All reviews received by SciRev

Motivation: The review process was unfair. I pointed out that one reviewer was wrong concerning an alleged error. The associate editor refused to forward this clarification to the said reviewer. Moreover, he refused to answer some questions regarding arguments for rejection or revision. Instead, he suggested resubmission of a newe article after revision. But: What should be revised? I was not amused.

Motivation: Not all reviewers were familiar with an important aspect of the paper. Therefore it took quite an effort to explain them the background. However, there were also some comments, which led to an improvement of the paper. The review process was comparably fast.

Motivation: Very speedy and professional review process.

Motivation: Review process was relatively speedy and professional.

Motivation: I received two reviews. The first was opinionated without supporting facts. The second was a reasonable review with objective critiques. Ultimately, no reason for the rejection was given except for the standard "not high enough priority." However, based on the available reviewer comments this could not be put in perspective.

Motivation: The article submission process was very streamlined and was one of the simplest I have encountered to date. The review and final notification of acceptance were also shorter than I expected. The editorial team bent over backwards to assist with any issues I had with the electronic system.

Motivation: The decision to reject on the basis of being out of scope for the journal needs to be made immediately, not after sixteen months in process.

Motivation: Great review process despite rejection. Comments very helpful in the end.

Motivation: I spent 5 months waiting for a revise and resubmit from 2 reviewers and 1 OK. I then addressed the reviewers comments in good faith for 6 months. I then waited 6 months for 2 reviewers to reject and 1 to say Ok (again). I am fine with reviewers opinions - even from those who are initially encouraging and then sharply critical, even if the latter is disagreeable. However it should be the editor's job to explain and moderate in this situation - not to simply copy paste a reviewer's comment by way of explanation. Overall: a huge waste of time. Thank goodness there are just as good journals out there, who may know how to run things properly.

Motivation: In robotics, as any other multidisciplinary science, the review process is far from being straightforward. In most situations, either on journals or relevant conferences in the field, such as IROS or ICRA, reviews may not fill our expectations. Either because they may fail to grasp the mathematical complexity associated with the proposed methodologies, or because they completely ignore the hard and time-consuming work associated with real-world experiments.

The Robotics and Autonomous Systems journal, aka. RAS, is perhaps the most well-suited journal in the field of robotics at the moment. In general, the review process is considerably faster than the alternatives (between 3 to 5 months), and the quality of the revisions is undoubtedly above the average, with always 3 or more reviewers for each report. The current editors, in particularly Prof. R. Dillmann, usually handle the decision process quite fast (around 1 week between each phase) and minor revisions are assessed without going back to the reviewers in most situations. Note that this does not mean that the review process lakes quality. In fact, it is quite the opposite and the progressive evolution of RAS impact factor over the last few years says it all.

To sum it up, if I would have to advise any roboticist on a good journal, with a considerably fast and fair review process, RAS would be the way to go. It has a broad scope within robotics field and publishes a large number of papers per year (around 100).

Motivation: Lengthy reviewing time.
One of the referees simply said that the manuscript did not add to the literature without no further justifications or comments. The second referee was constructive, with a long and well written report suggesting several modifications.

Motivation: The assistant editor was very thorough, both scientifically and with respect to writing. The manuscript was significantly improved by interaction with this assistant editor, and further improvements were made by the chief editor.

Motivation: The review process was very rigorous, and handled in a very professional manner. I received some very challenging reviews, but the consequence is that the articles were greatly improved, over-broad assertions were pruned back to defensible positions, and the subject matter was completely vetted. Given that the articles constituted a long-view historical treatment of research developments of hundreds of researchers, it was very important to get everything right. The Computer Music Journal and the MIT Press were good allies in the process of obtaining the very best work from me.

Motivation: They spend 4 months with my article without any feedback. Later it was accepted.

Motivation: The review process was too long. The journal did not respond my emails when I asked for an update of the manuscript status.

Motivation: This is the first time I submitted a research paper to MST and I am fully satisfied with the review process as well as editorial assistance.