Electronic Submission and Reviewing Methodology Hooman Momen Editor Bulletin of the World Health Organization

Electronic Management of Journals On line Submission On Line Tracking On line Peer review On line Editing On line Layout On line Publication

Choosing a system Reliability of the vendor –size, Internet redundancy, mirrored data storage, data archiving User friendliness Support service –24 hours –time zones Degree of customization allowed

Primary features Browser-based – accessible from all places and at all times Automated notification – to editors, reviewers, authors notifying articles to be reviewed, reviews or edited Tracking/ logging events Reviewing Reminders Reporting and Statistics

Submission of manuscripts Automated submission –provides templates/instructions for submission, converts and uploads content from authors Which formats accepted ? Manuscript (with any embedded tables and figures): Word, WordPerfect, PDF Figures: GIF, TIF, EPS, JPEG Can authors suggest and exclude reviewers ? Can authors review and proof output before formal submission ?

Peer-Review Is it possible for reviewers to accept/decline online ? Is complete confidentiality of review process preserved ? Can partial reviews be saved for completion later ? Keyword- assisted reviewer selection

Other features Ability to sort articles in queues Ability to search for articles Ability to track manuscripts in post- acceptance stages Ability to bill authors for services and features External bibliographic and sequence database links Publish ahead of print capabilities Automatic virus scan of author submissions

Pricing Is software sold as stand alone application? If rented –Is there a per manuscript charge? –What are the licencing conditions? –What are the hardware requirements? How much customization is included? How much training is included?

Principal Systems Manuscript Central Editorial Manager Bench>Press eJournal Press

Manuscript Central Developed by ScholarOne, VA, USA Used by over 500 journals Major customers –Blackwell –Springer –Taylor and Francis –Wiley _manuscriptcentral. html

Editorial Manager Developed by Aries Systems Corporation, MA, USA Used by about 225 journals Major customers –Elsevier –Kluwer Academic

Bench>Press Developed by Stanford University Libraries' HighWire PressHighWire Press Used by about 50 Journals Major customer BMJ group of journals

eJournal Press Developed by ejournal Press Major customers –Allen Press –PNAS Number of Journals?

Other systems Espere – Edikit – Open Journal Systems – Epress –

Preparing for change Need to examine your whole editorial process –Rationalize –Streamline Then transfer paper to online Take time to prepare but implement change rapidly

Preparing for change (Staff) Prepare staff –New roles, functions, workloads –Training Editorial Board, reviewers, advisers –Handholding

Expected benefits Reduce time to publication – improve peer review turn-around time –Time to decision reduced by 50% Increase in number of submissions – authors find it easier to submit articles – 25% increase in first year Reduction in editorial office mailing and communication costs – less postage, fax, telephone, packaging