Publication FAQs

Elsevier and the California Digital Library (CDL) have been unable to reach an agreement to provide access to subscription content. Negotiations have been ongoing and for several months UC-based researchers had access to Science Direct on a complimentary basis. Unfortunately, CDL requested that Elsevier cancel subscription journal content. As a result, as of 10 July, researchers at UC institutions no longer have access to Elsevier’s latest scientific, technical and medical subscription content on ScienceDirect dated from 1 January 2019 onwards. Legacy content remains available.

The issues are complex and we encourage our members to learn more by checking out these and other resources:
https://staticcontents.investis.com/html/r/elsevier/california/index.html
https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/publisher-negotiations/uc-and-elsevier/.

All members of the Biophysical Society have access to the journal via an individual subscription. If you have not activated your subscription, follow these easy steps to do so. There is also a lot of good information on the journal homepage.

• Navigate to the journal homepage
• Login with your cell.com account
• If you do not have a cell.com account, click the Register button in the upper right corner of your screen, then create a username and password
• Click the “Claim” button on the top navigation bar
• Click the box “I receive my subscription through a Society membership”
• Enter your BPS member ID in the box labeled “Account Number.” Your member ID is [MEMBER ID].
• Enter your Last name where requested • Click “Activate Subscription”
• While you’re there, check out all of the information and features available on the Biophysical Journal website! If you do not know your BPS member ID number, it will appear on your renewal receipt as the customer number. Or feel free to contact the Society at 240-290-5600. 

If you have any difficulty activating your member account, please contact [email protected] or Biophysical Society at [email protected].

You may try to find an open access copy of an article by searching the journal archive https://www.cell.com/biophysj/archive or by searching Google Scholar, repositories, and preprint servers such as PubMed Central, arXiv, bioXiv; request an article from the author; use interlibrary loan; or contact your librarian. Note that the Society DOES NOT endorse the use of SciHub for article access.

Both Sweden and Germany have restricted access, although some institutions in Germany do carry the Cell Press titles.

The Biophysical Journal is owned by the Biophysical Society, which controls the editorial content and peer review. The journal is published in partnership with Cell Press, an imprint of Elsevier, which supports the production, distribution, marketing, and indexing of the journal. If you support non-profit publishing in Society journals, submit your work to Biophysical Journal!

The Biophysical Society does not have the resources to self-publish in today’s world of scholarly publishing, which demands sophisticated subscription sales and licensing agreements with worldwide consortia, governments, and institutions. In addition, today's authors demand complicated search functionality, linking, and numerous bells and whistles that require expensive publishing platforms and software development. Cell Press offers the Society the opportunity to reach more people with a quality product while preserving the quality, integrity, and editorial direction of the journal. They support marketing, subscription and distribution, production, and online hosting at a level the Society could not afford. The Society has a business arrangement that allows us to maintain the journal and support other programs of the Society.

Biophysical Journal has a strong reputation for publishing a broad spectrum of work in biophysics. It’s reputation for comprehensive, rigorous peer review is unequaled. As a Society journal, it is served by a board of editors and by reviewers who are working scientists and some of the best and the brightest minds in the field. The journal has extensive reach—meaning it is being read by your peers-- publication costs are low and even lower if you are a member. There is an open access publishing option and an author friendly preprint policy. These are just a few of the reasons to submit your work to Biophysical Journal.

You do! Approximately one-third of the Society’s revenue comes from Biophysical Journal. The Society receives a guaranteed royalty annually from Cell Press and may realize revenue above and beyond that royalty depending on circumstances (subscription sales, income from webinar sponsorships, etc.). This arrangement allows the Biophysical Society to reinvest in the journal by holding onto the editorial control (peer review) of the journal and to keep publishing costs reasonable. In addition, the journal revenue supports other programs of the Society such as travel grants, awards, networking opportunities, advocacy, etc. Biophysical Journal is owned by the Society. If you support non-profit publishing in Society journals, submit your work to Biophysical Journal!

Biophysical Journal supports open access as a hybrid journal, with an option to publish open access. In light of Plans S and other recent developments, the Society is looking at ways it might expand its open access offerings while maintaining a viable business model that keeps costs reasonable yet allows us to continue offering other Society programs such as travel grants, awards, networking opportunities, advocacy, etc.

Please send an email to [email protected], and we will take care of the matter and get back to you.

To be considered as a reviewer for Biophysical Journal, you will need to have an account in our manuscript-tracking database, Editorial Manager (EM). To create a new account, go to https://www.editorialmanager.com/biophysical-journal, click “REGISTER,” and, when prompted, indicate that you are willing to act as a reviewer. If you have an existing account and would like to make yourself available as a reviewer, click “LOG IN,” provide your username and password, click “Update My Information” in the navigation bar at the top of the page, and choose “Yes” next to “Available as a Reviewer?”

A subscription to Biophysical Journal is a benefit of membership in the Society. Members receive the online version of the journal. A print subscription is available to members through the BPS Store.

Yes, see Publication Resources, Editing Services.

Contact [email protected]. A replacement copy will be ordered for you.

You may contact Senior Commissioning Editor T. Michael Slaughter at [email protected] or any member of the Advisory Board. Advisory Board members can be found at https://www.biophysics.org/Publications/eBooks/Advisory-Board. You may also discuss your idea with Director of Publications John Long at [email protected].

