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MDPI Academic Video Service: Advancing Visual Scholarly Communication

Encyclopedia MDPI is thrilled to announce significant enhancements to its Academic Video Service, which aim to improve its quality, accessibility, and functionality. Since its launch, our video service has enabled numerous scholars to present their research in a dynamic and visually engaging format, greatly enhancing its visibility and impact. Due to the overwhelmingly positive reception this service has received, we have reached a point where the number of orders we are receiving exceeds our current capacity. In order to maintain the quality of these videos and continue optimizing the service, we have made the decision to introduce a fee. However, to ensure that this service is still a cost-effective option, we have set our prices significantly below the market average. 1. Highlights of the Upgrades to the Service Although the service will now be fee-based, we are committed to providing even more professional and comprehensive support, including the following: One-on-one video production guidance Personalized assistance to ensure your needs are fully met. Scriptwriting and English editing Expertly crafted narratives and professional English editing to ensure your research is presented clearly, accurately, and with impact. High-quality animations Visually engaging animations are created to simplify complex research and captivate your audience. Whiteboard Animations: Clean and minimalist, using hand-drawn illustrations to explain ideas step-by-step. Motion Graphics (MG) Animations: Cartoon Style: Bright, colorful, and approachable, ideal for making technical or scientific content more accessible and engaging. Hand-Drawn Style: Unique and artistic, adding a personal touch to your research while maintaining clarity and professionalism. Customized infographics (optional) We can also create tailored infographics to visually summarize key data or findings, enhancing the clarity and appeal of your video. Native voiceover Native speakers provide voiceovers to enhance the accessibility and reach of your research. Multiple rounds of revision To ensure your video accurately represents your work. Social media promotion Expanding your research's visibility and impact. 2. Why Choose Us? The Proven Impact of Video Abstracts Research shows that a well-crafted video abstract can significantly enhance the visibility and impact of your work. It has been shown to do the following: Increase paper views by 120% （Source: 10.1007/ s11192-019-03108-w） Boost citations by 20% （Source: Wiley Online Library） Improve journal rankings by 33% （Source: Research Square） Raise Altmetrics scores by 140% （Source: Research Square） Our Expertise in Academic Research Backed by MDPI, our experienced production team combines deep academic knowledge with creative excellence. We understand the nuances of scholarly communication and ensure that every frame accurately conveys the value of your research, meeting the highest standards of quality and precision. Collaborations with SCI Journals We have partnered with over 60 SCI journals to create exclusive video series, enhancing the dissemination and impact of published research. For example, our collaborations with Entropy, Remote Sensing, Nanomaterials , Animals , Nutrients, Foods , Sustainability, Cancers, etc., have helped authors achieve greater visibility and recognition for their work. Global visibility The videos are linked to your paper's DOI for maximum exposure. Available Video Services and Their Pricing Video Abstract (up to 5 minutes long): Summarizes the key findings, methodology, and significance of your research paper. Regular Price: 600 CHF Short Take (up to 2 minutes long): Uses original animations to explain the specific aspects of your research. Regular Price: 500 CHF Scholar Interview: A face-to-face discussion offering deeper insights into your publication. Regular Price: 400 CHF Scholar Profile: A brief overview of a scholar’s career, highlighting education, research focus, and key achievements. Regular Price: 500 CHF 3. Video Production Service If you want to see some examples of our videos, please visit https://encyclopedia.pub/video. If you would like to apply for the video service, please click https://encyclopedia.pub/video_service. 4. Others If you have any other questions, please contact office@encyclopedia.pub.

