Reviews for "Research Evaluation"

Motivation: The review process was very smooth and the reviewers really contributed to the improvement of the paper. The only criticism I have is that in the second round of revisions, one reviewer criticized an addition that the other reviewer asked. So the editor could have intervened in this case to settle the situation before getting the reviews back to the authors. Other than that, I really appreciated the review process and the quality of the reviews.

Motivation: The journal had bad luck in selecting a reviewer that gave some suggestions in the first round, and then, when these had been addressed in a revision, focused on different things in the second round and requested a whole other range of changes. A second reviewer right from the start might have balanced this and made the assessment fair and more complete in the first place. When after a third submission the journal finally brought another reviewer onboard (on my, the authors' request) this new reviewer had suggestions that in many ways would take the manuscript back to its original (first submission) form. Several of the changes and additions done in the previous two revisions (on request by reviewer 1) were now retracted/changed back again, to satisfy the second reviewer. Now in my view, this significantly improved the manuscript, and therefore it was worth it. To the credit of the journal editor shall be said that he/she recognized this and "sided" with the second reviewer (and me, the author) after the final submission, and accepted the manuscript swiftly.