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Many papers in economics that are published in peer reviewed journals are initially released in widely circulated working paper series. This raises the question about the benefit of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal in terms of citations. Specifically, we address the question: To what extent does the stamp of approval obtained by publishing in a peer-reviewed journal lead to more subsequent citations for papers that are already available in working paper series? Our data set comprises about 28.000 working papers from four major working paper series in economics. Using panel data methods, we show that the publication in a peer reviewed journal results in around twice the number of yearly citations relative to working papers that never get published in a journal. Our results hold in several robustness checks.

In our planned study, we shall empirically study the assessment of cited papers within the framework of the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. We are interested in the question whether citation decisions are (mainly) driven by the quality of cited references. The design of our study is oriented towards the study by Teplitskiy, Duede [10]. We shall undertake a survey of corresponding authors with an available email address in the Web of Science database. The authors are asked to assess the quality of papers that they cited in previous papers. Some authors will be assigned to three treatment groups that receive further information alongside the cited paper: citation information, information on the publishing journal (journal impact factor), or a numerical access code to enter the survey. The control group will not receive any further numerical information. In the statistical analyses, we estimate how (strongly) the quality assessments of the cited papers are adjusted by the respondents to the anchor value (citation, journal, or access code). Thus, we are interested in whether possible adjustments in the assessments can not only be produced by quality-related information (citation or journal), but also by numbers that are not related to quality, i.e. the access code. The results of the study may have important implications for quality assessments of papers by researchers and the role of numbers, citations, and journal metrics in assessment processes.

This paper presents a novel method for finding features in the analysis of variable distributions stemming from time series. We apply the methodology to the case of submitted and accepted papers in peer-reviewed journals. We provide a comparative study of editorial decisions for papers submitted to two peer-reviewed journals: the Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society (JSCS) and this MDPI Entropy journal. We cover three recent years for which the fate of submitted papers&mdash, about 600 papers to JSCS and 2500 to Entropy&mdash, is completely determined. Instead of comparing the number distributions of these papers as a function of time with respect to a uniform distribution, we analyze the relevant probabilities, from which we derive the information entropy. It is argued that such probabilities are indeed more relevant for authors than the actual number of submissions. We tie this entropy analysis to the so called diversity of the variable distributions. Furthermore, we emphasize the correspondence between the entropy and the diversity with inequality measures, like the Herfindahl-Hirschman index and the Theil index, itself being in the class of entropy measures, the Gini coefficient which also measures the diversity in ranking is calculated for further discussion. In this sample, the seasonal aspects of the peer review process are outlined. It is found that the use of such indices, non linear transformations of the data distributions, allow us to distinguish features and evolutions of the peer review process as a function of time as well as comparing the non-uniformity of distributions. Furthermore, t- and z-statistical tests are applied in order to measure the significance (p-level) of the findings, that is, whether papers are more likely to be accepted if they are submitted during a few specific months or during a particular &ldquo, season&rdquo, the predictability strength depends on the journal.

Journal peer review lies at the heart of academic quality control. This article explores the journal peer review process and seeks to examine how the reviewing process might itself contribute to papers, leading them to be more highly cited and to achieve greater recognition. Our work builds on previous observations and views expressed in the literature about (a) the role of actors involved in the research and publication process that suggest that peer review is inherent in the research process and (b) on the contribution reviewers themselves might make to the content and increased citation of papers. Using data from the journal peer review process of a single journal in the Social Sciences field (Business, Management and Accounting), we examine the effects of peer review on papers submitted to that journal including the effect upon citation, a novel step in the study of the outcome of peer review. Our detailed analysis suggests, contrary to initial assumptions, that it is not the time taken to revise papers but the actual number of revisions that leads to greater recognition for papers in terms of citation impact. Our study provides evidence, albeit limited to the case of a single journal, that the peer review process may constitute a form of knowledge production and is not the simple correction of errors contained in submitted papers.

Writing your first paper for a peer-reviewed journal can be scary. You are putting your research, its findings and interpretations out to a wider and knowledgeable audience who may criticise any aspect of it. However, once you have made the mental step that you really want your work to be\ud out in the open, and you are about to draft your paper, then you need to decide to which journal you like to submit.\ud \ud This short paper raises some of the issues novice authors would need to consider. We also outline the process of submitting a paper to an academic journal based on the collective experiences of the three authors. All of us have all published widely, acted as reviewers or referees for many different academic journals and are members of editorial boards.

