Original title: Duration and quality of the peer review process: the author’s perspective
The researchers examined 3,500 authors’ accounts of peer reviewA process in which experts assess a research paper before a journal decides what to do with it.. They compared how long reviews took, what referee reports were like, and how authors rated the experience. Review times differed by field, and slow reviews were not always rated poorly: authors in fields with longer waits gave the process higher ratings. Authors also said that clear communication and editors making their own decisions helped satisfaction.
Imagine waiting in a queue at a busy shop. A short wait is pleasant, but people who expect a long queue may be less bothered when it moves slowly. In this paper, the queue is the time authors spend waiting for peer review, and people’s expectations about waits in their field help explain why authors in slower fields rate the experience more highly.
Authors need to plan around review delays, and journals’ editorial choices affect how that wait feels. The findings suggest that clear communication and editors who make independent decisions can improve authors’ experience.
The abstract describes authors’ submitted accounts of review experiences, but does not establish that these accounts represent all journals or authors. It reports differences and relationships, but does not show that field expectations or editorial practices cause satisfaction ratings.
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Duration and quality of the peer review process: the author’s perspective — Janine Huisman, Jeroen P.J.M. Smits — Scientometrics — doi:10.1007/s11192-017-2310-5
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.