This service is available to authors at the time of decision or at a later time. Consensus decision-making or consensus process (often abbreviated to consensus) are group decision-making processes in which participants develop and decide on proposals with the aim, or requirement, of acceptance by all. With regard to roles and activities of the editor, there is support as well as control by the infrastructure. This could indicate two possibilities. Plotkin (2009) in laying out the basis of the editorial management system used in our case patented a process for computer implemented manuscript review and described a prototypical journal peer review process. However, we decided to restrict our analysis of the sequence of stages to the 14,391 first-version manuscripts with 206,896 events to avoid obfuscation of the prototypical process by manuscript versions with a past. Nature might offer the option to send a submission to Research Square so that it is made public (and time stamped) while still in the review process, but the only system which matters for their reviewing process is that of Nature. Yet, the digital infrastructure accompanies each and every step of the editor, supporting the editors tasks, which could not be accomplished in an equal pace and magnitude without it. . We do so by making use of the internal representation of manuscript life cycles from submission to decision for 14,000 manuscripts submitted to a biomedical publisher. Thus, it is rendered invisible as distinguishable component. Sorted by: 2 Usually they decide in less than a week after the initial submission. Yet, despite much research about biases in peer review, little do we know about the actual processes of peer review, and even less so about new practices and technologies supporting peer review (Jubb, 2015, p.13). In contrast, in our data, the editors play a major role, performing lots of tasks affecting actors with other roles assigned and there is no automated decision making at play, when it comes to the final publishing approval decision. The multiplicity of edges expresses how often its ends occur in direct sequence in the whole dataset, that means, for all first version manuscripts together. Additionally, due to the full-time character of the editorial work, a high proficiency with the system can be expected, which is confirmed by the fact that the process in practice is not so very much streamlined but the principal openness of the process order is occurring empirically in the data. a cover letter that provides any additional information requested by the editors. 1124. Based on the Nature Methods Review Speed Feedback System, it takes editor 146.00 days to accept manuscript. In the next section, we introduce the theoretical framework and main perspectives. Accessibility Yet, little is actually known about how the peer review process is practiced and how it is supported through administrative procedures, such as how reviewers are invited (Bs, 1998), how reviews are maintained, or decisions are communicated; activities which might be considered administrative in the first place. The infrastructure models the peer review process along the way of submitted (versions of) manuscripts, which enter the system during submission and pass through different stages afterwards. Instead, all editorial decisions are made by a. We focus our analysis on editorial peer review, that is, processes related to editorial selection, management and decision making. If an appeal merits further consideration, the editors may send the authors' response or the revised paper to one or more reviewers, or they may ask one reviewer to comment on the concerns raised by another reviewer. AEditor Decision Complete, BManuscript Revise and Re-Review, CWaiting to Send Decision to Author, DManuscript Rejected, EManuscript Revise Only, FManuscript Accepted, GDrafting Decision Letter Started, HDrafting Decision Letter Completed, IManuscript Consultation Session Ended. Exploring data from that infrastructure, we complement others research investigating views and perceptions of peer review practices with a new procedural perspective explicitly taking algorithms and digital affordances of digital infrastructures into account. This is known as a rescinding. Therefore we deleted the first nine passage points (including source and target). Usually, the associate editor makes the publication decision (I'm sure the editor in chief can overrule this decision, but it usually doesn't happen). [CDATA[> The reviewer comments were very helpful to improve the quality of our work, and also the editor was helpful and responsive. For instance, 10,522 events triggered by editors affect referees. The use of editorial management systems as digital infrastructures for the management of collaboration hence requires processual knowledge about the peer review process. Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, 1706 [O.S. The journal covers topics including: -Lasers, LEDs and other light sources -Imaging, detectors and sensors -Optoelectronic devices and components -Novel materials and engineered structures -Physics of light propagation, interaction and behaviour -Quantum optics and cryptography -Ultrafast photonics -Biophotonics -Optical data storage What is the meaning of "decision in process" status? On the other hand, the editors decisions are stored in four different elements. Register for comprehensive research tips and expert advice on English writing, journal publishing, good publication practices, trends in publishing, and a lot more. In the context of the editorial decision about publication, the inventors suggest: Alternatively, the decision to publish may be automated based upon a ranking of the review decisions received from the reviewers. (Plotkin, 2009, p.5). This characteristic of the peer review process we must consider specific for this publisher, according to our data, and not a general feature, as the editorial management software could also be used otherwise. These representations on the one hand relate to the effort and the diversity of activities