Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
Very good experience. Some of the reviews were a bit intense but the reviewer implied in their message that they didn't expect us to consider some of the recommendations. It took some effort with two revisions before an acceptance in principle, but the editor was very helpful.
Motivation:
The editor was quick to respond to the author’s emails related to the manuscript. The first decision was to reject and resubmit. One reviewer accepted with minor corrections. The second one has a concern about the format of the manuscript and some of the technical terms. We submitted the revised manuscript, the second decision was a major revision. The first reviewer with minor corrections accepted the revision. The second reviewer still had some concerns about the content. We submitted the revised manuscript, the third decision was to accept it in its current form. The second reviewer accepted with no further corrections.
Motivation:
The journal kept the manuscript for more than 17 months and the handling editor did not respond to any of my mail regarding inquiries of the status. After getting tired of no responses, we decided to withdraw the manuscript and sent a mail to the journal's email account regarding withdrawal and explained the reason for being ghosted by the handling editor. The journal also did not respond for more than 10 days and then we contacted the chief editor who finally apologized for the situation and the manuscript was withdrawn finally. Note that I tried to contact the chief editor in between but he was too busy with lots of paper and could not check on my manuscript and asked me to contact the handling editor again. 17 months and no response from the handling editor are just too much. At least, we deserve a referee report at the end. But alas, we did not get any. Thankfully, we can submit the manuscript elsewhere.
16.1 weeks
17.1 weeks
n/a
1 reports
Accepted
Motivation:
The handling editor was really quick in their work and the review time taken was relatively less. Also, they would reply to any queries instantly regarding the submission. The report attached was also good as the reviewer mentioned the importance of our work in detail in it and asked for some simple clarity in one of the steps in the proof which we provided and the manuscript was accepted. The good part is that the journal is diamond open access and one need not have to pay any APC for publishing open access.
Motivation:
It was terrible. First it was sent off to two reviewers and both had a few comments on it. We addressed them and resubmitted the paper. However, since the beginning it was clear that the section Editor did not read the paper at all. Then after we resubmitted it, we received the comments from three reviewers. The editor felt like asking one more reviewer. One reviewer from the first submission was happy with the revision and had no further comments. The additional reviewer had no comments at all (this tells you the poor selection of the reviewers) and the other reviewer from the first submission strangely enough this time had more comments and was not happy at all with the revision despite we replied to all their minor comments. Not only that but they also wrote a nasty comment to offend us and the Editor did not do anything about it. In the end the Editor rejected our paper without even reading it! What a poor Editorial work. I would certainly never submit any other paper to this journal.
Motivation:
The editors treated the manuscript fairly. They suggested that the manuscript be transferred to Scientific Reports.
Motivation:
Very fast and target-oriented publishing process. Nevertheless, the quality of the reviews seems to suffer under this time pressure. Since this is an open access journal, publication is somewhat expensive, but everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of all articles published.
Motivation:
I had a very pleasant experience with this journal. Reviewer reports were constructive and relatively fast. Definitely recommended.
Motivation:
Surprisingly quick review/handling process. I'd appreciate it.
Motivation:
weak reasons for rejection
Motivation:
Single Peer-Review means that the reviewers know the author's name
Motivation:
Though the outcome was favorable, and the reviews were good, the timeline for this review was unacceptably long. The first review took 11 months. The message we received after review was that necessary revisions were minor and that the editor expected to be able to accept our changes without sending it to out for review. We made these revisions. For reasons never explained, she did try to send it out for review, and after another 6 months, with multiple messages to the associate editor that were not returned until I got the editor involved, it was read and accepted by the associate editor. It never did receive a second set of reviews. I can appreciate that some of this was affected by covid-related delays, however I had two other articles submitted after our first submission to this journal and published well before this paper was published. So other journals dealing with covid-related delays were able to manage getting papers through the pipeline in under seventeen months.
Motivation:
After more than a year received a rejection with the following justification: "We do not have a full referee report, but quick opinions gathered indicate that this is an interesting paper but not quite at the level required for Forum of Math, Sigma. Thus, we cannot accept the paper."
Motivation:
The journal brands an "open review" process, which I entered. I never received any response regarding this. After a long period of review, the first decision was to accept my manuscript. The peer review reports were minimal and focused on one point only. The journal then demanded a Portuguese translation of my article, which I submitted. The editor then contacted me to say that my Portuguese translation was not accepted and cited journal guidelines that state that in such cases, the article may be rejected. I demanded to know what exactly was the problem with the translation, but have not received a reply since.
