The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Though many would agree that novel practices relating to different platforms have emerged (such as, for example, social bookmarking sites), many open questions remain as to whether such infrastructures have profoundly changed existing processes, values or practices of knowledge production (Horbach and Halffman, 2019). These are considered appeals, which, by policy, take second place to consideration of normal submissions. Nature is a British weekly scientific journal founded and based in London, England.As a multidisciplinary publication, Nature features peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. Answer: From the different status descriptions, it seems that the manuscript has not been sent for peer review. Because it was sitting in my barn / shop for over 12 years!! Thank you for visiting nature.com. One possibility is that it will be accepted as is, which is extremely rare. Upon transfer, if the manuscript is assessed by the receiving journal to be a good fit and technically sound, it may be accepted without further review. We do this by comparing the model laid out in the patent for the infrastructure (Plotkin, 2009) with the empirical data generated by the infrastructure. Yet, little is actually known about how the peer review process is practiced and how it is supported through administrative procedures, such as how reviewers are invited (Bs, 1998), how reviews are maintained, or decisions are communicated; activities which might be considered administrative in the first place. Consequently, infrastructures may best be understood as manifestations of specific operations or sometimes even of a whole process (Niewhner, 2014, 6). This data represents a full inventory of manuscript version histories for the given years and journals, covering all submitted manuscripts whether published in the end, or not. This is partly caused by several automated steps present in the process, which can take only one second to happen. Editage Insights is funded by Editage and endorses services provided by Editage but is editorially independent. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. Received 2021 Jul 26; Accepted 2021 Sep 20. Additionally, due to the full-time character of the editorial work, a high proficiency with the system can be expected, which is confirmed by the fact that the process in practice is not so very much streamlined but the principal openness of the process order is occurring empirically in the data. In the database entry, we would later discover this as a digital trace of the action performed. With respect to the tasks the editor performs, we can see that the editor is the most powerful actor in the process as represented in the traces of digital infrastructures as opposed to a more automated process powered by the infrastructure. Our original resources for authors and journals will help you become an expert in academic publishing. [CDATA[> We found multiple observations for each manuscript with a stage name, a time stamp and two pseudonymized person-identity numbers (hereinafter, person-IDs), in the system originally identifying individual users assigned to it the person who triggered an event and the person affected by an event (judging by the xml-tags assigned to the information). Confirm that you would also like to sign up for free personalized email coaching for this stage. If the editors of Nature Microbiology decline publication of a manuscript, before or after peer review, the authors can easily transfer their manuscript to a different journal within the Nature Portfolio family by following the link provided in the editors decision email. Answered by Editage Insights Yet, as Horbach and Halffmann (2019) have outlined, peer review as an institutional practice at scholarly journals has a far more recent history, beginning in late 19th century in scientific societies which established the first disciplinary scholarly journals (Csiszar, 2018). D1ckChowder 2 yr. ago It could mean many things. and transmitted securely. Reviewer selection is critical to the review process, and we work hard to ensure that the different technical and conceptual aspects of the work are covered. Recently Schendzielorz and Reinhart (2020) provided a scheme for analysis of peer review with special regard to its control function in a decision-making process for the distribution of scarce resources. !1997 F350 XLT 4x4 Crew Cab (4 door) 7.3 Liter V-8 Diesel Powerstroke, Automatic with overdrive, Dana 60 front axle, Weld Racing Wheels and Toyo Open Country Radials (tires and wheels cost $4500) only 66,000 original miles Located in Seattle Washington 98188 1 mile from Seatac AirportI . Wickham H., Averick M., Bryan J., Chang W., McGowan L., Franois R., et al. These organizational and administrative practices may not always be related to epistemic values, yet they are an important part of scholarly knowledge production as scholarly journals are important sites for community building, safeguarding scientific quality and expectations to science in general. R Package Version 1.14.0. In the minimal process of peer review according to Schendzielorz and Reinhart (2020), we would find the four processual elements being mutually connected with each other. Peer Review for Manuscript and grant Submissions: Relevance for Research in Clinical Neuropsychology, The Gatekeepers of Science: Some Factors Affecting the Selection of Articles for