Announcement 14 Apr 2026

Beyond Publication: How to Maximize the Visibility and Impact of Your Research

Publishing a peer-reviewed article was once widely regarded as the final stage of the research process. A manuscript accepted by a reputable journal was expected to reach its audience through established channels such as library collections, conference proceedings, and citation networks. Today, that expectation is increasingly unrealistic. The rapid growth of scholarly publishing has created an environment in which researchers must compete for attention within an immense and continuously expanding body of literature. As a result, discoverability has become a major challenge, often standing between research and its intended audience. Publication remains an essential milestone, but it is no longer sufficient on its own to ensure scholarly impact. Whether a study is read, cited, applied in practice, or used as a foundation for further research increasingly depends on factors beyond publication itself. Visibility, accessibility, and purposeful dissemination have become critical components of the research communication process. 1. The Discoverability Problem The volume of scientific literature has grown exponentially over the past two decades, doubling roughly every nine years according to bibliometric estimates drawn from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. This growth means that any single article competes not only with contemporaries in its narrow subfield but with an ever-expanding archive of prior work indexed by the same search engines. Google Scholar appears to rank articles using factors that include citation counts, recency, and metadata completeness. The result is a visibility gradient: research quality and research reach are correlated, but imperfectly, and the gap between the two is where deliberate visibility strategy operates. Taherdoost's treatment of this problem frames visibility not as a passive outcome of publication but as an active, multi-stage process encompassing indexing, metadata optimization, author identification, and platform-level dissemination. This reframing is significant because it shifts responsibility from the publisher alone to the researcher, who must now treat academic search optimization, ORCID registration, and repository deposit as integral components of the research workflow rather than administrative afterthoughts. 2. Open Access and the Citation Advantage Empirical evidence on the relationship between accessibility and citation impact is substantial and consistent. A large-scale bibliometric study analyzing 1.4 million articles found that open access papers received a citation advantage of approximately 18 percent on average when compared with subscription-access articles published in the same journal and year, with the effect strongest in the first two years after publication [1]. The mechanism is plausible: articles behind a paywall are read by a smaller population of institutionally affiliated researchers, while open access articles are accessible to independent scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers in lower-income countries whose institutions cannot afford comprehensive subscription bundles. Piwowar et al. [1] further estimated that by 2025, a majority of journal articles viewed online would be available through some form of open access, whether via gold, green, or hybrid routes, reflecting a structural shift in how scholarly content circulates. Researchers who fail to deposit in an institutional or subject repository within the mandated embargo window risk not only reduced visibility but also non-compliance penalties that can affect future funding eligibility. The practical implication for individual researchers is that accessibility decisions made at the point of submission, choice of journal, licensing terms, and repository deposit have measurable downstream consequences for how widely their work travels. 3. Altmetrics and the Expansion of Impact Measurement Citation counts, while historically the dominant proxy for research impact, capture only a narrow slice of how research is actually used. A study is often read, downloaded, discussed on social media, cited in policy documents, or referenced in clinical guidelines long before it accumulates a meaningful citation count, and in many cases these forms of engagement never translate into formal citations at all. Altmetrics, a term encompassing mentions on Twitter/X, Mendeley reader counts, news coverage, and policy citations, have emerged as a complementary measurement framework capable of capturing this broader engagement in near real time [2]. Tennant et al. [2], in a comprehensive review of open scholarship practices, argue that altmetric indicators are particularly valuable for capturing societal and practitioner-facing impact that traditional citation metrics systematically underrepresent, including impact in fields such as public health, education, and applied engineering where practitioner audiences rarely cite author publications themselves. The adoption of altmetric tracking has grown accordingly. Altmetric.com, one of the leading providers, now tracks attention data for over millions research outputs, and its Attention Score has become a standard feature on the landing pages of major publishers including Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley. For early-career researchers in particular, altmetric visibility can serve as an early signal of research relevance well before formal citations accrue, which typically takes two to three years to reach a measurable baseline. This lag matters practically: some tenure and promotion committees, grant panels, and hiring committees increasingly request altmetric data alongside traditional citation counts precisely because the former offers a more immediate signal of research uptake. 