Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
The quality of only one of the two review reports was helpful. More importantly, it took the very long ( several months) to send back the review reports, and the reference and layout needed to be changed several times before we reached the final acceptance.
Motivation:
Our paper was not sent to peer review because of unfair desicion of Editorial Board Member who handled our submission. He assessed our paper based on its significance not its scientific and technical soundness. We appealed for this desicion because It is clearly stated in the aim and scope section that "referees and editorial board members will determine whether a paper is scientifically valid, rather than making judgements on significance or whether the submission represents a conceptual advance". However since Scientific Reports allow appeals only after peer reviews, they rejected our appeals as well. We moved on another jornal.
Motivation:
Although, it took so much tme, the review process has considerably enhanced the content and quality of the paper.
Motivation:
The review process was constructive and fast.
Very good contact with the Editor.
Very good contact with the Editor.
Motivation:
Fairly swift review process with good reviewer comments.
0.1 weeks
0.1 weeks
n/a
0 reports
n/a
Rejected
Motivation:
This was a short commentary piece. Reviewers' comments were brief. The editors communicated well and worked relatively quickly.
Motivation:
Firstly, their submission process has issues. Although I followed their submission guidelines very carefully, they requested that I reformat the references a particular way which was not indicated in their guidelines. Of course, by the time that I was notified of this I was out of town at a conference and could not tend to it until I returned. 4 days lost. I will not bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that their were issues with their submission engine and confusion amongst their staff that required me sending several emails to clear up. They were apologetic and professional but I could not help but feel that I was dealing with amateurs.
In my experience, what they claim to stand for and what they actually do are not in alignment. For one, they claim to want to support early career scientists. One of the ways they say they do this is by giving special consideration to early career scientists when determining whether or not in-depth peer-review is merited. I'm an early career scientist and my manuscript was desk rejected. While I am aware that this happens all the time, this is a manuscript which has the support of, and benefited from the feedback from, arguably the most respected scientist in my field (he stated that my manuscript was "very important" and must to be published) as well as another top scientist from a closely related field.
It was clear from the decision letter that they spent very little effort in assessing the merits of the manuscript (or writing the decision letter itself for that matter). I don't believe that this reflects on their competency, only the fact that they simply did not care. You see, I'm not at a tier one university and my name is not known in the field (outside of to my long-distance mentors who are well known). I would suggest that anyone not from a 1st tier university or research institute browse the eLife website and note the affiliations of the authors of the articles. While it is not surprising that 1st tiers are represented disproportionately there are very, very few non-1st tier author affiliations (considerably fewer than you find in Nature/Science/Cell). I could not find a single manuscript with an author from the same State that I live in.
On the other hand, if you ARE from a tier one university and have a manuscript that doesn't meet the expectations of Nature/Science/Cell then eLife may just be the ticket!
In my experience, what they claim to stand for and what they actually do are not in alignment. For one, they claim to want to support early career scientists. One of the ways they say they do this is by giving special consideration to early career scientists when determining whether or not in-depth peer-review is merited. I'm an early career scientist and my manuscript was desk rejected. While I am aware that this happens all the time, this is a manuscript which has the support of, and benefited from the feedback from, arguably the most respected scientist in my field (he stated that my manuscript was "very important" and must to be published) as well as another top scientist from a closely related field.
It was clear from the decision letter that they spent very little effort in assessing the merits of the manuscript (or writing the decision letter itself for that matter). I don't believe that this reflects on their competency, only the fact that they simply did not care. You see, I'm not at a tier one university and my name is not known in the field (outside of to my long-distance mentors who are well known). I would suggest that anyone not from a 1st tier university or research institute browse the eLife website and note the affiliations of the authors of the articles. While it is not surprising that 1st tiers are represented disproportionately there are very, very few non-1st tier author affiliations (considerably fewer than you find in Nature/Science/Cell). I could not find a single manuscript with an author from the same State that I live in.
On the other hand, if you ARE from a tier one university and have a manuscript that doesn't meet the expectations of Nature/Science/Cell then eLife may just be the ticket!
Motivation:
After one month and a half since the submission, the paper was rejected with no external review. Besides 'copied-and-pasted' default statements, the only original information provided by the editor in the decision letter was that the content of the paper was of local importance only.
Motivation:
Although rejected, the rejection was quick and enabled us to prepare a submission for another journal.
Motivation:
This was my first experience as a first author in publishing in an outlet of this magnitude. At times the reviewers could notice my lack of experience in publishing - e.g. grammatical constructions, details in the text that were redundant, etc. Nevertheless, the reviewers were professional, they used only constructive feed-back, and supported my efforts. The managing editor was helpful as well, and provided me all the required information.
I am strongly considering this journal as a possible outlet for my future work.
I am strongly considering this journal as a possible outlet for my future work.
