Over the past 30 years, there have been tremendous advances in terms of milk yield, however, this has come at a price in terms of animal health as reflected in indicators such as reproductive efficiency and incidence of metabolic diseases. Future productivity advances will require that we successfully address the interaction between increased milk yield, reproductive efficiency and animal health.

9. How does the future look in terms of funding for dairy science?

Securing appropriate funding has often been a challenge for dairy scientists. Dairy research is quite expensive, especially at the production level, due to the cost of maintaining a dairy research herd and the long generation interval that can require multiple years to complete experiments. Thus, securing adequate research funding continues to be a challenge for many dairy scientists. The direct involvement of dairy producers in funding research has really helped as this funding can also leverage other sources of funding.

10. Do you have any other comments that you wish to share about dairy science?

Milk is a highly nutritious food that has helped sustain humankind for thousands of years. Understanding the process by which the cow converts feed into a highly nutritious product is a fascinating journey that spans the complexity of ruminal digestion, nutrient transport and lactation physiology. Intensive genetic selection has resulted in cows that have an extraordinary ability to sustain high levels of milk yield. However, this has often come at a price in terms of reproductive fitness and overall animal health. This area certainly warrants greater research emphasis in the future.

11. What do you think are the most important characteristics of talented researchers? Do you have any suggestions to share with the young researchers?

I believe the most important characteristic of scientists is curiosity and a passion for their particular area of research. Understanding the underlying biology of ruminal digestion, lactation physiology, milk synthesis and its influence on animal health is certainly an exciting area that is ripe for new discoveries in the years and decades ahead. 

12. Do you have any suggestions on the new journal “Dairy”?

Congratulations on launching a new Dairy journal. The future success of the Dairy journal will depend on the scientific credibility of the journal in terms of the rigor of its review process as well as the timeliness and efficiency of its publication process. It certainly looks like the journal is off to a good start and I wish you all the best in your role of communicating the latest advances in dairy science.

13. How do you see the future development of Open Access in academic publishing?

I very much welcome the development of Open Access journals as it provides greater choice for scientists.

MDPI is proud to adopt the principles of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) to support building equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility in scholarly communications.

The C4DISC represents organizations and individuals working in scholarly communications and is focused on addressing issues of diversity and inclusion within the publishing industry.

MDPI’s Managing Editors encourage the Editors-in-Chief and Associate Editors to appoint diverse expert Editorial Boards. This is also reflective in our multi-national and inclusive workplace. We are proud to create equal opportunities without regard to gender, ethnicity, geographic location, sexual orientation, age, disability, political beliefs, religion, or socio-economic status. There is no place for discrimination in our workplace and editors of MDPI journals are to uphold these principles in high regard.

Representatives from C4DISC meet monthly, and have started to implement initiatives to shed light and improve on the lack of diversity in scholarly communications. Some of the initiatives include developing a joint statement of principles; conducting market research; providing training resources, best practices, toolkits, and documentation for our collective memberships; and establishing outreach programs, curricula, events, and publications.

The Coalition is committed to:

• eliminating barriers to participation, extending equitable opportunities across all stakeholders, and ensuring that our practices and policies promote equitable treatment and do not allow, condone, or result in discrimination;
• creating and maintaining an environment that respects diverse traditions, heritages, and experiences;
• promoting diversity in all staff, volunteers, and audiences, including full participation in programs, policy formulation, and decision-making;
• raising awareness about career opportunities in our industries to groups who are currently underrepresented in the workforce;
• supporting our members in achieving diversity and inclusion within their organizations.

At MDPI we have slightly revised the layout for articles to be published in the 2021 Volume, starting at the end of December 2020. As of today, the article templates available for download on ‘Instructions for Authors’ pages have been updated.

The most noticeable change can be found on the first page of the article, where a left-hand column has been created to include the following front matter elements: (i) the recommended citation style for the article, (ii) the publishing history, (iii) as well as the Creative Commons Attribution license used (iv) a standard note regarding affiliations. At the same time, the extra spacing on the left means the authors’ affiliations are now more clearly set apart than before. Other front matter key elements such as journal logo, article type, article title, authors, abstract and keywords remain unchanged.

The blank column on the left runs through all pages in an article; as a result, the main text is slightly more condensed, which improve reader friendliness for smaller screens. Small figures/tables are aligned on the left with standard indenture, while large figures/tables are centered and covering the full width of the page. The revised layout was applied in the article pictured below, to serve as an example:

1) Information is displayed in the left information bar.

2) In the main text, there is a blank column on the left.

3) Small tables/figures are aligned on the left, large tables/figures are centered.

We are pleased to acknowledge that many academic editors who have made an impact on MDPI journals as editorial board members, editors-in-chief, or section editors, are recognized as 2020 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate.

Highly Cited Researchers highlights the top 1% of researchers, by citations, in one or more of the 22 fields used in Clarivate Analytics Essential Science Indicators. We offer our congratulations to 279 academic editors of MDPI journals who were recognized as the most influential scholars in their fields in 2020.

The full list of 2020 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed on https://recognition.webofsciencegroup.com/awards/highly-cited/2020/

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.

We are delighted to announce the establishment of our Open Access agreement with Jisc Collections, which will allow UK institutions to benefit from access to article processing charge (APC) discounts and streamlined payment workflows.

All institutions participating in the agreement will also gain access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information for easy identification and additional transparency.

Eligible authors affiliated with the participating institutions are prompted to choose the corresponding Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via our online submission system.