4. Researcher Identity and Metadata Infrastructure A frequently underestimated barrier to research visibility is the problem of author disambiguation. Common surnames, name changes, institutional affiliation changes, and inconsistent name formatting across databases mean that a single researcher's output can be fragmented across multiple non-linked author profiles, diluting apparent productivity and citation impact when viewed through any single database. The Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) system was developed specifically to resolve this problem by assigning researchers a persistent, unique digital identifier that travels with them across institutions, publishers, and funding bodies. As of recent registry figures, ORCID has issued millions of persistent researcher identifiers, and an increasing number of journals now require ORCID registration as a condition of submission, reflecting its consolidation as infrastructure rather than an optional convenience [3]. More broadly, metadata quality, including accurate keywords, structured abstracts, standardized author affiliations, and complete funding acknowledgment, directly affects how well an article is indexed by discovery systems. Taherdoost (2025) [3] emphasizes that metadata optimization functions analogously to academic search optimization in commercial contexts: articles with keyword-rich titles and abstracts aligned to common search terminology are retrieved more reliably and rank higher in results than semantically equivalent articles using idiosyncratic or overly technical phrasing. This is not a matter of gaming search algorithms but of ensuring that indexing systems, which rely heavily on textual pattern matching rather than deep semantic understanding, can correctly categorize and surface the work to the audiences most likely to find it relevant (Figure 1). Figure 1. Enhancing research visibility: an integrated approach. 5. Institutional Repositories and Preprint Culture Beyond journal-level accessibility, institutional and disciplinary repositories have become a significant secondary channel for research dissemination. Green open access, the practice of depositing a manuscript version in a repository such as arXiv, SSRN, or an institutional archive, allows researchers to comply with funder mandates even when publishing in subscription journals with restrictive licensing. The preprint server arXiv alone has hosted over two million papers since its founding, and disciplines such as physics and computer science now treat preprint deposit as a near-universal norm preceding formal peer review. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated preprint adoption across biomedical fields as well, with medRxiv and bioRxiv collectively hosting tens of thousands of pandemic-related preprints that informed public health responses months before formal publication, illustrating how accessibility infrastructure can materially compress the time between research completion and societal use [2]. 6. Toward an Integrated Visibility Strategy The evidence surveyed here converges on a single conclusion: research impact in the digital age is not an automatic consequence of rigorous methodology and journal acceptance but the product of deliberate, sustained visibility practice operating across multiple layers of the scholarly communication system. Accessibility choices at the point of publication, disciplined use of persistent identifiers, attentive metadata construction, and engagement with both citation-based and attention-based impact metrics together determine whether a piece of research reaches its potential audience. Taherdoost's [3] framing of visibility as an active, ongoing researcher competency rather than a passive outcome captures this shift accurately, and the citation and altmetric evidence reviewed above substantiates the practical stakes involved. As the volume of scholarly output continues to grow, researchers who treat dissemination strategy as integral to the research process, rather than incidental to it, are likely to see a disproportionate return on both the resources invested in their research and the influence that research ultimately exerts on their field. References [1] Piwowar, H.; Priem, J.; Larivière, V.; Alperin, J. P.; Matthias, L.; Norlander, B.; Farley, A.; West, J.; Haustein, S. The state of OA: A large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ. 2018, 6, e4375. [2] Tennant, J. P.; Waldner, F.; Jacques, D. C.; Masuzzo, P.; Collister, L. B.; Hartgerink, C. H. J. The academic, economic and societal impacts of Open Access: An evidence-based review. F1000Res. 2016, 5, 632. [3] Taherdoost, H. Maximizing Research Impact: Practical Strategies for Enhancing Research Visibility (1st ed.) Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003604785. Biography Dr. Hamed Taherdoost is an award-winning researcher, educator, and R&D leader with over two decades of international experience across academia and industry. He is a Professor at University Canada West and holds academic affiliations with Westcliff University (USA), GISMA University of Applied Sciences (Germany), and Victorian Institute of Technology (Australia). He is a GUS Institute Fellow (UK), a Westcliff Faculty Fellow, and a Fellow at the National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. His work spans digital transformation, cybersecurity, AI, and technology innovation, with hundreds of high-impact publications. Dr. Taherdoost serves as Book Series Editor for Routledge’s Mastering Academic Excellence and holds editorial roles with leading international journals.