As many readers are no doubt aware, securing rigorous and professional peer reviews for scholarly submissions to journals such as Critical Asian Studies is becoming increasingly challenging, in par...

Dear colleague, As an Editor-in-Chief, I thank you for your interest in Internet Mathematics, an international, peer reviewed journal focusing on all aspects of complex networks. Internet Mathemati...

http://www.iga-goatworld.org/tour/p29.htm; International audience; A scientific communication is a written and published report to transmit scientific knowledge from a scientist or a group of scientists to an interested general or specialized audience. It can take various forms. The impact of a scientific paper on the scientific community does not depend exclusively of its own value but also of the journal in which it is published. Choosing the right journal is a critical step in planning an original scientific paper. The choice must be made before typing the manuscript to be in accordance with the “Instructions for Authors” published regularly by each journal. Several criteria must be examined carefully, step by step. The processes of submission, peer-reviewing, editing and printing are explained.

Background: The emergence of the Internet has triggered tremendous changes in the publication of scientific peer-reviewed journals. Today, journals are usually available in parallel electronic versions, but the way the peer-review process works, the look of articles and journals, and the rigid and slow publication schedules have remained largely unchanged, at least for the vast majority of subscription-based journals. Those publishing firms and scholarly publishers who have chosen the more radical option of open access (OA), in which the content of journals is freely accessible to anybody with Internet connectivity, have had a much bigger degree of freedom to experiment with innovations. Objective: The objective was to study how open access journals have experimented with innovations concerning ways of organizing the peer review, the format of journals and articles, new interactive and media formats, and novel publishing revenue models. Methods: The features of 24 open access journals were studied. The journals were chosen in a nonrandom manner from the approximately 7000 existing OA journals based on available information about interesting journals and include both representative cases and highly innovative outlier cases. Results: Most early OA journals in the 1990s were founded by individual scholars and used a business model based on voluntary work close in spirit to open-source development of software. In the next wave, many long-established journals, in particular society journals and journals from regions such as Latin America, made their articles OA when they started publishing parallel electronic versions. From about 2002 on, newly founded professional OA publishing firms using article-processing charges to fund their operations have emerged. Over the years, there have been several experiments with new forms of peer review, media enhancements, and the inclusion of structured data sets with articles. In recent years, the growth of OA publishing has also been facilitated by the availability of open-source software for journal publishing. Conclusions: The case studies illustrate how a new technology and a business model enabled by new technology can be harnessed to find new innovative ways for the organization and content of scholarly publishing. Several recent launches of OA journals by major subscription publishers demonstrate that OA is rapidly gaining acceptance as a sustainable alternative to subscription-based scholarly publishing. [J Med Internet Res 2011;13(4):e115]

While the goal of increasing numbers of underrepresented faculty members, especially Deaf professionals, has been accomplished to some extent, many are stymied in publishing their dissertation findings in peer-reviewed journals, and therefore have difficulty earning tenure. To address this need, a case study approach was utilized to investigate the development of Deaf professionals’ academic writing during a five-day writing retreat. This paper discusses specific academic writing challenges including organizing ideas, finding an appropriate journal, editing, submitting, as well as handling peer reviews, rejections, and revisions. Information is provided on the final writing products, types of support, guidance, and mentorship that were employed. Findings showed that 75% of papers worked on during the retreat were successfully published in peer-reviewed journals. The importance of published work by Deaf scholars and plans for future retreats are described.

Purpose This paper presents an overview of different kinds of lists of scholarly publication channels and of experiences related to the construction and maintenance of national lists supporting performance-based research funding systems. It also contributes with a set of recommendations for the construction and maintenance of national lists of journals and book publishers. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on analysis of previously published studies, policy papers, and reported experiences related to the construction and use of lists of scholarly publication channels. Findings Several countries have systems for research funding and/or evaluation, that involve the use of national lists of scholarly publication channels (mainly journals and publishers). Typically, such lists are selective (do not include all scholarly or non-scholarly channels) and differentiated (distinguish between channels of different levels and quality). At the same time, most lists are embedded in a system that encompasses multiple or all disciplines. This raises the question how such lists can be organized and maintained to ensure that all relevant disciplines and all types of research are adequately represented. Research limitation The conclusions and recommendations of the study are based on the authors’ interpretation of a complex and sometimes controversial process with many different stakeholders involved. Practical implications The recommendations and the related background information provided in this paper enable mutual learning that may feed into improvements in the construction and maintenance of national and other lists of scholarly publication channels in any geographical context. This may foster a development of responsible evaluation practices. Originality/value This paper presents the first general overview and typology of different kinds of publication channel lists, provides insights on expert-based versus metrics-based evaluation, and formulates a set of recommendations for the responsible construction and maintenance of publication channel lists.

