Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
I believe it is completely unacceptable from a BioMed Central journal (charging USD 2,145 for publishing a paper) not to come to even a first editorial decision for 8 months. This happened despite numerous contacts with the editorial office during these months. Also, it was impossible to get into contact with the handling editor; we were able to reach editorial assistants only.
Motivation:
Referee reports were of high quality and improved the manuscript. Overall experience with the journal was good.
Motivation:
Toxicon was quick and efficient in handling a fundamental short manuscript. The contents of reviews were fair and greatly improved the final manuscript.
Motivation:
Peer review was superficial but fair enough. It took a bit long for a superficial peer review by one external reviewer + internal reviewer (editor) to happen.
Motivation:
The journal took >1 month to desk-reject the paper claiming it was out of scope and that they were under a high demand for publications. We do not feel the paper was out of scope, and we felt this a too long period to withhold the submission for a desk rejection.
Motivation:
Very low quality of reviews. Reviewers changed multiple times during the process. No clarification of reviews by editor. Communication took long and it was difficult to get any replies.
Motivation:
The reviewers were quite supportive in trying to improve the manuscript and bring out the best on a somewhat unconventional topic.
Motivation:
I always receive a rapid, polite response with useful feedback.
Motivation:
This is a new Fair Open Access Journal, and it is clear that the editors are putting a lot of effort into this journal. I had a little picky Reviewer who insisted that I should keep changing small details, but s/he was finally satisfied after a few rounds of revision.
8.4 weeks
30.1 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Accepted
Motivation:
Three revision rounds so it took ca 9 months before acceptance, but I recognize that manuscript quality was improved.
What I did not like is the long time between acceptance and online publication (more than 6 weeks). In general I see from the website that some papers are published 1-5 days after acceptance and other are published after 2-3 months (I refer to the "first online" publishing, not to the assignement to an issue whith page numbers, this latter of course can take up to 6 months).
What I did not like is the long time between acceptance and online publication (more than 6 weeks). In general I see from the website that some papers are published 1-5 days after acceptance and other are published after 2-3 months (I refer to the "first online" publishing, not to the assignement to an issue whith page numbers, this latter of course can take up to 6 months).
Motivation:
The reviewer's comments were very thoughtful. It was hard to see what the journal could have done better in terms of making the process simple to follow. The turnaround times were good and the editorial team responsive.
16.1 weeks
27.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Accepted
Motivation:
Longest review process I ever experienced, which made the overall process very unsatisfactory, despite the reasonable quality of the review reports.
Motivation:
Editor's comments are vague. Some reviewers are not fair. We had given no chances to modify our paper. Really, we can write our paper with more detail.
Motivation:
Excellent review process, and the manuscript was improved for the revisions made. This is an well-run journal. In my opinion the editor made a prudent decision in not sending back out for a 2nd round of reviews; often the editorial reflex is to simply send back out to reviewers, but that was not so in this case (to the editor's credit)
45.7 weeks
50.4 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Rejected
Motivation:
This journal is professional and the paper status is up-to-date which make the authors less worry. But the reviewers comments some of them very good and many of them are not helpful. For example, a review was mentiond my paper has mistakes and grammatical errors (he/she is correct) however his/her comments have errors too.
20.9 weeks
20.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Rejected
Motivation:
The review process was extremely long. The editor handled the manuscript more than 2 months. Few weeks after I received a mail that all the requiered reviews were complete, and another time I was waiting more than 3 weeks in "ready for decision", which was finally a rejection. The first reviewer explained with arguments its rejection with some comments but the second just limited to say that the paper was not original.
Motivation:
The journal has a binary peer-review. I received two reviews that were different. The first reviewer accepted the paper and the second one rejected. The editor rejected the paper, without giving the opportunity of a re-submission, which I didn't understand due to the comments of the first reviewer. The main reason was that is was the sequence of another paper that was not already published.
Motivation:
There was only two reviewers that hadn't the same advise: the first one found the paper interesting with minor revisions and the second found it not interesting and with several English concerns.
Motivation:
Manuscript was sent to three referees. One positive, one neutral, one negative --> rejection.
Overall satisfied with quality of reviews & handling time.
Overall satisfied with quality of reviews & handling time.
Motivation:
During our review process the editor left and the manuscript was not reassigned to a new editor. Despite communication with 'editorial office' it took months for the 'reviews received' to be sent to us for 'author response/revisions'. Our manuscript sat in limbo for months. The new editor was fairly quick to respond, except on one occasion which delayed our re-submission by 3 weeks while we waited for a response to an inquiry. In this case I could excuse the delay in communication (editor was likely busy catching up on all of the other manuscripts that were left by the previous), but with the previous delay this was quite frustrating. During the second round of revisions, two of the reviewers had made comments that had no basis in fact. One of these reviewers had made inappropriate comments as though they could contain their anger that we did not agree with all of their comments or address them exactly as they had requested. Meanwhile, our response which drew their attention to all their incorrect comments in the earlier version was politely accepted. During the period of 'limbo', another group submitted and published similar work to another journal. I assume most of the issues with our submission were related to changes in BMC genomics (it seems they were also making changes to the website at this time), but after this experience I don't intend to submit any new ms with BMC. I have also heard other colleagues complain recently.
Motivation:
Valuable information given by the reviewers and fair reviewing process.
Motivation:
N/A
Motivation:
Very easy and flexible submission system.
Motivation:
The review process was both helpful and speedy. The reviewers were sympathetic, and broadly constructive in their feedback, and communication with Editors was professional. Problems began after the manuscript was accepted: production was extremely slow, and I was put in the position of regularly chasing the production team for proofs. It took almost a year from final acceptance before proofs were finalised.
Motivation:
Almost one year to say that the manuscript is out of the scope of the journal! Totally not professional!