Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017;113(1):633-650.
doi: 10.1007/s11192-017-2310-5. Epub 2017 Mar 9.

Duration and quality of the peer review process: the author's perspective

Janine Huisman  1   2 , Jeroen Smits  2   3
Affiliations

Duration and quality of the peer review process: the author's perspective

Janine Huisman et al. Scientometrics. 2017.

Abstract

To gain insight into the duration and quality of the scientific peer review process, we analyzed data from 3500 review experiences submitted by authors to the SciRev.sc website. Aspects studied are duration of the first review round, total review duration, immediate rejection time, the number, quality, and difficulty of referee reports, the time it takes authors to revise and resubmit their manuscript, and overall quality of the experience. We find clear differences in these aspects between scientific fields, with Medicine, Public health, and Natural sciences showing the shortest durations and Mathematics and Computer sciences, Social sciences, Economics and Business, and Humanities the longest. One-third of journals take more than 2 weeks for an immediate (desk) rejection and one sixth even more than 4 weeks. This suggests that besides the time reviewers take, inefficient editorial processes also play an important role. As might be expected, shorter peer review processes and those of accepted papers are rated more positively by authors. More surprising is that peer review processes in the fields linked to long processes are rated highest and those in the fields linked to short processes lowest. Hence authors' satisfaction is apparently influenced by their expectations regarding what is common in their field. Qualitative information provided by the authors indicates that editors can enhance author satisfaction by taking an independent position vis-à-vis reviewers and by communicating well with authors.

Keywords: Author’s experience; Duration; Peer review process; Quality.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Alberts B, Hanson B, Kelner KL. Reviewing peer review. Science. 2008;321:15. doi: 10.1126/science.1162115. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Allison P. Missing data. London: Sage Publications Ltd.; 2001.
    1. Azar OH. Rejections and the importance of first response times. International Journal of Social Economics. 2004;31(3):259–274. doi: 10.1108/03068290410518247. - DOI
    1. Azar OH. The slowdown in first-response times of economics Journals: Can it be beneficial? Economic Inquiry. 2007;45(1):179–187. doi: 10.1111/j.1465-7295.2006.00032.x. - DOI
    1. Björk B, Roos A, Lauri M. Scientific journal publishing: Yearly volume and open access availability. Information Research. 2009;14:1.

LinkOut - more resources