The three of us devote a significant portion of our research time to publishing in peer-reviewed practitioner accounting journals, in addition to our focus on traditional academic journal publishing. In this article, we first discuss overall considerations when publishing for practitioners, including finding topics, writing, statistics, and implications. Then, we describe the five types of practitioner papers we typically produce and how we develop each type of paper: small literature reviews, empirical papers, thought pieces, skills papers, and current topic updates. We conclude with discussion of related educational opportunities and issues, including using practitioner articles in class, exposing doctoral students to practitioner publishing, and getting academic credit for practitioner publishing in tenure, promotion, and annual performance reviews. At a time when accounting academia is seeking to enhance the relevance and impact of research, we hope this paper will prompt other academics to begin or increase their contributions to practitioner journals.

Academic journals provide a key quality-control mechanism in science. Yet, information asymmetries and conflicts of interests incentivize scientists to deceive journals about the quality of their research. How can honesty be ensured, despite incentives for deception? Here, we address this question by applying the theory of honest signaling to the publication process. Our models demonstrate that several mechanisms can ensure honest journal submission, including differential benefits, differential costs, and costs to resubmitting rejected papers. Without submission costs, scientists benefit from submitting all papers to high-ranking journals, unless papers can only be submitted a limited number of times. Counterintuitively, our analysis implies that inefficiencies in academic publishing (e.g., arbitrary formatting requirements, long review times) can serve a function by disincentivizing scientists from submitting low-quality work to high-ranking journals. Our models provide simple, powerful tools for understanding how to promote honest paper submission in academic publishing.

The Journal of Scholastic Engineering Science and Management is an open access and peer-reviewed monthly E-journal. It publishes both theoretical and experimental high-quality papers of permanent interest, not previously published in journals, in the field of engineering, applied science and Management. The goal is to promote scientific information interchange between researchers, developers, engineers, students, practitioners and Industry professionals. The journal incorporates various research papers as well as case study papers., This document is licensed under Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International., {"references":["H K, Vasudendra. Journal of Scholastic Engineering Science and Management Monthly Library E-Journal Book. 2021st ed. Vol. 1. 1 vols. 1 1. 2021. Reprint, India: Journal of Scholastic Engineering Science and Management, 2021. https://journaljmsm.info.","(Googleusercontent.com, 2021)"]}

Purpose Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focussing on scientific “soundness” and eschewing judgement of novelty or importance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourses relating to OAMJs, and their place within scholarly publishing, and considers attitudes towards mega-journals within the academic community. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a review of the literature of OAMJs structured around four defining characteristics: scale, disciplinary scope, peer review policy, and economic model. The existing scholarly literature was augmented by searches of more informal outputs, such as blogs and e-mail discussion lists, to capture the debate in its entirety. Findings While the academic literature relating specifically to OAMJs is relatively sparse, discussion in other fora is detailed and animated, with debates ranging from the sustainability and ethics of the mega-journal model, to the impact of soundness-only peer review on article quality and discoverability, and the potential for OAMJs to represent a paradigm-shifting development in scholarly publishing. Originality/value This paper represents the first comprehensive review of the mega-journal phenomenon, drawing not only on the published academic literature, but also grey, professional and informal sources. The paper advances a number of ways in which the role of OAMJs in the scholarly communication environment can be conceptualised.

The landscape of scholarly writing, publishing, and university promotion can be complex and challenging. Mentorship may be limited. To be successful it is important to understand the key components of writing and publishing. In this article, we provide expert consensus recommendations on four key challenges faced by junior faculty: writing the paper; selecting contributors and the importance of authorship order; journal selection and indexing; and responding to critiques. After reviewing this paper, the reader should have an enhanced understanding of these challenges and strategies to successfully address them.