Scientific Journals, The Igraph Software Package for Complex Network Research, InterJournal, Complex Systems 1695, The Scientific Journal: Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge in the Nineteenth century, data.table: Extension of `data.Frame`. However, in contrast to the patent for the editorial process, where steps have a clear order, the infrastructure seems to allow for an open process: in principle, almost any event could follow any other, which leaves the responsibility for the process in the domain of the actors. A decision to send the paper for review can take longer, but usually within a month (in which case the editors send apologies). This category is comprised of Waiting for Editor Assignment (N = 14,261), Waiting for Potential Referee Assignment (N = 12,976), Waiting to Send Decision to Author (N = 5,796), Waiting for Revision (N = 2,612), Waiting for Author Approval of Converted Files (N = 898) and Potential Referees Waited too Long (N = 610). manuscpt under consideration 40editor decision started~ Journal decisions 6. The editor decides about opening and closing the external review (expressed by Manuscript Consultation Session Started (N = 5,816) and Manuscript Consultation Ended (N = 2,010)). Nature might offer the option to send a submission to Research Square so that it is made public (and time stamped) while still in the review process, but the only system which matters for their reviewing process is that of Nature. If this is nature group and it is "editor decision started" then it means the editor did something, including receiving a review report or selecting a new reviewer (from what I have experienced) Why are papers rejected? Finding reviewers who agree to deal with the . In light of their advice, I am delighted to say that we can in principle offer to publish it in Nature, provided that you revise the paper to address a number of further editorial points. In order to get more insights which kinds of events are represented by the editorial management system inside the above mentioned core component with 48 nodes, and adapted by the publisher, we analysed their frequency for the whole dataset and tried to categorize them according to the heuristic provided by Schendzielorz and Reinhart. The logarithm was chosen because the time between stages is distributed skew to the left (see Figure 2). A Comparison of German Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences, Krger A. K., Hesselmann F., Hartstein J. Plotkin (2009) in laying out the basis of the editorial management system used in our case patented a process for computer implemented manuscript review and described a prototypical journal peer review process. This led us to iteratively disintegrate the network by deleting the passage points. Editors often communicate their decisions with individualised letters, putting much effort into decision-communication about non-successful submissions, which may show how they acknowledge authors individual pursuits of crafting and improving knowledge claims. It is clear from the status descriptions that your revised manuscript was sent for peer review again. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. . They employ single-blind peer review, which means that the reviewers are aware of the authors identities unless otherwise requested by the authors. .. . We stopped disintegration at the iteration before the four different decision events Manuscript Rejected, Manuscript Revise and Re-Review, Manuscript Revise only and Manuscript Accepted fell apart from each other into different components. Many researchers, reviewers and editors do have opinions about the roles and responsibilities of both editors and reviewers (Glonti et al., 2019), some of which contradict each other (Glonti et al., 2019, p.1). However, when they communicated their decision to the Editor-in-Chief (EiC), who makes the final decision, it was decided to reconsider your manuscript. We did not use a clustering algorithm, because those usually are based on cohesion or distance metrics: they regard those parts of graphs as different components, which are only weakly linked or distant from each other, whereas nodes belong to the same cluster component if they are strongly linked or close to each other. . If it goes for review, then it will be about a month before you get the comments. The description of the variables was mainly derived from the field names, their values and the xml-structure in the raw data and is given in Table 1. As was said earlier, the infrastructure understands the process along the stages, a manuscript version passes through. (Manuscript under submission->Manuscript received)->Editor assigned->Manuscript under consideration->Editor Decision StartedDecision sent to author->Waiting for revision, ->Revision receivedManuscript #A1Manuscript under submission->Manuscript received->Editor assigned->Manuscript under consideration->Editor Decision Started, . nature scienceBoard of Reviewing Editors scienceBoard of Reviewing Editors Board of Reviewing Editorsnaturescience Board of Reviewing Editorsscience connection The figure shows the decisions for the original manuscript version (v0) and resubmitted versions (v1v5). The complete network is comprised of 72 vertices and 221,287 edges. Also, the initial quality control of manuscripts, indicated by the events Initial QC Started (N = 14,499), Initial QC Complete (14,288) and Initial QC Failed (N = 418) referring to the