Developing a framework publication - if I have developed a new method for data extraction, can this be published in a peer-reviewed journal?

Question

I'm new to publications, so I could use some advice.

I study in the area of agricultural remote sensing, and for a graduate degree, I have developed a method of extracting data from research plots and processing it, with the ultimate goal of looking for statistical differences between breeding plots. This was done in order to create a process for people to follow who are looking to use remote sensing to enhance crop breeding.

As this would be considered a multiple-step 'framework' for data extraction that others could follow, can this be published in a peer-reviewed journal? Using this framework, I have extracted data and have found significant relationships with ground-measured data, indicating that remotely-sensed data can potentially be used to identify certain plant traits. My concern is that since this isn't a traditional "method-based" publication, it might not get published. However, I do have many statistics that were generated as a result of using my newly-developed framework, so there is a lot of statistical analysis that can be included.

Bottom line: Can such a manuscript be published?

Answer 1

Such kinds of paper are quite common in the field of GIS, usually branded as a "feasibility" study (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5075756/). If there is a question to be solved, and you have a proposed method to solve it, yielding useful analyzable data, there should be a home for it.

I'd first check with a research librarian in your network. They can provide you with a list of possible candidate journals (e.g. do you want agricultural journals or GIS journals? Etc.). Then, comb through the list by visiting their website and browsing some sample articles, make a decision on a few as your targets.

You can also consider non-academic (may not be peer reviewed but can reach a wider audience) channels like those GIS software user conferences.