The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is proud to announce the launch of 21 JBC Affinity Sites: www.jbc.org/site/affinitysites. Categorized by subspecialties in biochemistry and molecular biology, these new sites emphasize recent and most-read research articles, literature reviews and other information in each area of investigation.
The JBC’s leadership conducted a series of in-depth surveys and analyses, before the journal’s move to online-only in 2012. From that information, the JBC’s Editor-in-Chief and associate editors were inspired to segment the Journal’s content into topics. The web-based topics, called affinity sites, allow visitors to the JBC website to enjoy a more substantive and thorough experience of searching and browsing through the extensive archive of articles gathered over the century of the Journal’s history. Today, the JBC continues to be a standard-bearer of excellent biochemical and molecular biology research and publishes over 4300 articles a year.
The new 21 affinity sites cover the most dynamic areas of fundamental biochemical and molecular biology research. From bioenergetics to signal transduction, each affinity site presents latest research papers, author profiles, minireviews, Classics and Reflections in a subspecialty. By looking at an affinity site, a scientist can quickly grasp the history of the field and its cutting-edge research and challenges, as well as identify investigators who are active in the field. Each affinity site is managed by a team of associate editors who collaborate within their shared fields of expertise to create guidelines, promote scientific advances, and seek out emerging areas.
“With these affinity sites, we offer a greater sense of community for our authors and readers with shared interests,” noted JBC Editor-in-Chief, Marty Fedor at The Scripps Research Institute. “While keeping the same high standards for JBC content and editorial integrity, we felt it was the right time to break down the monolith and make the journal more user-friendly for those who don’t have unlimited time to browse each weekly issue.”
Tying the affinity sites together is a new and related JBC editorial board site that connects authors to JBC’s 800+ reviewing editorial board members. The site helps authors identify prospective reviewers by area of expertise prior to submission. Editorial board members control their profiles through HighWire’s Bench>Press manuscript submission system.
“Working alongside the JBC’s board, the HighWire Open Platform capabilities pull together related content into a series of specialty satellite sites,” says Tom Rump, Managing Director of HighWire Press. “Our aim is to help our publishers reach their respective audiences by using our technology to facilitate their role as an informational authority.”
“Specialty satellite (or mini) sites on HighWire allow publishers to highlight what they think is most important to their readership,” adds Tara Robenalt, HighWire’s Director of Product Management. “They are flexible sites which can also feature targeted advertisements, clinical trials or affiliated links and are designed for publishers to test new concepts, collections, and interactive features while keeping their core content intact.”
