The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. In the database entry, we would later discover this as a digital trace of the action performed. The editor contacts potential reviewers to ask them to review the manuscript. Empirically, a panoply of orders occur in the manuscript histories, which means that for most of the stages, it is not predetermined in the systems implementation what happens next in the process. Yet, little is known about how these infrastructures support, stabilize, transform or change existing editorial practices. The only aspect, for which we could not clearly reject the potential automated decision making was the Initial Quality Controlsupposedly a check for a correctly completed submission form. German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), Berlin, Germany, 2 For this purpose, we use network analysis: the vertices represent the stages and a (directed) edge is drawn from one stage to another when it is directly following in one items history. As acquiring complete inventory data from not fully open peer review is very difficult, we used the hereby presented study to exploit more of the potential of the data. //--> government site. Exploring a digital infrastructure without actually having access to it is challenging. An official website of the United States government. Currently there is so far no systematic analysis of the structure of practices in the peer review process. On the other hand, the editors decisions are stored in four different elements. 1.8+, SCI45, , , , , Editor Declined Invitation, Decision Letter Being Prepared , Decision in Process, , 5.Awaiting EA (Associated Editor) decision, lettercorrespondence, peer reviewdecline, in-house review, With editorrequired review completed, , Under ReviewRequired Reviews Complete, (naturescience), 90%, , , . While there are similarities between the different ways of using peer review, peer review for manuscript evaluation is specific in the way it is embedded within the organization of scholarly journals (Hirschauer 2004). On occasion, particularly if the editors feel that additional technical expertise is needed to make a decision, they may obtain advice from additional reviewers. Further, it indicates respect for the authors as sentient beings possibly frustrated about a negative decision. The graphic below shows how a typical manuscript goes through the Editorial Manager system, along with some of the terms used to describe the manuscript's status. Nevertheless, our approach leads to methodological questions of digital inquiries. We did not use a clustering algorithm, because those usually are based on cohesion or distance metrics: they regard those parts of graphs as different components, which are only weakly linked or distant from each other, whereas nodes belong to the same cluster component if they are strongly linked or close to each other. How can we live a good life? a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the issues raised by the editor and peer reviewers, a response to each of the reviewers, replying to each of the points raised. Duration from Submission to 1 st Editorial Decision 50.2 days The average number of days from manuscript submission to the initial editorial decision on the article. The latter means to us that while the system itself is hidden from us, we use what we have access to: traces of how the digital infrastructure is used. This data represents a full inventory of manuscript version histories for the given years and journals, covering all submitted manuscripts whether published in the end, or not. Such heterogeneous uses influence and transform the infrastructure as an assemblage of situated digitally mediated practices (Horbach and Halffman, 2020, p.2), that is, practices which can only be understood in the context of their local usage (e.g., a specific function accomplished within the context of a specific journal). The administrative procedures appear to be well covered by Editor assigned (N = 17,499), Editor Replaced (N = 561) and Secondary Editor Replaced (N = 333) as well as events indicating the contacting or assignment of reviewers: the editors choose the reviewers (expressed by Potential Referees Assigned (N = 10,888) and Contacting Potential Referees (N = 19,878)) and are informed about the outcome of their request with All Referees Assigned (N = 3,607). The decision is framed by Editor Decision Started (N = 6,215, triggered often by the reviewer) and Editor Decision Complete (N = 13,973)the difference in size indicates, that the editors decision can happen directly without external consultation. Editorial management systems may be understood as aiming at representing such abstract roles and processual elements. According to Mendona (2017), they are designed to perform the management of manuscripts from submission to final decision, offering greater control, automation and logging of processes that were once manually done. Many researchers, reviewers and editors do have opinions about the roles and responsibilities of both editors and reviewers (Glonti et al., 2019), some of which contradict each other (Glonti et al., 2019, p.1). We oversee this process to ensure that your manuscript contains. var d=new Date(); yr=d.getFullYear();document.write(yr); This category is comprised of Waiting for Editor Assignment (N = 14,261), Waiting for Potential Referee Assignment (N = 12,976), Waiting to Send Decision to Author (N = 5,796), Waiting for Revision (N = 2,612), Waiting for Author Approval of Converted Files (N = 898) and Potential Referees Waited too Long (N = 610). In light of their advice, I am delighted to say that we can in principle offer to publish it in Nature, provided that you revise the paper to address a number of further editorial points. The editorial management system however, does not only record which actor with which role releases or triggers an event. We only find Review Started and Review Received in this respect, but we have, based on the event history only, no information as to what the reviewers might have recommended. [CDATA[> This characteristic of the peer review process we must consider specific for this publisher, according to our data, and not a general feature, as the editorial management software could also be used otherwise. Editing and proofreading services for a publication-ready manuscript, Customized service packs to match all publication needs, Expert help for all academic translation needs. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [a] is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. The manuscript and associated materials are checked for quality and completeness by the journals editorial assistant. We store the data in our institute for 10years according to the Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3923602) by the German Research Association (DFG). Events after decision with multiplicity and median duration show that editors thoroughly communicate about negative decisions. Editage Insights offers a wealth of free academic research and publishing resources and is a one-stop guide for authors and others involved in scholarly publishing. . Subscribe and get curated content that will give impetus to your research paper. Of all 11,103 manuscripts which make it to a decision at least in one round, the first submitted version is rejected in the vast majority of the cases, whereas manuscripts which make it through the first round, stand a good chance to be accepted in the later stages, as is shown in Figure 1. Editor assigned Editor Declined Invitation Decision Letter Being Prepared "Decision in Process" 4.Reviewer (s) invited 2 wormified 4 yr. ago A month sounds optimistic to me :-) 2 [deleted] 4 yr. ago [removed] riricide 4 yr. ago