Motivation:
In the first 4 months, there were no updates to our manuscript. After contacting the editor, we found out that there were some issues in the editorial submission system, and that the manuscript was "stuck" for 4 months. We were told, that the matter will be solved and that the manuscript will be considered for review.
After additional 3 months, we contacted the editor again, as there were still no updates. We did not get any reply from the editor. We waited for another month, and contacted them again, again without any replies. Together with the co-authors, we decided we will withdraw the paper (8 months without any updates was a bit too much). After we withdrew it, we got an email of one of the assistants, that one reviewer actually did submit a review already, and that they were still trying to get a second review. This made us unhappy, as we made several inquiries in the months 4-8 after the submission about the state of the review, without any response.
We also withdrew it, as we spoke to two different researchers who also submitted two separate manuscripts to Applied Geography in the same time. One got her paper published (but her manuscript was also "stuck" in the first 4 months, which makes me to believe there was no error in the submission system). The other also withdrew a paper after 6 months of no updates.
So to sum it up:
- 4 months before the paper was actually sent to reviewers
- additional 3-4 months of waiting and in between no responses from the editors although we submitted 2-3 inquiries on the state of the manuscript
- withdrawing the paper after 8 months, after which we received an email that one of the reviews was actually already done
The statistics for the journal in terms of the speed of the publishing process are actually good, and I wonder if our example will be considered in the statistics at all.
After additional 3 months, we contacted the editor again, as there were still no updates. We did not get any reply from the editor. We waited for another month, and contacted them again, again without any replies. Together with the co-authors, we decided we will withdraw the paper (8 months without any updates was a bit too much). After we withdrew it, we got an email of one of the assistants, that one reviewer actually did submit a review already, and that they were still trying to get a second review. This made us unhappy, as we made several inquiries in the months 4-8 after the submission about the state of the review, without any response.
We also withdrew it, as we spoke to two different researchers who also submitted two separate manuscripts to Applied Geography in the same time. One got her paper published (but her manuscript was also "stuck" in the first 4 months, which makes me to believe there was no error in the submission system). The other also withdrew a paper after 6 months of no updates.
So to sum it up:
- 4 months before the paper was actually sent to reviewers
- additional 3-4 months of waiting and in between no responses from the editors although we submitted 2-3 inquiries on the state of the manuscript
- withdrawing the paper after 8 months, after which we received an email that one of the reviews was actually already done
The statistics for the journal in terms of the speed of the publishing process are actually good, and I wonder if our example will be considered in the statistics at all.
Motivation:
Very pleased with my experience. Fast turnaround time, high caliber.
Motivation:
It took the editor about 5 months to find two reviewers who would like to review the manuscript.
9.0 weeks
9.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Rejected
Motivation:
The review process was constructive, effective and fast.
Motivation:
In the first round of reviews, one reviewer recommend "accept". The other reviewer went beyond his/her duty, and raised excellent comments. We sincerely address these concerns, but the paper was sent to new reviewers who rejected the paper rather casually. The main reason, as far as I could see, was that the paper uses a framework that they did not like.
Motivation:
If the editor does not listen to reviewers' recommendation, why waste time and energy to have the paper reviewed?
Motivation:
This manuscript took a long time to get accepted. It was basically put on hold due to one reviewer keeping on questioning some aspects of the paper due to lack of understanding. The editor-in-chief finally took over and suggested us to make some last changes before accepting the article. I appreciated the attitude of the editor-in-chief in not blindly relying on one negative reviewer. He went through the manuscript himself and took a decision. Although I am very satisfied with the editor-in-chief, the whole process turned out to be way too lenghty.
Motivation:
Fast (from first submission to article online in a little over 2 months).
Motivation:
Dear F1000 Research Team,
First, I would like to thank all of you who worked so dilligently on our manuscript, which was "accepted" in December 2014 and after 34 referee referrals remains in "peer review purgatory" and unlisted on PubMed. Had we understood the peer review nightmare that this process would entail, my coauthors and I would never have submitted our study to your journal. As it is, I would like to offer a post-mortem for this process in the hope that you will change it.
At its best, peer review offers three main benefits. First, it allows investigators to improve on their reports based on the insight of objective referees. Second, it provides independent evaluation of the scientific work that is reviewed. And third, it gives journal editors the discretion to judge that work according to the validity of the reviews.
F1000 Research uses an open peer review process designed to be uniform, transparent and theoretically unbiased. Referees should have "sufficient experience and expertise, be impartial and active in the field, and not have collaborated with the main authors in the past three years." Furthermore, there is no editorial oversight of the peer review process: No editor holds referees accountable for their reviews or judges the validity of those reviews. To put it bluntly, nobody is in charge of the peer review process.