submission (where QC stands for quality control and the relation of failed versus complete initial quality controls shows that this event is mostly independent from the decision category), can be attributed to that category, because it potentially would also allow for detecting structural problems in the quality of submissions, thereby informing the controlling of the process. The remaining network has only 96 edges and a density of d = 0.02, and a core-periphery structure becomes visible (see Figure 4, right). After several rounds of revision, when the revised manuscript was submitted, the status showed 'quality check started' - 'peer review' - 'decision started.' Empirically, we use digital traces from an editorial management system in order to gain insights into how the digitalized peer review process looks like. To identify important passage points in the network, we chose node degree centrality with respect to edge multiplicity. Nature Microbiology (Nat Microbiol) To the best of our knowledge, our analysis is one of the very few quantitative analyses of these processes. One of the most insightful critiques that has been published on this topic in years, our guest, Steve Krakauer, who is the author, has been around media for . This indicates, that administratively, the ongoing process is only indirectly affected by the reviewers recommendations, but directly affected by the editors decisions. . Such claims are difficult to make given the limitations many studies on editorial peer review face. For example, the event Preliminary Manuscript Data submitted happens for almost all manuscripts, which is why it does not help us to distinguish manuscript lifecycles in a meaningful way. Motivation: Altogether, this was a positive experience. The most central node is Preliminary Manuscript Data Submitted which has 27,910 ingoing and outgoing edges, whereas the least central node is Initial QC failed (where QC stands for quality control) which has only 147 edges. Reviewers read the manuscript and submit their reports. We were provided with data from an editorial management system by a biomedical publisher. Review Time in Peer Review: Quantitative Analysis and Modelling of Editorial Workflows, Perspektiven der Infrastrukturforschung: care-full, relational, ko-laborativ, Schlsselwerke der Science & Technology Studies, Ggraph: An Implementation of Grammar of Graphics for Graphs and Networks, From Manuscript Evaluation to Article Valuation: The Changing Technologies of Journal Peer Review, R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing, Peer Review Practices: A Content Analysis of External Reviews in Science Funding, Zwischen Reputation und Markt: Ziele, Verfahren und Instrumente von (Selbst)Evaluationen aueruniversitrer, ffentlicher Forschungseinrichtungen. Typically, events referring to what Schendzielorz and Reinhart (2020) have called postulation are triggered by the authors. We aim to compare empirical process generated data with this idealized process provided with the patent, because the processual data reflect local adaptations and uses of these technologies emerging from concrete demands of authors, reviewers and editors in the configurations of a journal (Horbach and Halffman, 2019, p.2), but are at the same time also constrained by the initial definition of roles and processes set up by the developers of the technology (Krger et al., 2021). Consensus decision-making or consensus process (often abbreviated to consensus) are group decision-making processes in which participants develop and decide on proposals with the aim, or requirement, of acceptance by all. Exploring a digital infrastructure without actually having access to it is challenging. If an appeal merits further consideration, the editors may send the authors' response or the revised paper to one or more reviewers, or they may ask one reviewer to comment on the concerns raised by another reviewer. They enable, support or constrain some behaviours, but they can also make certain activities more visible and thereby more relevant than others, they pick and choose (ibid., 1). Also, the process as described in the patent and inscribed in the software would be technically open to integrate all kinds of checks at this point even automated detection of content similarity with other papers as presupposition for plagiarism prevention. Depending on the journal, the assignment may be done by technical staff, the journal's chief editor, or automatic by submission category or author suggestion. German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), Berlin, Germany, 2 Also, the database is, of course, more complex and stores lots of information from user accounts to e-mail communication, but our analyses refer exclusively to the manuscript life cycle. We only find Review Started and Review Received in this respect, but we have, based on the event history only, no information as to what the reviewers might have recommended. Katharina is a communications expert, science communicator, non-fictional book author and now Communications Director at the foundation "Gesunde Erde - Gesunde Menschen".<br><br>While earning her doctorate, she taught with a focus on cultural and media studies at the LMU Munich. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. The disintegrated network consisted of eleven isolated components, of which 10 were consisting of three vertices or less and one component with 22 vertices, containing the decisions (see Supplementary Material). On occasion, particularly if the editors feel that additional technical expertise is needed to make a decision, they may obtain advice from additional reviewers. Can I ask the editor to publish a withdrawn manuscript after acceptance? Following an ethnographic approach to infrastructures, we reconstruct sequences of the stages passed by the manuscript, taking into account how long it takes for manuscripts to pass from one stage to another. on 30 Mar, 2017, This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage. The two additional source and target nodes make start and end of the process visible. The latter means to us that while the system itself is hidden from us, we use what we have access to: traces of how the digital infrastructure is used. Mrowinski M. J., Fronczak A., Fronczak P., Nedic O., Ausloos M. (2016). The patent depicts peer review as an ordered process with actions (such as sub-processes, documents and stored data) and bifurcations (see Figure 3). However, based on our analysis, we explore what can be known from editorial management systems and in what ways decisions jointly emerge from editorial decision and structures provided by the infrastructure. Also, there are no actions recorded without two person-IDs involved, which means, that automated actions, if recorded, must be included with person-IDs. The first possibility is the short decision path from Manuscript Consultation Started directly to Editor Decision Complete. As editors, our aim is to send you a decision that will give you the best advice we can about how to move forward to get your work published. We have shown in our contribution, that the peer review process in digital infrastructures is complex: We started from an abstract description of a minimal peer review process with four elements according to Schendzielorz and Reinhart (2020), acknowledged an ideal digitalized process with seventeen positioned components according to a patent (Plotkin, 2009) and empirically found an open process with 72 events in it. To obtain round 1""nature nature metabolism. This underlines the strong position and great responsibility of the editor. Icons made by various authors from www.flaticon.com, Experiential Live Edit: How to improve Biomed manuscripts. In any case, not assigning a role to some actors shows that those are regarded less relevant for the editorial process by design. Based on the Nature Methods Review Speed Feedback System, it takes editor 146.00 days to accept manuscript. Consequently, the analysis shows how much organizational effort goes into what Schendzielorz and Reinhart (2020) have called the administrative parts of the peer review process to which this article pays particular attention. The second possibility is the long decision path from Manuscript Consultation Started through external peer review to Editor Decision Complete. . Brooke LaFlamme, PhD, Associate Editor, Nature Genetics Location: 10-11am, 13-105 CHS, Monday April 18, 2016 Abstract: The editorial and publication process at high impact journals, such as Nature Genetics, is often perceived as confusing and difficult to navigate for researchers.My presentation will provide an overview of the editorial process at . If authors prefer not to make the review history of their paper at Nature Microbiology known to a new journal, they should not use the transfer service and they should make a new submission instead; the editors will evaluate the paper without reference to the previous review process. For instance, the editor might become aware of their own velocity in deciding or transferring manuscripts (Mrowinski et al., 2016), hence administrating the process. The analysis may also provide first insights to what extent the events recorded are automatically generated. Editage Insights offers a wealth of free academic research and publishing resources and is a one-stop guide for authors and others involved in scholarly publishing. In contrast, in our data, the editors play a major role, performing lots of tasks affecting actors with other roles assigned and there is no automated decision making at play, when it comes to the final publishing approval decision. In this regard, editorial management systems perform timekeeping, when they support and oversee the duration of sub-processes (Reviewer Waited too Long, Waiting for Authors Revision etc.). Reviews Submit a Review. Accordingly, our process elements are strongly linked by the first couple of passage points, because they indicate states of transition. Yet, in our data set, we also found events that reach beyond administrative activities, because they document pace, effectiveness, or quality of the process or the item (the manuscript), thus enabling quality control and supervision of the whole process, which we label observational elements. resubmitnoveltyresubmit, 4. If the manuscript has been peer-reviewed, authors should include a note explaining any changes made to the manuscript compared to the original Nature Microbiology submission, along with a separate point-by-point response to the reviewer reports. How to write an email to the editor inquiring about the current status of my paper? From an ethnographic perspective this also means that the infrastructure itself cannot evaluate reviewers opinions due to its implementation and consequentially would not even be able to compile automated decisions. You will know soon. Editor assignment or invitation