Most of the journals in Croatia adopted the open access (OA) model and their content is freely accessible and available for reuse without restrictions except that attribution be given to the author(s) and journal. There are 444 Croatian scholarly, professional, popular and trade OA journals available in the national repository of OA journals Hrcak, and 217 of them use peer review process as the primary quality assurance system. The goal of our study was to investigate the peer review process used by the Croatian OA journals and the editors’ attitude towards open peer review.An online survey was sent to the Hrcak journal editors with 39 questions grouped in: journal general information, a number of submitted/rejected/accepted manuscripts and timeliness of publishing, peer review process characteristics, instructions for peer reviewers and open peer review. Responses were obtained from 152 editors (141 complete and 11 partial). All journals employ peer review process except one. The data were collected from February to July 2017.The majority of journals come from the humanities (n=50, 33%) and social sciences (n=37, 24%). Less represented are journals from the field of biomedicine (n=22, 14%), technical sciences (n=16, 11%), natural sciences (n=12, 8%), biotechnical sciences (n=10, 7%) and interdisciplinary journals (n=3, 2%). Average journal submission is 54 manuscripts per year, but there are big differences among journals: maximum submission is 550 manuscripts, and minimum just five. In average journal publishes 23 papers after the reviewers’ and editors’ acceptance. In average it takes 16 days for sending the manuscript to the reviewer, 49 days for all the reviewers to send the journal a detailed report on the manuscript, 14 days to the editors’ decision, and another 60 days for the paper to be published.External peer review process where reviewers are not members of the editorial board or employees of the journal’s parent institution was used by 86 journals (60%). Other journals use external peer review process where reviewers are not members of the editorial board but could be employees of the journal’s parent institution (n=40, 28%), and editorial peer review. Remaining 10% journals combine previous three types of the peer review. Only 20% journals use exclusively reviewers from abroad, 44% are combining international and national reviewers, and 36% journals use only reviewers from Croatia.The majority of journals provide two reviews for each manuscript, and the process is double blind. Detailed instructions for peer reviewers are provided by less than half of the journals (n=57, 40%), but ethical issues like plagiarism, conflict of interest, confidentiality etc., are neglected. Usually, a reviewer is not informed of the final decision upon the manuscript, and reviews are not shared among reviewers.Somehow surprising was the opinion of the majority of the editors that reviewers must get credit for their efforts (n=121, 85%). On the other hand, editors are not familiar with the concept of open peer review, which can be easily used for that purpose. Some editors believe that open peer review is related to the identity disclosure: both authors’ and reviewers’ (n=35, 25%), reviewers’ (n=27, 19%), and authors’ identity (n=14, 10%). For many editors open peer review implies publicly available reviews (n=65, 36%) and authors’ responses (n=46, 33%). Open peer review is an unknown concept for some editors (n=32, 23%).In spite of all criticism traditional peer review is predominant in Croatian OA journals. Our findings show that traditional peer review is still the preferred review mechanism for the majority of journals in the study.

The quality of an article is a critical parameter for the success of any scholarly journal, and the Journal of Modern Materials (JMM) is no exception. Peer review process presents a barrier prior to publication which acts as a quality control filter in science. Typically, the journal editor assigns submitted paper to two or more qualified peers – recognized experts in the relevant field. The reviewers will then submit detailed criticism of the paper along with a recommendation to reject, accept with major revisions, accept with minor revisions, or accept as it is. The quality and consistency of peer review will be the key success for the Journal of Modern Materials.

As an appendix to Elisabeth’s introduction on style and format for medical publishing, this article offers readers a guide to fine-tune a paper for publication and increase acceptance rates. A good paper is often highly praised by colleagues but a good writer must scrutinise every aspect of the text to ensure that it conforms with the requirements of a scientific article and that of the journal to which it will be submitted.

This article has been withdrawn at the request of the author(s) and/or editor. Shortly after appearing In Press, this article was flagged as having an unacceptable amount of duplicate text from a recently published article in another journal. In consultation with the author, publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of both journals, the article has been removed from the production queue and is being withdrawn from In Press. The author expressed regret at misunderstanding this aspect of the publication process, and plans to resubmit after removing all instances of text recycling; ensuring that the hypotheses between the two papers are separate (i.e., papers not split by outcomes); and referencing the previously published paper. Any resulting resubmission will undergo the journal's regular double-blind peer review process. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy.

Within the academic community, the peer review process is infamous. Many, if not most, scholars who have submitted their work to scholarly journals have first hand experience of submitting what they believe to be theoretically grounded, methodologically rigorous, and important contributions to a journal, only to hear from reviewers that the paper is theoretically unsound, methodologically flawed, and does not contribute sufficiently to the existing literature. This study attempts to ease the pain of navigating the peer review process through an analysis of reviewer feedback for all papers submitted to a marketing journal over a 5-year period. Thus the contribution of this research is to shed light on the publication and peer review process through an analysis of reviewer judgments. Marketing educators can use the findings herein to aid future generations of marketing academics in understanding (and successfully navigating) the peer review process.

