Announcements

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

On 9 February 2023, Clarivate, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics, added the Preprint Citation Index to the Web of Science platform, streamlining the research process by allowing researchers to locate and link to preprints alongside other trusted content in the database.

The Preprint Citation Index will act as a bridge to connect cutting-edge preprints with peer-reviewed journal articles published within the Web of Science Core Collection. Alerts can be easily set to monitor new research across several repositories and authors will also be able to include preprints on their Web of Science Research Profile to more accurately display their various research outputs.

As of its launch, the Preprint Citation Index will provide nearly two million preprints from various repositories, including MDPI’s own Preprints.org.

MDPI's Preprints Platform – Preprints.org

To advance Open Science and the fast dissemination of research, MDPI offers researchers a free multidisciplinary preprint platform. Preprints.org accepts submissions from all research areas and offers authors high visibility, permanent archiving, article-level Metrics and immediately citable content by assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all preprints.

During submission to any MDPI journal, authors have the option to share their research as a preprint. After an initial screening, the manuscript is available online in 48 hours or less. Once online, preprints can be downloaded, shared, commented on, and cited, providing authors maximum visibility.

We invite you to join the ranks of the over 100k researchers using Preprints.org and share your research.

For more information, please visit Preprints.org.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new initiative—the MDPI Special Issue Mentor Program.

This program will enable early career researchers (who must hold a Ph.D. in a related field) to experience editing a Special Issue in MDPI journals, under the mentorship of our experienced Editorial Board Members or other experienced scientists. The mentor program will provide an excellent opportunity for early career scientists to gain editorial experience, and to cultivate their ability to edit scientific research.

The mentee’s responsibilities include:

• Proposing a Special Issue title and assisting the mentor in preparing a summary (around 200–400 words) and 3–10 keywords describing the background, importance, and goal of the Issue;
• Writing a brief promotion plan for the Special Issue;
• Preparing a list of scholars who may be interested in the Issue and personally e-mailing invitations on behalf of Guest Editors;
• Writing an editorial for the online Special Issue together with the mentor.

The mentor’s responsibilities include:

• Conducting a final check before the Special Issue is published online;
• Performing editorial control of the Special Issue and quality control of the publications, both of which must be carried out in a timely manner;
• Providing suggestions to younger scholars if they have any doubts or concerns regarding submissions;
• Organizing video calls with young scholars and the Editorial Office regularly to discuss problems and improvement suggestions for the Special Issue;
• Making and submitting decisions regarding submissions with the assistance of mentees.

Certificates and awards:
After the Special Issue closes, the Editorial Office will provide official certificates for all the mentors and early career researchers.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your Special Issue proposal to the Editorial Office of a journal you choose, and we will discuss the process (i.e., mentor collaboration, Special Issue topic feasibility analysis, etc.) in further detail. The full list of MDPI journals is as follows: https://www.mdpi.com/about/journals.

In addition to the new Special Issue Mentor Program, we will continue to welcome all Special Issue proposals focusing on hot research topics.

MDPI has just become the first open access (OA) publisher to reach the milestone of one million articles published. That is one million articles freely available to all, to circulate and build upon! We are proud to share this special moment with the global scientific community.

This landmark has been reached thanks to the immeasurable support of more than 600,000 expert reviewers, 66,000 editorial board members and 6700 hard-working colleagues across MDPI’s global offices.

Within more than 25 years of publishing, our journals received 2.1 million manuscripts and generated 4.6 million peer review reports to get to one million papers published.

Reaching the milestone of one million articles published reinforces our mission to remove any existing barriers and to make scientific research accessible to all. Since its inception, MDPI’s goal has been to create reliable processes to make science open. This is a path towards facilitating the dissemination of novel insights in scientific communities.

Regular feedback from authors and reviewers shows that our service is greatly appreciated and needed. At the same time, the feedback helps us identify areas for further improvement.

As it stands, a significant share of published research findings remain closed access. More than half of the content published with the most well-known legacy publishers stays behind a paywall, and that is not including articles published in hybrid OA journals, or made available months or years after publication.

A new policy announced by the US administration in August 2022 requires that, as of January 2026, all US federally funded research be made freely and immediately available after publication. While the new policy does not mandate articles be published under an open access license, it is aligned with the open access movement in removing all barriers to research. Similarly, some of the most advanced research institutions in the world intend to have all funded research articles published in open access by 2025.

MDPI is proud to be the leading agent of the transition to open access.

"Thanks a Million" to all the contributors!

We are pleased to announce that the website of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation has been revamped! For the past couple of months, our UX UI team and front-end developers have been working hard to launch the website in time for the opening of the Sustainability Awards nominations.