About Jisc

Jisc's vision is for the UK to be the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world. At its heart is the super-fast national research and education network, Janet, with built-in cyber security protection.  Jisc also provides technology solutions for its members (colleges, universities and research centres) and customers (public sector bodies), helps members save time and money by negotiating sector-wide deals and provides advice and practical assistance on digital technology. Jisc is funded by the UK higher and further education and research funding bodies and member institutions.

For more information, contact helen.dobson@jisc.ac.uk.

About MDPI

MDPI is a publisher of fully peer-reviewed, Open Access journals with a focus on thorough and rapid editorial processing. Its aim is to ensure that high-quality research is verified and made available to the research community as quickly as possible. MDPI stands at the forefront of the Open Access movement, having launched its first online journal Molecules in 1996. Today, MDPI is a leader in Open Access publishing with over 250 journals across all research disciplines, and all content published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

For any questions about this agreement, please contact the MDPI IOAP team at ioap@mdpi.com.

Since 1996, MDPI has been committed to supporting the research community by providing the latest research freely available and making relevant and useful research available as quickly as possible. The world is current experiencing a pandemic of COVID-19, and researchers are working extremely hard to understand it and find a cure.

The values MDPI holds strongly are particularly important at the moment, and we will continue to publish relevant, peer-reviewed research as quickly as possible in open access format. This means that it will immediately be available for researchers, health professionals, and the general public to read, distribute, and reuse. We believe that scientific advancements will be crucial to overcoming this pandemic, and will do everything we can to support researchers working looking for solutions.

COVID-19 Academic Resources Center contains a variety of information related to COVID-19 available from MDPI, including journal articles, special issues, and preprints, among others.

For more information, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/covid-19

As a leading Open Access publisher, MDPI is committed to fostering open scientific exchange in all forms across all disciplines. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many researchers have to stay at home and many academic conferences have been cancelled or postponed. In light of these changes, MDPI has adopted numerous initiatives that may help accelerate scientific exchange and provide support to the academics during this period.

Scholarly Community—Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia is an online reference created and curated by active scholars. It aims to highlight the latest research results as well as providing benchmark information for researchers and the general public interested in accurate and advanced knowledge on specific topics.

Comprehensive and Free Literature Database—Scilit

Scilit is a comprehensive, free database for scientists that uses a new method to collate data and index scientific material. Our crawlers extract the latest data from CrossRef and PubMed on a daily basis. This means that newly published articles are immediately added to Scilit.

Display Academic Achievements—SciProfiles

SciProfiles is an innovative social network for researchers and scholars that is developed by MDPI. In line with our broad mission, the purpose of SciProfiles is to accelerate discovery and innovation by facilitating immediate access to research results and providing opportunities for academic networking.

Organize and Participate in Conferences Online—Sciforum

Sciforum is an event planning platform that supports open science by offering the opportunity to host and participate in academic conferences. It provides an environment for scholarly exchange, discussion of topics of current interest, building of networks, and establishing collaborations.

Post Early Versions of Research Outputs—Preprints

Preprints is a platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs permanently available and citable. We post original research articles and comprehensive reviews, and papers can be updated by authors at any time. Content on Preprints is not peer-reviewed, and feedback can be received from readers.

***

MDPI remains committed to open science and open data and has signed a statement, along with more than thirty scholarly publishers, showing our intention to facilitate sharing of new research findings as early on as possible. The initiative sees publishers collectively removing barriers to new research, in the face of a global healthcare crisis.

The world is currently suffering from a global pandemic of the corona virus COVID-19. MDPI expresses its sympathies for all of those affected by the virus and stands in solidarity with medical staff and researchers treating patients and searching for scientific solutions.

MDPI has previously published papers covering corona viruses in addition to new papers on the current outbreak, see all papers here. In particular, Viruses has published a number of Special Issues and papers on the topic (see here, here, and here) as well as a forthcoming Special Issue.

Alongside journal articles, MDPI has been a strong supporter of preprints, which are increasingly being used to rapidly disseminate the latest research, and we run the preprint server Preprints.org. Our database of research articles, Scilit, is free to use and covers all publishers including preprint servers. New papers are often in search results within hours of publication and users can set up alerts for new papers.

Our main priority during this period has been the health and safety of staff, and we continue to allow staff to work at home and closely monitor the situation in all locations in which we work. Despite the restrictions, we continue to provide a full publication service and, by close collaboration with our editorial boards and making use our in-house teams, ensure that there are no unnecessary delays in publishing vital research. Fast and open publication has always been at the core of MDPI values and is now more important than ever.

We hope that a solution to the current situation will emerge soon. In the meantime, we will do our best to continue communicating vital research in all fields.

The advantages of the open access model of scientific publishing are being increasingly recognized in the scientific community. It allows new scientific evidence to be accessed from the moment of publication for free by anyone around the globe, boosting the impact of new research. In response, many funders, libraries and universities have been adopting new principles to accelerate the transition to open access.

Recently, “transformative agreements” have been negotiated between traditional publishers and various institutions. While increasing the number of open access papers, these agreements lack binding commitments to a full transition to open access, their conditions vary across different regions, and access is still limited for many users.

MDPI is a co-signatory of the recent position statement raising concerns about potential downsides of transformative agreements and how they may delay a full transition to open access. The statement highlights that these models “risk perpetuating current limitations on access, transparency and market competitiveness, while simultaneously facilitating excessive charges on the public purse”.

As a pioneering open access journal publisher, MDPI is the first to promote the importance of science being made available to everyone. Our peer-reviewed journals, covering diverse academic disciplines, are fully accessible to the public free of charge under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). This is why, along with other open access publishers, MDPI is a proud signatory of the position paper and is committed to contributing to the replacement of weak transitional agreements with “agreements with publishers that are already fully committed to open science and who offer full, immediate and transparent Open Access”.

Read the position paper here