that go into scientific publishing (Taubert, 2016), but on the other hand, differences in the representation of peer review activities may also point to recent tensions in publishing as events indicating oversight or control may be expressions of commercial interest (Horbach and Halffman, 2019, p.12). Thank you for visiting nature.com. Upon transfer, if the manuscript is assessed by the receiving journal to be a good fit and technically sound, it may be accepted without further review. By making these processes visible and measurable, the pace of the peer review process is reinforced as a relevant evaluation criterion for scholarly journals and their editors. How long does an editor decision take? The actions are attributed with manuscripts they belong to, and points in time when they were carried out, which is why we are able to infer the order of actions, choices at forks and pace of the process. [CDATA[> In the patent, it says: A users role includes one or more of the following relationships between the manuscript and the associated person: author, editor, associate editor, reviewer, or staff member. (Plotkin, 2009 p.5). We also thank the editor and the two reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. Nature CommunationsNature, @14:NatureComm.Manuscptunderconsideration)zipforreviewerzip, editordecisionstartednaturechemistry[], NatureComm.Manuscptunderconsideration), @13:editordecisionstartednaturechemistry, @38:ejournals, @13:editordecisionstartednaturechemistry, @5:NatureMatealsUnderReview.manuscptunderconsiderationEditorDecisionStartedmanuscptunderconsideration, @41:, naturecommunicationunderconsideration20, scichina life awaiting admin pcessing, IEICE The 1st Evaluation has been completed, 2010104Awaiting Reviewer Assignment, Submissions Being Pcessed(1)Submissions with a Decision (1), AngewSubmitted,Under review,. In the last 15years, novel digital infrastructures of different forms and shapes have been established, aiming at supporting communication, dissemination and evaluation of scientific research (Van Noorden, 2014; Taubert, 2016; Blmel, 2021). Empirically, a panoply of orders occur in the manuscript histories, which means that for most of the stages, it is not predetermined in the systems implementation what happens next in the process. Please share with the community how many days the entire process took by the editor's office. Of major relevance for the peer review process is that it finally comes to a decision, based on consultation with internal and external actors. Moreover, acceleration, control and efficiency have been main arguments for establishing editorial management systems in the first place (Jubb, 2015; Mendona, 2017), putting pressure on publishers and editors of journals to implement streamlined procedures. The raw manuscript histories were parsed from xml-files to a table and are rather simple in structure, but lack a documentation. The identical numbers for both events indicate that they are released upon acceptance of the reviewer. Also, we have found that participants in the process (see Schendzielorz and Reinhart, 2020) are translated into roles in the digitalized process (see Plotkin, 2009) and implemented as person-IDs in the digital infrastructure, only the latter distinctly displaying the infrastructure itself as an actor. From an organizational perspective, the documentation of these events allows for carefully reconstructing and justifying difficult decisions, but it could also provide more insights into what happens at this stage of the process. We found that there was a central vertex dividing the decision component in two parts: Editor Decision Complete is the demarcation between events before (review process) and after decision (decision communication). (2019). Editorial management systems are perceived as an infrastructure in this work. The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2021.747562/full#supplementary-material, National Library of Medicine The main aims of our study are hence the following: By investigating process generated data from a publishers editorial management system, we aim to explore the ways by which the digital infrastructure is used and how it represents the process of peer review. Professional The second possibility is the long decision path from Manuscript Consultation Started through external peer review to Editor Decision Complete. However, in contrast to the patent for the editorial process, where steps have a clear order, the infrastructure seems to allow for an open process: in principle, almost any event could follow any other, which leaves the responsibility for the process in the domain of the actors. 2 wormified 4 yr. ago A month sounds optimistic to me :-) 2 [deleted] 4 yr. ago [removed] riricide 4 yr. ago This becomes particularly apparent when comparing the implemented structure observed with the patent published in 2009 showing an increase in complexity: while the patent is fixed in time, the software has evolved. Once your manuscript passes the initial quality check, we assign it to a member of Editorial Board, who is an active researcher in your field. Motivation: Altogether, this was a positive experience. Such claims are difficult to make given the limitations many studies on editorial peer review face. What do these status changes mean? The given network cannot be completely chaotic, instead some structure must be there but need sharpening. More research would be needed in order to more closely reconstruct these events. Editor in Chief, Nature. Journal decisions 6. Invite the authors to revise and resubmit their manuscript to address specific concerns. (2021). This is partly caused by several automated steps present in the process, which can take only one second to happen. Consequently, the analysis shows how much organizational effort goes into what Schendzielorz and Reinhart (2020) have called the administrative parts of the peer review process to which this article pays particular attention. This to be acknowledged, Seaver (2017) described some tactics for the ethnography of