The website is not the only thing that has had a remodeling. Indeed, the format of the Emerging Sustainability Leader Award (ESLA) has been updated. ESLA is now a competition open to individual researchers or start-ups founded by researchers under the age of 35. Nominee applications will go through 2 rounds of selection until the final 3 are decided. The finalists will then be invited to give pitch presentations during the Award Ceremony to win either first place (10,000 USD) or runner-up (2 x 5000 USD).

The World Sustainability Award, on the other hand, remains the same: a total prize money of 100,000 USD is up for grabs by senior individual researchers or groups of researchers from the international research community.

Nominations for both the World Sustainability Award and the Emerging Sustainability Leader award are now open! Check out our new website for more information on how to nominate.

Peer Review Week began 19 September 2022 under the theme of “Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research”. Through various blog articles, podcast, and webinar, we discussed this crucial subject throughout the week, celebrating the essential role peer review plays in maintaining research quality.

To begin, we held a Webinar on the topic. Professor Peter W. Choate and Dr. Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi joined Dr. Ioana Craciun, one of MDPI’s scientific officers, for an in-depth discussion.

We invite you to view the event recording:

During the week, the MDPI Blog in a series articles highlighted how good Peer Review safeguards research integrity. The following topics were covered:

• Peer Review Week 2022
• Research Integrity
• What We’ve Learned About Peer Review Reports
• 4 Steps to the Perfect Peer Review Report
• How to Write the Perfect Peer Review Report: An Interview
• Inviting Great Peer Reviewers

In a new edition of Insight Faster, an MDPI podcast, we were delighted to talk to the co-chairs of the Peer Review Week committee, Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement for CACTUS) and Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) to get their take on this year’s event and its related topics.

You can find the Podcast here.

We hope you enjoy the contents!

The 2021 citation metrics have been released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and we’re pleased to announce the following results for MDPI journals:

For more information on Impact Factors and what it means to index academic journals, please visit our related blog posts.

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2022

Source: 2021 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ^TM (Clarivate, 2022)

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (JTAER, ISSN 0718-1876) is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal that provides an agile and flexible channel of communication for researchers, academicians, and other professionals, enabling new ideas and emerging technologies concerned with electronic commerce to be shared and debated. JTAER is indexed in Scopus, WoS (SSCI), and several other databases.

In 2021, JTAER achieved several milestones, with support from the Editor-in-Chief Dr. Eduardo Álvarez-Miranda, the Section Editors-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Mirjana Pejic Bach, Prof. Dr. Inma Rodríguez-Ardura, Dr. Andreja Pucihar, Dr. Gisela Ammetller, Dr. María Teresa Ballestar, Dr. Jani Merikivi, Dr. Eusebio Scornavacca, and Dr. Stefano Za, and the rest of the Editorial Board Members. We would also like to thank all the authors, reviewers, and external editors for their continuous support and input.

Two Closed Special Issues:
1. “The Effects of Social Media Marketing on Online Consumer Behavior in Digital Era”
Edited by: Dr. Maria Sicilia

2. “Technological Entrepreneurship, Internationalization of High-Tech Companies, and International e-Business”
Edited by: Prof. Dr. Krzysztof Wach and Prof. Dr. Agnieszka Głodowska

Hot Papers:
1. “Factors Determining the Behavioral Intention of Using Food Delivery Apps during COVID-19 Pandemics”
Chaiyawit Muangmee et al.
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021, 16(5), 1297-1310; 10.3390/jtaer16050073
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/5/73

2. “Social Media Activities and Its Influence on Customer-Brand Relationship: An Empirical Study of Apparel Retailers’ Activity in India”
Sukanya Sharma et al.
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021, 16(4), 602-617; 10.3390/jtaer16040036
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/4/36

3. “The Relationship between CSR Communication on Social Media, Purchase Intention, and E-WOM in the Banking Sector of an Emerging Economy”
Guping Cheng et al.
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021, 16(4), 1025-1041; 10.3390/jtaer16040058
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/4/58

4. “Determinants of the Intention to Adopt Mobile Augmented Reality Apps in Shopping Malls among University Students”
Vaggelis Saprikis et al.
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021, 16(3), 491-512; 10.3390/jtaer16030030
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/3/30

5. “The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Student’s E-Learning Experience in Jordan”
Anas Ratib Alsoud et al.
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021, 16(5), 1404-1414; 10.3390/jtaer16050079
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/5/79

6. “What Makes an Online Review More Helpful: An Interpretation Framework Using XGBoost and SHAP Values”
Yuan Meng et al.
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021, 16(3), 466-490; 10.3390/jtaer16030029
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/3/29

7. “Changes in Consumption Patterns and Tourist Promotion after the COVID-19 Pandemic”
Diego R. Toubes et al.
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021, 16(5), 1332-1352; 10.3390/jtaer16050075
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/5/75

8. “How Social Ties Influence Customers’ Involvement and Online Purchase Intentions”
Liang Ma et al.
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res. 2021, 16(3), 395-408; 10.3390/jtaer16030025
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/0718-1876/16/3/25

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

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