Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Year
25.3 weeks
49.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Accepted
2025
Motivation:
I found the average time to decision listed on the website to be entirely misleading. While I'm thrilled that my paper was accepted, I wouldn't recommend the process to anyone. I initially submitted my paper in October 2024 and received reviews and an initial decision to reject in January 2025. This decision got overturned b/c one of the reviewers did not review the correct manuscript. As required by the journal, I had uploaded an unpublished paper that was cited in my manuscript as supplementary material for the reviewers. One of the reviewers mistakenly reviewed only that paper instead of my actual submission. I was pleasantly surprised that the editor apologized when I pointed this out and offered to have it reviewed correctly, however, I was really displeased with the lack of clarity about the timeline. I explicitly stated that I was only interested in completing the review process if I could get reviews back within a month, and even though I asked several times to confirm the expected timeline, I never got a straight answer. They requested major revisions after a few months (April) and once I submitted those (June), they were unable to find the original reviewers and insisted on waiting to find an additional new reviewer.
Throughout this process, whenever the portal was updated to indicate that reviews were received, I had to send multiple follow-up emails over the course of a month or more to ask about when I could expect a decision. The responses I received often stated that they would remind the editor that the reviews were in, and that I would get a response "soon". "Soon" typically meant several weeks.
I would not submit a manuscript to this journal again. The communication regarding the manuscript handling was poor, and the process took far too long.
Throughout this process, whenever the portal was updated to indicate that reviews were received, I had to send multiple follow-up emails over the course of a month or more to ask about when I could expect a decision. The responses I received often stated that they would remind the editor that the reviews were in, and that I would get a response "soon". "Soon" typically meant several weeks.
I would not submit a manuscript to this journal again. The communication regarding the manuscript handling was poor, and the process took far too long.
n/a
n/a
29 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2025
n/a
n/a
31 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2024
Motivation:
Lengthly process for the first decision considering the short length of an application note.
n/a
n/a
28 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2024
Motivation:
They suggested the direct transfer to a sister journal.
n/a
n/a
1 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2024
12.4 weeks
12.4 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Rejected
2023
Motivation:
The article was an application note (1.5 pages with 1 figure). It took around 2 weeks before to be submitted to the reviewers. Then there was one month of oscillation between the "With the editor" and "under revision", then other almost 3 weeks for an editorial decision. The comments were not super interesting about the improvement but rather on the documentation. However I have been proposed to direct transfer to bioinformatics Advances (which is taking ages as well: they state that you will get an editorial decision in 3 working days, and after 20 days I'm still waiting)
Immediately accepted after 17.1 weeks
Accepted (im.)
2019
4.3 weeks
4.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Rejected
2022
Motivation:
Our manuscript was rejected by the associate editor because we were falsely accused of being arrogant and ignorant. The first reviewer who made these accusations also portrayed himself/herself as an expert, but sentence after sentence in the review was false and can be proven false. The review was set up to make us look as if we were attacking the scientific community, and the associate editor bought into it. So disturbing!
n/a
n/a
6 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2022
Motivation:
Very superficial comments to explain the immediate reject
6.7 weeks
10.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Accepted
2021
n/a
n/a
10 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2020
n/a
n/a
6 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2021
14.4 weeks
18.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Accepted
2021
Motivation:
Reviewer comments were generally good. Would have hoped it would have gone faster, but I guess that's always the case.
34.7 weeks
36.1 weeks
n/a
1 reports
Accepted
2018
10.6 weeks
10.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Rejected
2019
Motivation:
The review process from Bioinformatics was awful. The reviewers' comments themselves were ok, but I only need to cut and paste the statement from the editor, it needs no other comment.
"I am sorry for the long delay in reviewing this paper. We normally do not like to make a decision with less than three reviews, but ***one of the three reviews on your paper is greatly overdue and we have not been able to get a response from the referee***. It is especially difficult on your paper, since the two reviewers we have rate the paper very differently. ***Nonetheless, we do not want to attempt to find a new reviewer so late in the process and will make the best judgment we can from the reviews we have.*** "
"I am sorry for the long delay in reviewing this paper. We normally do not like to make a decision with less than three reviews, but ***one of the three reviews on your paper is greatly overdue and we have not been able to get a response from the referee***. It is especially difficult on your paper, since the two reviewers we have rate the paper very differently. ***Nonetheless, we do not want to attempt to find a new reviewer so late in the process and will make the best judgment we can from the reviews we have.*** "
n/a
n/a
28 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2018
12.7 weeks
17.3 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Accepted
2018
Motivation:
Four months after acceptance, the article is still to be published in the journal. The journal says the time to publication is less than 10 weeks. That is clearly not true.
5.1 weeks
7.7 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Accepted
2016
27.7 weeks
49.6 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Rejected
2016
Motivation:
The initial reviews were unscientific (i.e.: based on personal experience and opinion without citing a single reference). Those reviews citing references wanted those ones to be cited in our manuscript ....
We rejected all those statements with supporting data and still got similar reviews in the second round.
The editor, even if not expert in the field should at least try to read the reviews and reject those obviously bad.
The last round of reviews after a long complaint letter removed the problematic reviewer and added new ones. These new reviewers wanted a comparison with a tool that is similar and was published in the mean time (submitted after our submission and accepted after a few weeks ... tool doesn't work by the way). One review was without any text and merely selected some grading criteria not visible to us.
Finally, a rejection was based on 2 positive reviews in the first round and one negative (by a reviewer that should have been disregarded due to quality of review) and additional 2 OK reviews, and one without any text.
This process is completely intransparent and I stopped reviewing for that journal and will not submit there again.
We rejected all those statements with supporting data and still got similar reviews in the second round.
The editor, even if not expert in the field should at least try to read the reviews and reject those obviously bad.
The last round of reviews after a long complaint letter removed the problematic reviewer and added new ones. These new reviewers wanted a comparison with a tool that is similar and was published in the mean time (submitted after our submission and accepted after a few weeks ... tool doesn't work by the way). One review was without any text and merely selected some grading criteria not visible to us.
Finally, a rejection was based on 2 positive reviews in the first round and one negative (by a reviewer that should have been disregarded due to quality of review) and additional 2 OK reviews, and one without any text.
This process is completely intransparent and I stopped reviewing for that journal and will not submit there again.
n/a
n/a
6 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2015
Motivation:
Fast and motivated rejection.