Motivation:
Some useful critical points that perhaps have been addressed in revision, although the manuscript and its overarching message or content were at odds with the editor-in-chief's preferred outlook or perspective in order for manuscript to be forwarded for review or accepted.
Motivation:
Some viable suggestions and novel insights in the review process. However, it is somewhat strange that the editor-in-chief tends to append additional specific comments along the way that are separate to the assigned reviewers' comments so they effectively become an additional reviewer - the editor-in-chief holds a very specific outlook or perspective that manuscripts must follow in order to be peer-reviewed or accepted.
Motivation:
Editorial decision was quick. We also submitted an appeal and after 2 weeks we got another more detailed rejection letter.
Motivation:
Review was based on editors' beliefs about the relationships between variables rather than anything based on science.
Motivation:
"We hope that you will not view this as a rejection but rather that it reflects the Editorial Team's opinion on the fit of your manuscript with our aims and objectives. It may be well received by other journals with a different focus. We also hope that our expedited yet rigorous process gives authors the opportunity to rapidly move to another Journal."
Motivation:
I think that the decision to reject the manuscript just because there are errors in the order of the template is a strict decision
Motivation:
The first round of review was rather fast. However, out of 3 reviews, 2 where troublesome:
- The first one was about another submission than mine! Possibly the reviewer swapped two parallel reviews when submitting; possibly the problem lied in the journal information system. Anyway, the managing editor did not notice, which in itself, means something. I immediately contacted the editor, but my email remained unanswered.
- The second one was essentially a reviewer’s attempt to coerce citations (like explained in https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/35/18/3217/5304360?login=true) which is ethically questionable. Concretely, the review was built around a list of 13 papers supposedly about the subject, among which 11 were from the same research group (good point: the other two papers were meaningful indeed). The editor did not notice too, but considering the absence of answer to my first email, I did not email about the ethical concern raised by this second review.
- The third one was a classical review, with a summary of the article, a short highlight of its strengths, followed by few major concerns and a list of minor issues. As this review was enriching, I decided to revise and resubmit despite the 2 other reviews. A noticeable fact was that the managing editor changed in between.
The second round appeared to be longer than the first. Long after the average time claimed on the journal website (8 to 12 weeks), I contacted the editor, and I received a void response (something like, "sorry, but it depends on the reviewers' responsiveness"). All my further emails/inquiries remained unresponded to.
Finally, after almost 26 weeks, considering this was longer than necessary to evaluate a revised paper, I withdrawn my submission by email.
- The first one was about another submission than mine! Possibly the reviewer swapped two parallel reviews when submitting; possibly the problem lied in the journal information system. Anyway, the managing editor did not notice, which in itself, means something. I immediately contacted the editor, but my email remained unanswered.
- The second one was essentially a reviewer’s attempt to coerce citations (like explained in https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/35/18/3217/5304360?login=true) which is ethically questionable. Concretely, the review was built around a list of 13 papers supposedly about the subject, among which 11 were from the same research group (good point: the other two papers were meaningful indeed). The editor did not notice too, but considering the absence of answer to my first email, I did not email about the ethical concern raised by this second review.
- The third one was a classical review, with a summary of the article, a short highlight of its strengths, followed by few major concerns and a list of minor issues. As this review was enriching, I decided to revise and resubmit despite the 2 other reviews. A noticeable fact was that the managing editor changed in between.
The second round appeared to be longer than the first. Long after the average time claimed on the journal website (8 to 12 weeks), I contacted the editor, and I received a void response (something like, "sorry, but it depends on the reviewers' responsiveness"). All my further emails/inquiries remained unresponded to.
Finally, after almost 26 weeks, considering this was longer than necessary to evaluate a revised paper, I withdrawn my submission by email.
2.6 weeks
2.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Drawn back
Motivation:
some reviews are general and focus on form not content.
Motivation:
Very fast review speed, good reviews (helpful to improve the journal). In general a smooth review process.
Motivation:
3 months to desk reject!!!
Motivation:
comments from the reviewers were very constructive, pertinent, and of high quality. the manuscript improved much with the comments. The main difficulty is to fit the article according to the journal's guidelines since there is no Latex template.
35.7 weeks
35.7 weeks
n/a
1 reports
Rejected
Motivation:
Reviews were comparatively minor as many of the issues simply required further clarification and re-phrasing. Despite being rejected, the reviewer comments were manageable or certainly worthwhile having another attempt to revise.
Motivation:
Thorough and fair review that highlighted some key undiscovered pitfalls. Clear and rapid review process. Blind review process by default, although one reviewer chose to unveil identity.