algorithmic systems, of which we take up the tactic of scavenging in our work: using the pieces of information accessible to us while at the same time keeping in mind that we only see a part of the whole picture. [2] [3] It has 193 member states and 12 associate members, [4] as well as partners in the non . Also Revision Received (N = 2,498) was attributed to postulation representing a renewed claim of the author; and Halted Manuscript Deleted (N = 3,380) as this was triggered mainly by the authors. Hopefully, you will be informed of the decision soon. Your manuscript entitled "xxxxxxxxx" has now been seen again by our original reviewers, whose comments are appended below. Also, when we conceptually refer to the process, we write element or component for conglomerates of either actions or events which belong together. and transmitted securely. Due to the specific work environment at the publisher, where editors are employed as full-time staff in a shared office space, it must be easy for them to communicate with each other bypassing the editorial management system, which limits the potential of surveillance through the system. 201451 XXXXX@nature.com Final decision for XXXXX. We also found the different realms of the peer review process represented in the system, some events, however, indicate that the infrastructure offers more control and observation of the peer review process, thereby strengthening the editorial role in the governance of peer review while at the same time the infrastructure oversees the editors performance. ]]> This document provides an outline of the editorial process involved in publishing a scientific paper (Article) in Nature, and describes how manuscripts are handled by editors between submission. The rejected manuscripts and those to be resubmitted get a special treatment by the editors: the communication about the frustrating decision is thoroughly crafted showing in the network as two vertices about Drafting Decision Letter, notably resulting in longer durations for decisions to be sent to authors. The most interesting component of the disintegrated network was, of course, the one which included the four decision events. We started our empirical analysis following the conceptual heuristics of Schendzielorz and Reinhart (2020), who provided elements of a minimal and maximum model of the peer review process. As the case studied here shows, editorial management systems can be and are adapted to their context. According to Mendona (2017), they are designed to perform the management of manuscripts from submission to final decision, offering greater control, automation and logging of processes that were once manually done. Our contribution is organized as follows. Also, with Friedman and Nissenbaum (1996), we argue, that the infrastructure itself is shaped by assumptions from its developers about how the world is like and should be. Review Started and Potential Referees Accept were mostly performed by the reviewer and achieved the highest frequency (both had N = 8,937). APA has partnered with LetPub to provide a full suite of author services. We then continue by presenting major outcomes of the study, followed by a discussion about the editorial processes mediated by editorial management systems, and the role of automated decision making. We were provided with data from an editorial management system by a biomedical publisher. Hence, there is no such thing as a uniform process put into place by a technology. Interestingly, when Potential Referees Decline (N = 7,743), this event is mostly triggered by a none role, because declining referees do not have a role with the manuscript in question. Some authors claim transformative changes would be at play for practices of editors handling manuscripts: Taubert (2012) for instance has stated that journal editorial management systems standardise the peer review process and constrain the degrees of freedom for editors. In the data used for our investigation, we see traces of actions and participant roles in different processes. The production process after acceptance, however, was very annoying and involved a lot of back and forth with Nature's production team, which also caused a rather long delay between acceptance and publication. Rather, we intend to infer editorial practices from these sequences which may jointly emerge from the editors actions and the infrastructure, being aware that our perspective is limited. This led to a network of 623 edges with a density of d = 0.12. (For one manuscript, no first version was present in the inventory hence, the difference between 14,392 and 14,391 manuscripts). The publisher uses the system EJournalPress to manage their editorial peer review lead by full-time staff editors in a shared office space. ~. Nine events could be attributed to this category, the most important being the four decision events Manuscript Accepted (N = 1,711), Manuscript Revise Only (893), Manuscript Revise and Re-Review (1,540) and Manuscript Rejected (9,835). Also, the process as described in the patent and inscribed in the software would be technically open to integrate all kinds of checks at this point even automated detection of content similarity with other papers as presupposition for plagiarism prevention. While Decision Sent to Author plays a major role (N = 13,933), we also find a noteworthy amount of Drafting Decision Letter Started (N = 1,949) and Drafting Decision Letter Completed (N = 2,421). The institution of scholarly peer review as the main instance for scientific quality assurance appears to be comparably stable since more than three hundred years, despite several technical changes (Reinhart, 2010; Pontille and Torny, 2015; Horbach and Halffman, 2019). Cicchetti D. V., Rourke B. P., Wass P. (1992). Either rejection or sending it out for review. Editors often communicate their decisions with individualised letters, putting much effort into decision-communication about non-successful submissions, which may show how they acknowledge authors individual pursuits of crafting and improving knowledge claims. //-->