Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 255.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation:
We ultimately made the decision to withdraw our manuscript from this journal due to the excessively long delay in organizing peer review.
Motivation:
JMIR boasts quick turnaround times for first review under 3 months (see: https://www.jmir.org/reviewer/fastTrackStats/). I first contacted the journal 3 months after submission and received no responses from the editor for several weeks. A generic helpdesk staff member pointed me to a JMIR blog article asking authors not to contact the journal before 5 months is up. I did so and the journal still did not respond. I finally received a first decision slightly under 6 months after first submission.
Reviews were of moderate quality. To the journal's credit, subsequent revisions were reviewed within days up until final acceptance.
Reviews were of moderate quality. To the journal's credit, subsequent revisions were reviewed within days up until final acceptance.
Motivation:
The most disappointing aspects of the review process were the lack of depth of the review comments and the time it took to review.
Motivation:
The journal seams to be the ideal candidate for gold open access at the first glance, and it keeps its promise of very fast manuscript processing. However, this comes at a price. I cannot blame the journal for the poor quality of the reviews I received (poor in the sense that they did not even try to relate critique to the manuscript, and in parts were not even specific to the research field). What I consider problematic is that editors seam to just forward - and thereby adopt - these reviews whithout prior check at least for basic consistency.
Motivation:
Getting the manuscript past the journal's quality check is a nightmare. Quality check takes up to 7 days, and the journal does not hesitate to send back a manuscript due to minuscule formatting issues. Across original submission and revision, we lost maybe 3-4 weeks of time thanks to this headache. The review itself was quick and on point. The reviewers did a great job here.
Motivation:
We got two review reports. One of them clearly exposed some of the weaknesses of our paper and helped improve the quality and clarity of the manuscript. The other one, however, was rather contemptuous as the referee indicated that he (or she) would not bother commenting the statistical and methodological aspects of the paper because of the small size of the sample. Thus, the second report was not helpful at all. Overall, the review provess was rather satisfying both from the timing and the referees comments perspective.
Motivation:
Extremely slow reviewing process. Not able to find handing editor for two months after submission. The first round of review took about 5 months. One of the three reviewers simply questioned ethics in animal experiment because we collaborated with CROs in China (yes, that was exactly what he wrote as comment). The reviewer was not convinced even we provided information on IACUC approval in the original manuscript and the response to the reviewers later. We were able to address the comments from the two other reviewers and still got rejected. I feel the editor's decision was driven by that specific reviewer. The whole process is painful and it will be my last time of considering this journal.
Motivation:
The editor and reviewers made a number of highly relevant comments, which improved the quality of the manuscript. We were very happy with this aspect.
The only down side of this experience was the rather long period until we received the first round of review (12 weeks - Christmas included, I must admit), when SBB typically asks reviewers to return their reviews within 21 days.
The only down side of this experience was the rather long period until we received the first round of review (12 weeks - Christmas included, I must admit), when SBB typically asks reviewers to return their reviews within 21 days.
Motivation:
Processing of the manuscript was very fast. Reviews were constructive, yet demanding, and helped to improve the paper.
Motivation:
The journal provided a timely and very high-quality review process.
Motivation:
Very helpful feedback on how to improve the paper.
Motivation:
The first review round took a long time, but since I was on maternity leave for most of that time it did not matter so much. Moreover, when I contacted the editorial office to ask them about the progress of my submission, apologies were made and satisfactory explanations given. The review reports I received were very helpful and they really improved the paper.
12.1 weeks
12.1 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Rejected
Motivation:
2 readers understand the model wrongly
then they did not understand the missing literature references (to what they understood)
the asked for an assessment of the representation
then they did not understand the missing literature references (to what they understood)
the asked for an assessment of the representation
Motivation:
action editor's interpretation of the data policy was unexpected and did not seem very reasonable for the methods we used
12.9 weeks
13.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Accepted
Motivation:
Our manuscript were assigned with a reference number and sent to the editor took almost 4 weeks after submission. Review process was very strange, because the date of the status was changing every week. After submission of the revision, the manuscript was accepted and published very quick. Editorial process was not so satisfied.
Motivation:
This is not my first experience with this journal. Four years ago an editor rejected my journal based on a referee report concerning SOMEONE ELSE'S paper. When I complained he apologized and told me to wait. Three months later I got a rejection again based on a different referee report concerning somebody ELSE'S manuscript again.
This time the paper was simply rejected because it contained no empirical part. However, I can cite several papers in this same journal where the published papers contained no empirical either.
Interestingly, in both cases my paper was handled by the same editor. I doubt if I will ever submit my paper to this journal again.
This time the paper was simply rejected because it contained no empirical part. However, I can cite several papers in this same journal where the published papers contained no empirical either.
Interestingly, in both cases my paper was handled by the same editor. I doubt if I will ever submit my paper to this journal again.
Motivation:
No further comments. Excelent peer-review process.
Motivation:
The overworked Editor had clearly not either carefully read or understood the manuscript. The rejection letter stated that the manuscript addresses something. However, in reality it addresses something quite different. I don't think is a result of bad writing because I had the manuscript read by scientists from other disciplines and they said that the title, introduction, results and abstract would be enjoyed even by science undergrads. An earlier manuscript of mine rejected here in 3 days but was published at a very prestigious journal, with great reviews. It is not an accident that the overall rating of this journal is ranked at 3.1/5, which is very bad compared to its peer Science Advances. And of course as everyone has stated, there is a lot of delay even for immediate rejections.
Motivation:
Editorial feedbacks were prompt, succinct, reasonable and courteous. Any time lapses may have been due to reviewer lags and schedules which editors might not be in control of.
Would be good for the journal to allow at least an extra figure and one extra table
Would be good for the journal to allow at least an extra figure and one extra table
Motivation:
The overall review process was extremely fast. One reviewer gave minor revision (without further review) and the other gave outright acceptance. I will consider this journal to publish my main works.
Motivation:
I contacted the editor and co-editors many times but they did not reply. After 7 months from the submission, the manuscript was in a virtual drawer without any consideration. After that I asked some updated news, a co-editor asked me not to withdraw the manuscript. After 11 months from the submission and many attempts to receive some information about the status of my manuscript, again I didn't receive any reply so I withdraw the manuscript and I Lost 11 months. I want to share this experience with other researchers, so they will know what they can receive back. Springer apologized for my very bad experience and the Springer support delegate was very supportive even if nothing could be done against the lack of communication from the editor and co-editors
Motivation:
Timely turn around, which I appreciate. It just didn't work out for us on this one.