Dropping backlinks using article directories

I've been submitting a lot of articles to article directories and mostly putting a backlink inside the body of the article using anchor text. Lately I've been seeing more and more article directories that only allow you to place your link in a separate section below your article. "About the author" is a common title for this section.

My question is are links placed there of less value in terms of generating link juice or is it the same as placing them within the body of your article?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

That about section is called the resource box and the links you get from there are equaly valuable as the ones you get from inside the article body. Just use anchor test as you would in the body.