Blog 29 Jul 2026

Best Video Abstract Awards

The Encyclopedia platform, together with the journals Biology and Nutrients, launches the Best Video Abstract Awards to increase the visibility and reach of published research and to inspire researchers to explore the power of visual storytelling. Video abstracts have become an increasingly important medium for scientific communication. By integrating narration, visualizations, animations, and experimental footage, they make complex research more accessible, engaging, and memorable. This initiative recognizes video abstracts that are not only scientifically rigorous but also creatively compelling and educational, thereby promoting broader dissemination and deeper community engagement. To learn more about the awards or to participate directly, please visit the event page via the links provided below. https://encyclopedia.pub/best-video-abstract-award 1. Event Duration 9 February 2026 – 2 February 2027 2. Awards Biology Best Video Abstract AwardOpen to video abstracts based on papers published in Biology between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2025. This award will be granted to two video abstracts based on the evaluation of the Award Evaluation Committee. Nutrients Best Video Abstract AwardOpen to video abstracts based on papers published in Nutrients between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2025. This award will be granted to two video abstracts based on the evaluation of the Award Evaluation Committee. Prize For each journal award, the winner will receive: CHF 500 A voucher waiving the Article Processing Charges (APCs) for one journal submission (subject to peer review, valid for one year) A free Academic Video Service production (no matter where the paper is published), valid for one year. An electronic certificate Participant Incentive All participants will receive a CHF 100 discount voucher for the Encyclopedia Academic Video Service. 3. Participation The event will be conducted in three stages. Submission Stage 9 February 2026 – 31 August 2026 Independent Submission Authors may create and submit video abstracts independently using their own tools and creative approach. Professional Support Option Authors who do not currently have a video abstract but intend to apply for the award may opt for the Academic Video Service, which offers a one-stop, end-to-end solution covering script development, animation, voiceover recording, and editing. Please submit your video abstract here: https://encyclopedia.pub/user/video_add?activity=b57ab0910b456a5e4eebd960867ce205 Or place your video service order here: https://encyclopedia.pub/user/video_service_order All video abstracts will be assessed by the editorial team for editorial suitability and overall quality. Submissions that meet the guidelines will be assessed equally. Voting Stage 1 November 2026 – 31 December 2026 Public voting will be conducted during this period. Voting results and video performance metrics, including views, likes, shares, and collections, will contribute to the final evaluation. Winner Announcement 2 February 2027 Final winners will be determined based on a combined assessment of public voting results and a comprehensive evaluation by the Award Evaluation Committee, which carries the primary weight in the final decision. Winners will be announced on the Encyclopedia platform and journal websites. 4. Others If you have any other questions, please contact office@encyclopedia.pub

