Thus, it is rendered invisible as distinguishable component. We found that there was a central vertex dividing the decision component in two parts: Editor Decision Complete is the demarcation between events before (review process) and after decision (decision communication). 1.8+, SCI45, , , , , Editor Declined Invitation, Decision Letter Being Prepared , Decision in Process, , 5.Awaiting EA (Associated Editor) decision, lettercorrespondence, peer reviewdecline, in-house review, With editorrequired review completed, , Under ReviewRequired Reviews Complete, (naturescience), 90%, , , . Our original resources for authors and journals will help you become an expert in academic publishing. Hopefully, you will be informed of the decision soon. Because of combinatorial explosion, large networks can be expected to be less dense than smaller ones. 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. Secondly 2), we intent to gain insights into the ways editorial management systems shape or transform editorial practices, i.e., to explore the ways of how the technology has been implemented in the journal. 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. 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. This document provides an outline of the editorial process involved in publishing a scientific paper (Article) in Nature, and describes how manuscripts are handled by editors between submission. While Decision Sent to Author plays a major role (N = 13,933), we also find a noteworthy amount of Drafting Decision Letter Started (N = 1,949) and Drafting Decision Letter Completed (N = 2,421). In return, authors and reviewers experience less surveillance by the system, because only few formalized actions are recorded from them, because the system is clearly editor-centred. All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication. The editor-infrastructure compound while overseeing the whole process can only distinguish the other three components from each other, but cannot discriminate the administration. Centrality is a relative measure, putting different nodes into an ordered relation. 2 wormified 4 yr. ago A month sounds optimistic to me :-) 2 [deleted] 4 yr. ago [removed] riricide 4 yr. ago Yet, given our limited reconstruction of the event history, we cannot confirm this hypothesis. A closer look at process generated data allows us to explore which elements of the peer review and decision making process in scholarly journals are communicated and shared on a digital infrastructure, how the process of peer review is transformed into countable events and made visible. Moreover, infrastructures can be seen as structures emerging from situated knowledges, a term coined by Haraway (1988) with regard to people and communities with partial perspectives. Yet, the analysis of processual data from an editorial management system may lead to research paying more attention to organizational issues of scholarly publishing, that is, practices related with maintaining and binding reviewers, authors and editors to a scholarly journal. However, we decided to restrict our analysis of the sequence of stages to the 14,391 first-version manuscripts with 206,896 events to avoid obfuscation of the prototypical process by manuscript versions with a past. Buying Bolivia Women | SDA Studio Kft. 2002 These events document the time passing before a relevant step in the consultation or postulation, inasmuch as they control if editors, authors and referees perform their tasks timely. This characteristic of the peer review process we must consider specific for this publisher, according to our data, and not a general feature, as the editorial management software could also be used otherwise. The publisher provided us with processual data from their journal management system during an earlier research project with a focus on evaluation practices and sources of biases in peer review. SCI---Editideas - 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). How long time should we wait for editor decision on a manuscript? and Register for comprehensive research tips and expert advice on English writing, journal publishing, good publication practices, trends in publishing, and a lot more. The publisher uses the system EJournalPress to manage their editorial peer review lead by full-time staff editors in a shared office space. While these activities certainly would exist without editorial management systems, the latter makes them more visible and suspect to monitoring and optimization, because they can standardize editorial practices. The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2021.747562/full#supplementary-material, National Library of Medicine What is the meaning of "decision in process" status? The patented process is implemented as software, which is then adapted locally to the journals and publishers needs, taking stock of the diversity of scholarly publishing. We are able to compare the elements and events described in the patent (Plotkin, 2009) with its adaptation at the publisher in question, where the elements of the process could only be identified by taking event labels, performing actors and sequence of steps together. Answer: It is clear from the status descriptions that your revised manuscript was sent for peer review again. Usually when a paper is received for publication, the Editor in chief considers the paper and then transmits it to the suitable Associate Editor. MDPI 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. A decision to send the paper for review can take longer, but usually within a month (in which case the editors send apologies). The editor is reading your manuscript and figuring out whether or not she wants to send it for peer review. Sorted by: 2 Usually they decide in less than a week after the initial submission. How can we live a good life? PLOS Sustainability and Transformation sciencenature - 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. 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. Editorial management systems are perceived as an infrastructure in this work. In contrast for our case, we hypothesize that the important things happen, where manuscripts differ from each other this means that the passage points tend to carry less information about the process elements. According to Star and Bowker, infrastructures are used to enable, maintain and control collaboration among different actors (Star, 1999; Star and Bowker, 2006). There are certainly technological and organizational models in play fundamentally altering the role models of both reviewers and editors. What is worth noting is that the content of reviewers opinions is not visible in the process, although the reviews are clearly processed by the infrastructure. Confirm that you would also like to sign up for free personalized email coaching for this stage. 