The effects of an editor serving as one of the reviewers during the peer-review process.

Marco Giordan,Andrew M Collings,Federico Vaggi,Attila Csikasz-Nagy

doi:10.12688/f1000research.8452.2

Abstract

Background Publishing in scientific journals is one of the most important ways in which scientists disseminate research to their peers and to the wider public. Pre-publication peer review underpins this process, but peer review is subject to various criticisms and is under pressure from growth in the number of scientific publications. Methods Here we examine an element of the editorial process at eLife, in which the Reviewing Editor usually serves as one of the referees, to see what effect this has on decision times, decision type, and the number of citations. We analysed a dataset of 8,905 research submissions to eLife since June 2012, of which 2,747 were sent for peer review. This subset of 2747 papers was then analysed in detail. Results The Reviewing Editor serving as one of the peer reviewers results in faster decision times on average, with the time to final decision ten days faster for accepted submissions (n=1,405) and five days faster for papers that were rejected after peer review (n=1,099). Moreover, editors acting as reviewers had no effect on whether submissions were accepted or rejected, and a very small (but significant) effect on citation rates. Conclusions An important aspect of eLife's peer-review process is shown to be effective, given that decision times are faster when the Reviewing Editor serves as a reviewer. Other journals hoping to improve decision times could consider adopting a similar approach.

Highlights

Publishing in scientific journals is one of the most important ways in which scientists disseminate research to their peers and to the wider public
The Reviewing Editor serving as one of the peer reviewers results in faster decision times on average, with the time to final decision ten days faster for accepted submissions (n=1,405) and five days faster for papers that were rejected after peer review (n=1,099)
An important aspect of eLife’s peer-review process is shown to be effective, given that decision times are faster when the Reviewing Editor serves as a reviewer

Summary

Introduction

Publishing in scientific journals is one of the most important ways in which scientists disseminate research to their peers and to the wider public. Peer review is under pressure from the growth in the number of scientific publications, which increased by 8–9% annually from the 1940s to 20126, and growth in submissions to eLife would inevitably challenge the capacity of their editors and procedures. A common reason for not serving as one of the referees is workload: for example, a Reviewing Editor already handling two papers as an editor and a reviewer may be less likely to take on a third, unless they can take the third one without providing a review Another common reason for not serving as one of the referees is when the paper is outside of the Reviewing Editor’s immediate area of expertise: eLife editors are still encouraged to serve as a reviewer in these circumstances as a review from this perspective can be informative in helping to assess a paper’s broad appeal. We cannot rule out the possibility that some Reviewing Editors self select the most interesting submissions to provide a review themselves, but the journal takes various steps to encourage the practice of providing a review wherever possible: for example, by tracking the trend on a monthly basis, by explaining this expectation when a Reviewing Editor first joins, and by asking for a justification when Reviewing Editors decides against providing a review of his or her own

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