Announcement 09 Feb 2026

MDPI Books: Expanding Open Access Academic Publishing

Academic publishing continues to evolve with the advancement of open science and digital technologies. While journal articles remain a fundamental format for communicating individual research findings, academic books provide researchers with opportunities to explore topics in greater depth, integrate broader perspectives, and present comprehensive knowledge within a dedicated publication format. To support diverse forms of scholarly communication, MDPI has developed MDPI Books, an open access academic book publishing program that enables researchers, editors, and academic communities to share extensive research contributions and educational resources with a global audience. MDPI Books supports MDPI’s mission to foster open scientific exchange, with open access as a key approach for sharing knowledge. The program includes two main publication outputs: Open Access Books and Reprints. Since the publication of the first Reprint in 2013 and the first original Open Access Book in 2017, MDPI Books has continued to expand its publishing portfolio, contributing to the advancement of open access publishing and the dissemination of scholarly knowledge across diverse disciplines. For more information about MDPI Books and available publishing opportunities, please visit https://www.mdpi.com/books/. 1. What Is MDPI Books? MDPI Books publishes academic books across a wide range of disciplines, providing researchers, editors, and academic communities with flexible publishing options for sharing scientific knowledge. The program includes two complementary publication categories: Open Access Books are original academic publications that present comprehensive research studies, educational resources, and specialized knowledge collections. By adopting an open access publishing model, these books enable broader access to scholarly content and support the dissemination of knowledge worldwide. Reprints compile previously published research articles into dedicated book formats. By organizing related studies into structured collections, Reprints provide additional opportunities to increase the visibility and accessibility of published research. Together, Open Access Books and Reprints provide researchers with different approaches to create, share, and preserve scholarly knowledge. 2. Open Access Books Open Access Books published by MDPI Books contain original academic content and provide researchers with opportunities to present comprehensive studies, educational resources, and specialized knowledge collections in a book format. Compared with individual journal articles, academic books allow authors to explore research topics in greater depth, present broader perspectives, and provide more comprehensive discussions of scientific developments. 2.1. Types of Open Access Books MDPI Books supports different types of Open Access Books to accommodate diverse scholarly communication needs. Monograph A monograph is a comprehensive/in-depth contribution to a single scholarly subject, or an aspect of a subject, written by a single or small group of authors. Both short-form (70–110 pages) or full-length monographs are accepted. This also includes PhD monographs based on doctoral theses from all fields. Edited Books Edited books contain chapters usually written by different authors who are experts in their field. The chapters in an edited volume are original works (not republished works). One or more editors are responsible for the book as a whole. Edited volumes present different viewpoints and experiences on a common theme. Textbooks A textbook contains a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining this branch or a particular sub-branch. It contains detailed information about a subject for people studying that subject. Project Reports A project report is the formalized recording of project progress and project results. PhD Thesis / Dissertations PhD theses can be published open access with MDPI Books, allowing the research to reach a wider audience while maintaining their original academic integrity. They are usually structured into multiple chapters and include a comprehensive literature review, methodology, results, and discussion. They do not undergo traditional external peer review, as they have already been formally evaluated and approved by the author's academic institution as part of the doctoral degree requirements and are clearly declared as PhD theses. Book Series Book series are series of original Open Access Books covering the same subject area. 2.2. Benefits of Open Access Books Open Access Books provide authors and readers with advantages in accessibility, knowledge sharing, and publishing support. Enhanced Accessibility and Discoverability Open access publishing allows scholarly books to reach broader audiences by improving accessibility and removing barriers to knowledge sharing. Through online libraries, indexing services, and metadata dissemination, Open Access Books can achieve greater discoverability and long-term visibility. Published books are available through the MDPI Books Online Library and are indexed through platforms including Google Books, CrossRef, EBSCO, WorldCat, and Scilit. Eligible titles are also submitted to the Web of Science Book Citation Index (BKCI). Comprehensive Knowledge Sharing Academic books provide space for systematic analyses, interdisciplinary discussions, and extensive reviews that may go beyond the scope of individual research articles. By presenting broader perspectives and integrated knowledge, Open Access Books contribute to long-term scientific communication and knowledge development. Author Rights and Publishing Support Authors retain copyright of their work through Creative Commons licensing options. MDPI Books provides support throughout the publication process, including editorial coordination, production services, DOI and ISBN assignment, marketing support, and print-on-demand options. 2.3. Publication Process MDPI Books provides comprehensive support throughout the Open Access Book publishing process, from manuscript submission and initial quality checks to peer review, revision, production, and publication. Following submission, manuscripts undergo an initial assessment, including checks for plagiarism, data integrity, figure permissions, and authorship information. The Editorial Office coordinates peer review and revision processes before accepted manuscripts proceed through professional editing, formatting, typesetting, and proofreading. Published books are freely available online and can also be accessed in print formats through print-on-demand and distribution channels. A complete publication process can typically be completed within approximately 6–12 months, depending on manuscript preparation and review requirements. 3. Reprints In addition to original Open Access Books, MDPI Books provides Reprints, which compile previously published research articles into dedicated book formats. Unlike Open Access Books, which contain original book-length content, Reprints focus on collecting and presenting existing research content. They allow researchers and editors to bring together related articles into thematic collections, extending the reach and visibility of published research beyond the traditional journal format. 3.1. Types of Reprints To facilitate the collection and dissemination of published research, MDPI Books provides several Reprint formats. Journal Collection Reprints Journal Collection Reprints compile articles from MDPI journals, including Special Issues, Topical Collections, Topics, and Proceedings. These collections provide a dedicated book format for completed research collections and are available as digital publications and physical books through print-on-demand services. Custom Selection Reprints Custom Selection Reprints allow tailored collections of published articles to be created according to specific requirements. They can support various purposes, including thematic research collections, teaching resources, institutional publications, conference and academic meeting materials. Article Reprints Article Reprints are professionally produced copies of individual journal articles. They preserve the original layout and typography of published research papers and provide a tangible format for sharing academic achievements. They can support research communication, institutional events, academic promotion, and other professional activities. 3.2. Benefits of Reprints Reprints provide additional opportunities to increase research visibility, organize published studies into focused collections, and support academic communication. Extending Research Visibility By bringing related research articles together into dedicated volumes, Reprints help increase awareness of specific research topics, Special Issues, Topical Collections, and conference contributions. Creating Structured Research Collections Reprints provide a convenient way to organize published studies into cohesive collections, allowing readers to discover related research more efficiently. Supporting Authors, Editors, and Institutions For authors and editors, Reprints provide a lasting representation of research achievements and editorial contributions. For institutions, customized collections can support educational activities, conferences, and academic outreach. 4. Contact For Open Access Books, researchers interested in editing a book volume or book series or in submitting a monograph proposal, can submit a Proposal Form and refer to the Information for Authors for further details. For Reprints, authors, editors, and institutions interested in creating Reprints can contact articlereprints@mdpi.com for further information and support.

