What is JMIRx? – JMIR Publications

Presentation from the Peer-Review Congress in Chicago, Sept 8, 2022 "Early Experiences of the Preprint Overlay Journal JMIRx" by Gunther Eysenbach (Abstract)

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JMIRx (jmirx.org) is a journal series founded in 2019 and new type of journal, which we call "superjournals" [1]. Superjournals, as we define them, sit on top of preprint servers and organize peer-reviews and also curate (edit, copyedit, publish) the version of record, i.e. the final accepted version.

This workflow is sometimes referred to as the PRC model, but there are substantial differences across publishers in how this is implemented. For example, the PRC model has also been adopted by eLife, but the JMIRx model differs in important ways, most significant of which is that our editors provide a binary accept/reject decision.

The first superjournal was JMIRx Med, launched in 2020, which has since published preprint peer-reviews, author responses, and accepted/published papers (they can be found at http://xmed.jmir.org). Our vision was to create a fully indexed journal series that can be used as a formal, indexed outlet for community-reviewed preprints.

In March 2022, JMIRx Med was accepted as the first overlay journal indexed in PubMed Central/PubMed.

In 2023, we launched JMIRx Bio (editorial board members wanted).

Background

A Superjournal, as defined by Eysenbach [1], is a type of "overlay" journal, which is sitting on top of preprint servers and offers peer-review and copyediting/archiving/indexing, thus does everything a "normal" journal does, except that authors no longer have to submit their manuscript to a journal - instead, our community reviewers, acquisition and review editors find the papers they want to publish and extend conditional offers of publication to interesting articles published in Preprint servers, as well as soliciting reviews and commentaries. In addition to the "editorial prospecting" workflow, authors can also self-nominate their existing preprints for publication (which is the equivalent to a traditional journal submission), using a submission form that essentially only points to the preprint. Peer-review communities are alerted of preprints in their area of interest, and provide peer-review (see below for the different innovative models we are supporting). If reviewers ask for revisions, these revisions are also uploaded to the Preprint server.

We see this as the future of publishing, as predicted 20 years ago in the year 2000, when JMIR-founder Gunther Eysenbach proposed a "preprint-first" publication model [2]:

Researchers could submit type-1 electronic papers [non peer-reviewed preprints] to preprint servers for discussion and peer-review, and journal editors and publishers would pick and bid for the best papers they want to see as ‘type-2 papers’ [version of record] in their journal.” [2]

This vision was also articulated in 1999, in one of the very first editorials published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research:

Perhaps even a new generation of journals will be established - journals which do not publish primary papers themselves, but which only evaluate, weight, comment, and put into context information that has been published elsewhere on the Web. Traditionally, the primary aim of journal publishers is to establish quality control mechanisms and to establish a reputation for the reliability of their information. In the near future, publishers - without putting any ink to paper or producing another medium - may get back to this fundamental truth of publishing - to be a credible source and to establish trust, to evaluate and describe information which perhaps is already published on the Internet. [3]

The model was later refined by JMIR editorial board member Jim Till, who suggested a two-stage review process with commenting on Preprints and subsequent solicited peer-reviews if the community deems a preprint worthy of publishing [4]. It is important to understand that - in order to comply with current policies of indexing services and libraries - in our current superjournal series JMIRx we do not just publish links, but work with authors to improve the preprint and then also publish the Version-of-Record of the final paper in the journal.

More recently, 20 years after these initial proposals, this model also has been referred to as PRC (Publish - Review - Curate) [5], with "publish" referring to publication of a type-1 publication (preprint) and "curate" referring to publication of a type-2 publication (peer-reviewed, version of record) in a journal (E or F in the figure below). During the COVID19 pandemic, the adoption of preprints skyrocketed.

Starting in 2020, JMIR Publications launched the following superjournals:

JMIRx Med - sitting on top of the medRxiv preprint server and covering the subjects covered in medRxiv (launched 2020)
JMIRx Bio - sitting on top of the bioRxiv preprint server and covering the subjects covered in bioRxiv (launched in 2023)
JMIRx Psy - sitting on top of the PsyArXiv preprint server and covering the subjects covered in PsyArXiv (forthcoming)
JMIRx CS - on top of Arxiv (forthcoming)

In addition, manuscript submissions can be transferred from the JMIR preprint server and JMIR journals to JMIRx and vice versa.

An APF of $1000 is payable upon acceptance. Authors may request an APF waiver with a compelling justification, which they should include in their cover letter on submission.

How to submit

To submit a preprint to JMIRx, the easiest way is to upload a Preprint to MedRxiv (or BioRxiv, respectively) and use the JMIRx submission forms on JMIRx.org, e.g. JMIRx-Med submission form (JMIRx-Bio submission form). This "one-click" submission to a JMIRx superjournal takes only 3 minutes.

For detailed instructions and other submission options see How to submit to a JMIRx journal

Innovative Peer Review Models

For Authors:

In the submission form, authors can select various modalities for peer-review, which include

Traditional narrative review reports: The editor will try to find experts to review your preprint
Live reviews, in partnership with PREreview, which are topic-centered, interactive preprint review calls via a video conference tool such as Zoom. Outputs from Live Reviews can be used to improve a manuscript or be integrated into journal review workflows. Authors revise their manuscripts based on the comments provided from a PREreview live review.
Annotation-based, crowdsourced reviews (forthcoming), using peer-review communities (we call these hashtag communities)

For Reviewers:

Important for peer reviewers: Accepted papers in JMIRx superjournals are published along with the related Peer Review Reports and Author Responses to Peer Review Reports, providing an additional layer of transparency to the scholarly publishing process. By default, when peer reviewers accept an invitation to review a manuscript for JMIRx Med, JMIRx Bio, or JMIRx Psy, they are consenting to the publication of their peer review report with attribution to them as the author of the peer review report.

Peer reviewers should also note that peer review reports are also indexed in Pubmed Central (PMC) and Pubmed along with the final published manuscript and author response(s) to peer review reports.

Background

How to submit

Innovative Peer Review Models

For Authors:

For Reviewers:

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