2017-07-13 11:21. Yet, the digital infrastructure accompanies each and every step of the editor, supporting the editors tasks, which could not be accomplished in an equal pace and magnitude without it. Lifting the curtain on editorial decisions - Springer Nature Additionally, actions were recorded for person-IDs not having a role assigned for the respective manuscript. Share Improve this answer Follow answered Jul 2, 2014 at 10:14 user18118 21 1 Add a comment 0 Editorial criteria and processes | Nature Usually, the associate editor makes the publication decision (I'm sure the editor in chief can overrule this decision, but it usually doesn't happen). Drawing from the theoretical considerations explained above, we first present results regarding the different roles which the editorial management system supports and enables in order to understand how the governance of the process is represented and performed by the editorial management system. Yet, little is known about how these infrastructures support, stabilize, transform or change existing editorial practices. English Editing - Editage.com | Editage.jp | Editage.co.kr |SCI Editage.cn |publicao de artigos Editage.com.br | Editage.com.tw |Terms of UseforEnglish Editing Services. There is much consensus about peer review for manuscripts being a major instrument for quality control despite differences what that means in practice (Campanario, 1998a; Campanario, 1998b). The focus of the patent is on how to facilitate the peer review process in a digital infrastructure. Also, when we conceptually refer to the process, we write element or component for conglomerates of either actions or events which belong together. The Emergence of a Field: a Network Analysis of Research on Peer Review, 4.8 Academic Social Networks and Bibliometrics, Gedanken zum Refereesystem in konomischen wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften, Von der Theorie zur Wirtschaftspolitik - ein sterreichischer Weg, Peer Review for Journals as it Stands Today-Part 1, Peer Review for Journals as it Stands Today-Part 2, The Ethnographer and the Algorithm: beyond the Black Box. Once you have submitted your manuscript, it goes through the following editorial process: The journals editorial assistant will check that the manuscript and associated materials are complete. Also, there are no actions recorded without two person-IDs involved, which means, that automated actions, if recorded, must be included with person-IDs. 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. 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. 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. editor decision started under consideration. Received 2021 Jul 26; Accepted 2021 Sep 20. The infrastructure models the peer review process along the way of submitted (versions of) manuscripts, which enter the system during submission and pass through different stages afterwards. Nature Methods | Peer-Review Duration, Review Speed, Revision Process We found that there is no standardized role for automated processing or decision making: the digital infrastructure itself is not explicitly listed as actor in the patent, but is only visible in the digital traces. 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. Also, we have found that participants in the process (see Schendzielorz and Reinhart, 2020) are translated into roles in the digitalized process (see Plotkin, 2009) and implemented as person-IDs in the digital infrastructure, only the latter distinctly displaying the infrastructure itself as an actor. Decisions are reversed on appeal only if the editors are convinced that the original decision was an error. As was said earlier, the infrastructure understands the process along the stages, a manuscript version passes through. What does the status 'Decision started' mean? For instance, 10,522 events triggered by editors affect referees. We preliminarily conclude that the partial perspective through the eyes of the digital infrastructure provides valuable insights into the peer review process, which are difficult to obtain otherwise. Moreover, the characteristics of both reviewers and editors are explored to a significant extent (Hirschauer, 2010, 73). In the second section of the results, we aim at tracing the order of the events in the editorial management system. Of all 11,103 manuscripts which make it to a decision at least in one round, the first submitted version is rejected in the vast majority of the cases, whereas manuscripts which make it through the first round, stand a good chance to be accepted in the later stages, as is shown in Figure 1. How do I write an inquiry to the editor about my manuscript's current status? 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. In our study, we investigate editorial processes and practices with their data traces captured by an editorial management system. We sorted seven events into this category (according to their labelling and the distribution of triggering roles), of which the event Preliminary Manuscript Data Submitted is the event with the highest frequency in the database (N = 16,901), followed by Author Approved Converted Files (N = 13,978). 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. By exploring process generated data from a publishers editorial management system, we investigate the ways by which the digital infrastructure is used and how it represents the different realms of the process of peer review. We oversee this process to ensure that your manuscript contains. Recently, it has been established that in a minimal case, the peer review process is comprised of postulation, consultation, decision and administration. Please see our guidelines for initial submission to make sure that you provide us with all necessary information at this stage. This relates to recent research lines focusing on the stability and transformability of editorial practices by Horbach and Halffman (2020, p.3) arguing that existing editorial practices can be stabilized by infrastructures. 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. Innovating Editorial Practices: Academic Publishers at Work, Peer Review: The Current Landscape and Future Trends, Selection Criteria in Professorial Recruiting as Indicators of Institutional Similarity? Sometimes they are more busy. Also, Editor Recommendation Started (N = 431) was attributed to this category. Editorial process : Nature Support In the third section, the data and their preparation are described in more detail, elaborating on why a social network approach appears to be suitable for exploring relationships between events of the editorial process mediated by the system. Similarly, disputes on factual issues need not be resolved unless they would have altered the final decision to publish or not. In this principal depiction, the digital infrastructure of the editorial management system is presented to foster values such as timeliness and comprehensiveness. Of major relevance for the peer review process is that it finally comes to a decision, based on consultation with internal and external actors. Nine events were attributed to the administrative activities of the peer review process, according to Schendzielorz and Reinhart (2020) comprising processes, where postulations are received, their treatments are initiated or being coordinated. It has core editorial offices across the United States, continental Europe, and Asia under the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature. LetPub (2017). The editor contacts potential reviewers to ask them to review the manuscript. This procedure is followed by most journals. 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). I have recently checked the research records (on ORCID, Scopus and Scholar) of Nature editors, I have also conducted web searches to trace their academic background, and I found that the. . Hence, there is no such thing as a uniform process put into place by a technology. . //-->Digital marketing - Wikipedia //-->