Announcement 16 Jul 2026

Encyclopedia Journal Receives Its First CiteScore of 10.1

We are pleased to share that Encyclopedia has been assigned its first CiteScore of 10.1 in June 2026, following its inclusion in Scopus (Elsevier) in 2025. The CiteScore ranks the journal 20 out of 223 titles (Q1) in Multidisciplinary area, an impressive achievement for a journal running in Volume 6. You can find more statistics on our website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/encyclopedia/stats. The current CiteScores measure the average number of citations within a journal over a four-year window (2022–2025). The Scopus database provides a comprehensive suite of metrics that support informed publishing strategies, research evaluation and enable benchmarking of journal performance. This achievement reflects the collective efforts of our authors, reviewers, and editors. Together we will continue to track the progress of Encyclopedia and its growing impact in multidisciplinary research.

Announcement 04 Jun 2026

See what people are saying about us

Shlomi Agmon

Encyclopedia Video provides potential readers with a tool to quickly understand what the work is about. That is important for casualreaders, whose time is thus spared, and for investedreaders, for whom it makes the decision to say "yes, I want to read the paper" much simpler.

School of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190401, Israel

Ignacio Cea

For the video abstracts, the papers and authors could gain more visibility and increase citations. Also, it means a more diverse and interesting way of communicating research, which is something valuable in itself.

Center for Research, Innovation and Creation, and Faculty of Religious Sciences and Philosophy, Temuco Catholic University

Melvin R. Pete Hayden

Thank the video production crew for making such a wonderful video. The narrations have been significantly added to the video! Congratulations on such an outstanding job of Encyclopedia Video team.

University of Missouri School of Medicine, United States

Encyclopedia:
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Encyclopedia: From Scholars for Scholars

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Encyclopedia:
From Scholars for Scholars