Several journals (I won't specify) appear to be responding to a need for accelerating the editorial and review process for publishing academic papers by drastically reducing review periods (e.g. to 10 days for the first review, 2-3 days for the review of revised submissions). I resonate with the need this appears to be addressing, but have concerns about the impacts this approach has on the quality of reviews and the editorial process more generally, particularly as these journals appear to exhibit a very light editorial hand (if at all). Are reviewers truncating their assessments and feedback to authors to pacify the journals' managing editors (who hound the reviewer with regular email reminders)? I would be interested in hearing the perspectives of others on their experience as reviewers.
Absurd demand. At least 30-90 days (or even more) days should be given to the reviewers for a good output.
I say that even 30-90 days is likely a bad lower bound. Speaking from a long experience as an editor as well as a reviewer, I can say that it may take those 30 days or more before you even get the necessary number of reviewers agreeing to do the reviewing duty. (And that problem is still growing, since scientists nowadays seem to think that their only responsibility is to publish, while the reciprocal duty - that to review others' work - is (to many) apparently a waste of time. It is not: peer review means literally that if you expect to be published, you better damn well help out by performing careful reviewing duties, too!)
Hence we cannot ask reviewers to perform this duty within a Month, because (a) it is almost never the case that the request for doing a reviewing duty comes at a perfect time - there is likely a couple of weeks' delay before there is a response, even if it is positive, and then the reviewers need to have 2-3 Months minimum in order to perform the duty carefully and in detail.
"10 days for the first review" is a sick joke - unless the journal knows it is a journal that do not care about good quality. And the latter is quite likely true - they know they are not striving for high quality. Shame on them.
Hi Micah - it depends. Does this equate to 'rushing' the initial, quick editorial process - before sending out to first, formal review or normal initial review process? Due to competition nowadays - it is more common, with established journals, that manuscripts undergo a 10-day editorial review as a first 'barrier'. I review for over 40 international journals. If a journal demanded that I re-review a manuscript within a short period of time I would say 'no way' - and I would be happy to walk away from it. My contribution is voluntary - and I'm a specialist in my field. If a journal wants my considered review - it's more on my terms (as long as I'm not been daft by sending a review in after 3 months of receiving it) and they are usually obliging of that expertise.
Thank you, all, for your responses. My general sense is that there is a need for accelerating the review and editorial process. By way of example, a paper I submitted last year in a well-respected journal took 7 months before I received the first response and several months more before the paper was finally published, even though there were no substantial concerns on the part of the reviewers or the editor. This seems too long to me. The solution to this sort of problem being advanced by the journals I mentioned in my original question does not seem appropriate, and will probably have the effect of dumbing-down the quality of the reviews (either because experienced reviewers will not be willing to review for them or, if they do, will be tempted to rush the review to get the editor off their back).
I think whether it takes long or short time to review sometimes has not been the case with the quality of the review itself. What is important is that reviewers do a thorough review on manuscripts sent to them. Experience reveal it that sometimes it takes long simply because getting experts to accept to review is now becoming very difficult but also when publishers get them it is also becoming difficult to rush them to review as they have other responsibilities on their schedules. But the quality of academic publication can not entirely depend on how it has taken a reviewer to accomplish reviewing a particular manuscript, there are other factors to be taken on board.
I appreciate the concerns regarding the quality of the papers. However, there is a need to accelerate the total time editors take to respond with comments to author/s from (normally) about six months to not more than three months without compromising the quality. It could be done if editors act fast and reviewers cooperate. However, I agree that occasionally it may take time to find right reviewers on certain topics.
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