We offer ePub3, PDF, HTML, and MOBI (Kindle). Full-color print copies are also be available. All eBook formats are media enriched and contain embedded multimedia as standard.

eBooks are primarily sold in collections to academic/corporate research institutes, where subscribers are able to download an electronic version of the book as part of their subscription. This model is great for students because the book collections come complete with perpetual access and are free of digital rights management, and we do not impose a concurrent user limit, meaning that researchers can access the content on whatever device they like, 24 hours a day! They are also available to purchase in both electronic and print on Amazon and other online retailers.

Books can range in length from as little as 80 pages up to several hundred pages.

Yes, we publish single-author, multiple-author, and edited books.

We offer a fee-based system, comparable to expected royalties in a more traditional publishing model. Exact fees depend on the book and are paid in stages on contract signing, manuscript acceptance, and publication.

Yes, in fact we encourage the use of multimedia throughout eBooks, so long as it enriches the content. These can range from embedded video clips, interactive figures, and animations to video abstracts, lectures, and author webinars. Multimedia is supported across all our digital publication formats (ePub3, PDF, HTML, and MOBI) as standard and is embedded within the book for an enhanced reader experience.

A team of editors, designers, and marketers will guide you through each step of the process, from submitting your initial proposal and draft, through to publishing and promoting your completed book. An Author Resources page also holds support materials that will help you manage your book submission. A dedicated eBooks customer service team is also available to manage any other enquiries you might have.

eBooks content is indexed in the following discovery platforms: Serials Solutions Summon, Ex Libris Primo, Ex Libris Alma, EBSCO Discovery Service, and OCLC WorldCat. Link resolvers offer customized lists of titles to libraries to aid content discoverability for their researchers. eBooks are listed in the following link resolver services: EBSCO Discovery Service, Ex Libris SFX, and ProQuest 360.

All published and forthcoming titles can be found at https://iopscience.iop.org/bookListInfo/iop-series-in-biophysical-society#series.

Guest submissions for the Biophysical Society blog are welcomed from Biophysical Society members, meeting attendees, and Biophysical Journal authors. Guidelines for guest submissions are listed below. Inform Biophysical Society staff of what topic you are writing about before you start. Individuals planning to post the same article on more than one site need to let Biophysical Society staff know in advance. Decisions on whether it is appropriate will be made on a case-by-case basis. Posts should range from 300 to 1,000 words in most cases. Informational and identifying links may be included. Include images when possible. Guest blog submissions will be subject to editing by Biophysical Society staff. The Biophysical Society is a non-partisan, non-political organization. Blog content discussing the scientific impact of public policies should reflect that position. Contact us with your blog post ideas!

Inform Biophysical Society staff of what topic you are writing about before you start. Individuals planning to post the same article on more than one site need to let Biophysical Society staff know in advance. Decisions on whether it is appropriate will be made on a case-by-case basis. Posts should range from 300 to 1,000 words in most cases. Informational and identifying links may be included. Include images when possible. Guest blog submissions will be subject to editing by Biophysical Society staff. The Biophysical Society is a non-partisan, non-political organization. Blog content discussing the scientific impact of public policies should reflect that position.

The most common topics on the blog include biophysics research and careers; Biophysical Society news, activities, and member spotlights; and public policy matters. Contact us with your blog post ideas!

The journal audience will be individuals at all levels: K–12 and public outreach, undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students/trainees, active researchers, and scholars of biophysics teaching and learning.

The journal is fully open access and has no subscription fee.  It can be accessed at https://thebiophysicist.org/.

The full Editorial Board can be found at https://thebiophysicist.org/page/editorial-advisory-board.

Anyone, including students, can submit an original manuscript. Instructions for authors can be found here.

You can submit a manuscript to the journal by visiting the submission site at https://thebiophysicist.msubmit.net. You may log in with the same login credentials as for Biophysical Journal if you already have an account. If you do not already have an account in the system, click the link "New Authors Should Register for an Account." Fill in your last name, email address, and telephone number, and the system will search to see if you are in our database. You will be directed to a profile screen, where you can complete the data fields including your areas of research.

Yes, the journal charges article processing fees. Discounts are offered for members of the Biophysical Society and for authors at primarily undergraduate institutions. To see the fee structure, visit https://thebiophysicist.org/page/article-processing-fees.

Biophysical Reports is a gold open access journal that publishes short papers and regular articles in all disciplines encompassed by biophysics, with a particular emphasis on methods and techniques (biological, chemical, or physical) for biophysical research, as well as concepts and ideas that present major conceptual advances or represent new views on existing data and results. It is committed to rapid publication of Letters and Reports in addition to Research Articles and Reviews. Biophysical Reports provides a venue for papers that are written for specialists as well as those written for the broader biophysics community.

Articles accepted for publication are published online as soon as they are ready. An issue is published when a target number of articles are available. The first issue is expected in Fall 2021.

The journal is fully open access and has no subscription fee. It can be accessed at https://www.cell.com/biophysreports/home.

The full Editorial Board can be found at https://www.cell.com/biophysreports/editorial-board.

You can submit a manuscript to the journal by visiting the submission site at https://www.editorialmanager.com/biophysical-reports/default.aspx. If you do not already have an account in the system, you can create a new one by clicking “REGISTER.”

Yes, the journal charges article processing fees. Discounts are offered for members of the Biophysical Society. To see the fee structure, visit https://www.cell.com/biophysreports/authors#publicationcharges.