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

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

3. 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

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

5. 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 ?

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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?

9. Principal Systems Manuscript Central Editorial Manager Bench>Press eJournal Press

10. Manuscript Central Developed by ScholarOne, VA, USA Used by over 500 journals Major customers –Blackwell –Springer –Taylor and Francis –Wiley http://www.scholarone.com/products _manuscriptcentral. html

11. Editorial Manager Developed by Aries Systems Corporation, MA, USA Used by about 225 journals Major customers –Elsevier –Kluwer Academic http://www.editorialmanager.com/

12. Bench>Press Developed by Stanford University Libraries' HighWire PressHighWire Press Used by about 50 Journals Major customer BMJ group of journals http://benchpress.highwire.org/

13. eJournal Press Developed by ejournal Press Major customers –Allen Press –PNAS Number of Journals? http://www.ejournalpress.com/

14. Other systems Espere –http://www.espere.org/ Edikit –http://www.bepress.com/services.html Open Journal Systems –http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/ojs/faq.html Epress –http://www.epress.ac.uk/

15. 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

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

18. 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