All of this works very nicely with a non-controversial scientific topic. Unfortunately, your system fails miserably with a polemic subject like the one in our article (sexual transmission of Lyme disease). First, referees are chosen based on a system that excludes positive reviewers who have worked with the authors, leaving less qualified and/or oppositional referees to make scientifically unsound and/or politically motivated judgments of the article. Since there is no accountability on the part of the referees, these judgments cannot be negated or overcome by editing the manuscript and refuting the review. Second, since all opinions (including reader comments) are freely available on the journal website, independent review of the article goes out the window, and referees become reluctant to "buck the trend" of negative reviews. Third, since there is no editorial oversight of the peer review process, invalid reviews maintain their effect even after they are refuted, and the chance of obtaining a positive review becomes virtually nil. And finally, since the article has been "published" online, it cannot be withdrawn and submitted to another journal that would perform valid independent peer review and get it listed on PubMed.
Although I am sure that your open peer review system had good intentions, the nightmare that we have endured with this perverted system is frankly worse than any experience in all my years of publishing scientific articles. I would certainly not encourage my peers to submit a manuscript to your journal unless this broken system is fixed. I hope that you will accept this criticism in the positive spirit that was intended and change the system.
First, I would like to thank all of you who worked so dilligently on our manuscript, which was "accepted" in December 2014 and after 34 referee referrals remains in "peer review purgatory" and unlisted on PubMed. Had we understood the peer review nightmare that this process would entail, my coauthors and I would never have submitted our study to your journal. As it is, I would like to offer a post-mortem for this process in the hope that you will change it.
At its best, peer review offers three main benefits. First, it allows investigators to improve on their reports based on the insight of objective referees. Second, it provides independent evaluation of the scientific work that is reviewed. And third, it gives journal editors the discretion to judge that work according to the validity of the reviews.
F1000 Research uses an open peer review process designed to be uniform, transparent and theoretically unbiased. Referees should have "sufficient experience and expertise, be impartial and active in the field, and not have collaborated with the main authors in the past three years." Furthermore, there is no editorial oversight of the peer review process: No editor holds referees accountable for their reviews or judges the validity of those reviews. To put it bluntly, nobody is in charge of the peer review process.
All of this works very nicely with a non-controversial scientific topic. Unfortunately, your system fails miserably with a polemic subject like the one in our article (sexual transmission of Lyme disease). First, referees are chosen based on a system that excludes positive reviewers who have worked with the authors, leaving less qualified and/or oppositional referees to make scientifically unsound and/or politically motivated judgments of the article. Since there is no accountability on the part of the referees, these judgments cannot be negated or overcome by editing the manuscript and refuting the review. Second, since all opinions (including reader comments) are freely available on the journal website, independent review of the article goes out the window, and referees become reluctant to "buck the trend" of negative reviews. Third, since there is no editorial oversight of the peer review process, invalid reviews maintain their effect even after they are refuted, and the chance of obtaining a positive review becomes virtually nil. And finally, since the article has been "published" online, it cannot be withdrawn and submitted to another journal that would perform valid independent peer review and get it listed on PubMed.
Although I am sure that your open peer review system had good intentions, the nightmare that we have endured with this perverted system is frankly worse than any experience in all my years of publishing scientific articles. I would certainly not encourage my peers to submit a manuscript to your journal unless this broken system is fixed. I hope that you will accept this criticism in the positive spirit that was intended and change the system.
Motivation:
This was a very fast procedure. The editor was very prompt and helpful and the reviewers were constructive. The required changes were minor and I like the fact that the editor was able to quickly make a decision to accept the manuscript. I will definitely submit to this journal again!
Motivation:
After 12 weeks I contacted the editor to check on the manuscript's progress. Received immediate answer from the editor and 2 weeks after I had the first review.
There were only two reviewers, and both referees had very good comments, although one referee was not very polite.
One week after was accepted.
There were only two reviewers, and both referees had very good comments, although one referee was not very polite.
One week after was accepted.
Motivation:
Clean, speedy, rigorous review process. Tough but fair. Most of the comments from the reviewers contributed to enhance the quality of the manuscript. Great follow up by the associate editor. Overall a good experience.
Motivation:
Quick, but one of the reviewers was clearly not an expert on the topic.
Motivation:
The editor should have outlined concerns that had to be addressed early on and determined the feasibility of our performing those experiments in a timely manner. One of the reviewers had persistent (and often unreasonable) concerns that the editor neither discounted nor supported, thus leading us on a 2 year saga.
Motivation:
The editor immediately rejected the manuscript arguing it was a poor fit. Given the fast decision, I highly doubt whether sufficient efforts were invested in checking out the rich content of the manuscript, and I suspect the decision to be based on the title and abstract only. No arguments were provided as to why the manuscript was a poor fit. I found this very disappointing.