If your editorial board is looking to speed up peer review at your journal, reassessing your current process is the place to start. In this slideshow we compile helpful advice from the editors who contributed to "Academic Journal Management Best Practices: Tales from the Trenches," a new eGuide from Scholastica.

1. 6 Steps to
Speed Up
Your Journal’s
Peer Review
Process
https://scholasticahq.com/
@scholasticahq
by Scholastica

2. Glean insights from
the editors who
contributed to
Academic Journal
Management Best
Practices: Tales from
the Trenches
Get your free guide at:
http://bit.ly/1GFnWMu

3. With so much to keep track of during peer review,
editors can feel like they’re running in all different
directions…

4. All of that “running” takes a lot of time… which editorial boards
can’t afford to lose!

5. What can your team do
to speed up peer
review at your journal?

6. Refine Your Process!
Ensure that your team is moving in the same direction and on
the most efficient path.

7. Here are
6 steps from experienced
editors to speed up peer
review at your journal

8. Step 1:
Make sure you’re giving authors clear
submissions guidelines. It will save your
editors time down the road!

9. “The absolute best thing that you can do is have a clear
descriptive information for authors link available on your
online submissions webpage. Authors shouldn’t have to
search for a journal’s conflict of interest, copyright, figure
permissions, or other necessary forms.”
Christine Dymek,
Senior Managing Editor Kaufman Wills Fusting & Co.
Editorial Services

10. Your Journal should have a chronological list of
submission guidelines on a master submissions
webpage, including:
• The aims and scope of the journal
• Instructions for manuscript blindness
• Copyright requirements
• A comprehensive overview of manuscript formatting
• Ethical guidelines
• Metadata and file formatting requirements
• Open access policy

11. DO Give authors access to specific details about
your publishing process that they’ll likely want to
know about, such as FAQs surrounding your OA
policy.
DON’T clutter your master submission guidelines
webpage with extraneous information about your
publishing process. Too much text can be
overwhelming for authors.
When compiling your master submission
webpage…

12. To avoid overwhelming
authors with too much info,
embed links in your master
submission guidelines to
“off-ramp” webpages with
additional publication
details, such as:
• OA policy & copyright
information
• Comprehensive ethical
guidelines
• sample references authors
can use to format theirs

13. To ensure authors follow all of your
journal’s submissions guidelines, create a
checklist that breaks down your
submissions instructions into one-sentence
steps authors can “check off” as they go.
Create a static or interactive submission checklist
webpage or PDF and link it to your journal’s master
submissions guidelines webpage.

14. You can make completing your journal’s submission
checklist optional for authors or a required submission
step.

15. Step 2:
Run an initial lap of peer review in house

16. Running an initial round of review in house will ensure
that you’re only sending referees viable manuscripts.
Journals are doing this in a few ways…

17. Example 1: Recruit grad
students in your field to do
initial submission screenings

18. “By the time a manuscript is going out for review at
Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law and Society
there’s already been a grad student, an editor, and
then two other co-editors doing a cursory read.”
Henry (Hank) Fradella,
Editor-In-Chief, Criminology, Criminal Justice,
Law and Society

19. Your journal can recruit grad students to
do a cursory read of each submission and
compile notes for lead editors altering
them to exceptional submissions and
those in need of work.
Recruiting grad students will save your editors time
upfront and give the students an opportunity to
learn peer review skills.

20. Example 2: Make your
editors your primary
peer reviewers

21. “[At Sociological Science] to be a consulting editor
you have to pre-commit to doing a certain number of
reviews a year, so we can get our decisions done in
30 days. What we ask the external reviewers to do is
read the paper and tell us according to journal criteria
is this something with any obvious flaws in it? -
without the need [for them] to write multiple pages on
what they reviewed.”
Jesper Sørensen,
Editor-In-Chief, Sociological Science

22. A major workflow blocker for traditional journals is
trying to find scholars willing to review
submissions. Appointing a large group of
consulting editors to serve as your primary peer
reviewers will ensure your journal always has
willing candidates.
With your editors doing the bulk of the peer
review work you should be able to easily
build a pool of external referees.

23. Example 3: Appoint “topic
experts” to assess unclear
manuscripts before they
go out for review

24. “I’ve seen some journals bring on topic experts to
actually stand in-between the editor-in-chief and
the reviewers, to give an additional submission
screening and recommendation.”
Christine Dymek,
Senior Managing Editor Kaufman Wills Fusting & Co.
Editorial Services

25. At journals covering a wide scope of information,
editors may not always have the expertise to feel
confident making desk rejections. In these
situations, editors can appoint topic experts to step
in when they are unsure of a paper’s potential.
Having topic experts can help your journal be
sure you’re only sending peer reviewers viable
submissions.

26. DO reevaluate your technical check process over time.
Technical checks are a great way to weed out manuscripts
with obvious errors, but they can slow down peer review if
your editors get caught up asking authors to make too many
formatting revisions before they’ve made it past the first
round of review.
DON’T be afraid to make desk rejections. No journal wants
to burn out their go-to referees by sending them review
assignments unnecessarily.
When running the first lap of review in house…

27. Step 3:
Track metrics on how your editorial
board works and build a process to fit
your needs

28. “I keep stats on all of the basic things. I look at the
number of manuscripts submitted by year, how many
go through the peer review process, how many are
desk rejected, and how many get rejected at the first
or second phase of review.”
Susan Altman,
Managing Editor, Global Environmental Politics

29. Track journal metrics to assess your
process and improve it, including:
•Average time to decision for the journal as a whole
•Submission rate
•Submission rate by country
•Submission rate by topic
•Overall acceptance and rejection rate
•Average number of desk rejections
•Acceptance and rejection rate by editor
•Time to decision by editor

30. You can also track reviewer metrics including,
how long it takes each of your referees to
complete a review and how often your editors
contact each of your referees.
If a referee begins taking longer to complete
assignments and you notice you’ve been
contacting them often, it may be time to give
them a break.

31. DO discuss your internal performance metrics at
team meetings.
DON’T forget to set achievable benchmarks to
improve your team metrics.
When tracking performance
metrics at your journal…

32. Step 6:
Make editor training a part of your process.

33. Compile training resources for new
editors to help them get on track fast
• Create a training guide outlining
your editorial workflow to be
offered to all new members.
• Walk your editors through your
online submission system.
• Provide editors with resources on
publishing ethics best practices.
The Committee On Publication
Ethics (COPE) has excellent free
resources.
• Designate times for regular
editorial board meetings at
least once a month to track
your progress and continue
learning as a team.
• Coordinate a journal-wide
meeting for your editors and
organizational affiliates once a
year for publication planning.

34. “We have one formal journal meeting per
year where all of the editors and the
founding editors get together. That’s when
we hash out plans and make projections.”
Anita Harris,
Managing Editor, SubStance: A review of theory and
literary criticism

35. DO treat your editorial board training tools as living
documents. Remind editors about resources they can
continually return to, such as ethics best practices.
DON’T forget to ask your editors to contribute
information they wish they’d known as a new editor to
your training tools. Ask editors how you can refine your
training process during monthly and annual meetings.
When designing editor training
resources and meetings…

36. Want more tips to speed
up peer review at your
journal?

37. Download the
free guide!
Academic Journal
Management Best
Practices: Tales from
the Trenches
DOWNLOAD:
http://bit.ly/1GFnWMu