Based on the topic of the manuscript and suggestions by the authors, an editor is assigned to handle the manuscript. The first possibility is the short decision path from "Manuscript Consultation Started" directly to "Editor Decision Complete". In the patent, it says: A users role includes one or more of the following relationships between the manuscript and the associated person: author, editor, associate editor, reviewer, or staff member. (Plotkin, 2009 p.5). Across all Wolters Kluwer journals, the average time that a manuscript moves through the submission process from submission to first decision takes about 30 days, and to a final . The graphic below shows how a typical manuscript goes through the Editorial Manager system, along with some of the terms used to describe the manuscript's status. For our last submission the decision took 25 days for which the editor apologized. We focus our analysis on editorial peer review, that is, processes related to editorial selection, management and decision making. The numbers indicate, how often a specific decision is reached for the respective version (the in-degree of the node). Also, there are only 29 directed links between the entities, resulting in a network density of 0.1, meaning that 10 percent of all theoretically possible edges occur. Editors decide whether to send a manuscript for peer review based on the degree to which it advances our understanding of the field, the soundness of conclusions, the extent to which the evidence presented - including appropriate data and analyses - supports these conclusions, and the wide relevance of these conclusions to the journals readership. The editors consider reviewer feedback and their own evaluation of the manuscript in order to reach a decision. More specifically, we hence thirdly 3), also aim at exploring as to whether one can find traces of automated decision making, something which could more radically alter editorial peer review and scholarly publishing. The institution of scholarly peer review as the main instance for scientific quality assurance appears to be comparably stable since more than three hundred years, despite several technical changes (Reinhart, 2010; Pontille and Torny, 2015; Horbach and Halffman, 2019). The editor is reading your manuscript and figuring out whether or not she wants to send it for peer review. Internet Explorer). While they draw in their examples from grant peer review, they explicitly claim their depiction to enable comparative analyses of different peer review processes along the elements of a minimal process: postulation, consultation, decision and administration. Established in 1947, the company is known for modern classic style that's both tim Editorial management systems are digital infrastructures processing the submission, evaluation and administration of scholarly articles. The process sequence is very open in principle, but for a process leading from submission to decision, some regularity in the steps could be expected, that is, some nodes must be more likely than others to be passed and also, some edges must be more important than others respectively. Nature CommunationsNature, @14:NatureComm.Manuscptunderconsideration)zipforreviewerzip, editordecisionstartednaturechemistry[], NatureComm.Manuscptunderconsideration), @13:editordecisionstartednaturechemistry, @38:ejournals, @13:editordecisionstartednaturechemistry, @5:NatureMatealsUnderReview.manuscptunderconsiderationEditorDecisionStartedmanuscptunderconsideration, @41:, naturecommunicationunderconsideration20, scichina life awaiting admin pcessing, IEICE The 1st Evaluation has been completed, 2010104Awaiting Reviewer Assignment, Submissions Being Pcessed(1)Submissions with a Decision (1), AngewSubmitted,Under review,. Moreover, acceleration, control and efficiency have been main arguments for establishing editorial management systems in the first place (Jubb, 2015; Mendona, 2017), putting pressure on publishers and editors of journals to implement streamlined procedures. On the other hand, it has been argued that editorial management systems support the editorial role and reproduce or may even increase the instruments to regulate, administrate and ultimately control the process (Mendonca, 2017). This highlights the differences between the consultation and decision components of the process. Editorial management systems may then be interpreted as representations and manifestations of the peer review process which is itself an internal element of the self-governance within the sciences. GUID:EFC9DCE3-3C9C-46E8-B28A-8E8EFE53517D, editorial management systems, peer review, process generated data, digital transformation of scholarly publishing, digital infrastructure. One of the reasons for the rising significance of editorial practices is the increase of self-control of scholarly journals emerging from the digital transformation of the process induced by the editorial management system. All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Is there any regulation for enforcing he editor for appropriate reply about accept or reject? Events after decision with multiplicity and median duration show that editors thoroughly communicate about negative decisions. Since then the success of peer review in science was unprecedented and can be seen in the various ways peer review has been integrated for the evaluation of scholarly output, with varying expectations as to what it is to accomplish. [CDATA[// >