Background: Trying to publish a paper in a top-rated peer-reviewed journal can be a difficult and frustrating experience for authors. It is important that authors understand the general review process before submitting manuscripts for publication. Objectives: Editors-in-chief and associate editors from top-tier journals such as Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP), Toxicological Sciences, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and Chemical Research in Toxicology were asked to provide guidance concerning the writing and submission of papers to their journals. Discussion: The editors reviewed the manuscript review process for their journals, elaborated on the evaluation criteria for reviewing papers, and provided advice for future authors in preparing their papers. Conclusions: The manuscript submission process was similar for all of the journals with the exception of EHP that includes an initial screening in which about two-thirds of submitted papers are returned to the authors without review. The evaluation criteria used by the journals were also similar. Papers that are relevant to the scope of the journal, are innovative, significantly advance the field, are well written, and adhere to the instructions to authors have a higher likelihood of being accepted. The editors advised potential authors to ensure that the topic of the paper is within the scope of the journal, represents an important problem, is carefully prepared according to the instructions to authors, and to seek editorial assistance if English is not the primary language of the authors.

This paper reviews some of the many changes to publishing resulting from the electronic environment and focuses on how open access may impact or alter the editorial peer review process. Developments of particular importance to editorial peer review include the impact of electronic journals (e-journals) on scholarly publishing in general, pre-print repositories, open access journals, and access to unpublished data. New pricing models are changing the economics of scholarly publishing, and there are promises of quick reviews that may impact the peer review process itself. The paper ends with a discussion of the role the government is playing in developing a workable open access model.

This paper reports the results of a web-based perception study of the ranking of peer reviewed accounting journals by UK academics. The design of the survey instrument allows an interactive selection of journals to be scored. The web-based format is unique in that it also includes a step in which respondents classify the journals according to methodological perspective (paradigm). This is depicted graphically in the paper in a bubble diagram that shows the “positioning” of journals according to perceptions of both paradigm and quality.

This paper discusses some of the issues related to e-journals: cost, speed of publication, global access, the politics of academic publication, and reduced control of publication houses. E-journals are also examined relative to their impact on academic responsibility, the peer review process, censorship, credibility, and academic literacy skill development. Commonly-cited drawbacks of e-journals are critiqued, e.g., archiving, range of quality, institutional acceptance, cost of technology, and plagiarism. The paper proposes a framework for assessing both e-journals and traditional print journals.

With their broad scope, high publishing volume, a peer review process based on the scientific soundness of the content, and an open access model, mega journals have become an important part of scholarly publishing.The main aim of this paper is to determine the most important factor that influenced researchers’ decisions to submit their academic work to these type of journal. To this end, an online survey has been disseminated from November 2016 to August 2017, targeting the corresponding authors of the European Scientific Journal, ESJ. Data from 413 corresponding authors was collected.The focus was mainly on how they discover the journal and what led them to submit a paper to the journal. However, questions concerning their satisfaction with the peer review procedure were also part of the survey.The results have shown that a recommendation of a colleague is not only the main channel through which authors found out about the journal, but is also the major reason they decided to submit their paper to a mega-journal. Furthermore, the quality of the editorial board of the journal, the strong portfolio of papers and the open access concept are also significant factors in encouraging submission to a mega-journal. A majority of the respondents are satisfied with the communication and peer review procedure of the mega-journal, which might encourage new submissions in the future.

The organic synthesis journal Synlett has been conducting an editorial experiment called “intelligent crowd reviewing” that could shake up the traditional peer review process. The results “are stunning,” says Benjamin List, the journal’s editor-in-chief and director of homogeneous catalysis at the Max Planck Institute for Kohlenforschung. Peer review for scientific journals typically involves three anonymous referees from the same research area who judge the quality of a manuscript sent to them by a journal editor. List and his graduate student and editorial assistant Denis Hofler instead worked with an information technology company to create a protected online forum for reviewers. With authors’ permission, they posted 10 submitted papers on the forum and gave a stable of about 100 of the journal’s reviewers 72 hours to respond anonymously to papers of their choosing as well as to respond to fellow reviewers’ comments. In parallel, some of the manuscripts were also examined

Crossref provides a succinct and accurate definition for a preprint: “original content which is intended for formal publication, including content that has been submitted, but has not yet been accepted for publication” (1). Preprints thus represent a precursor version of a document (scientific paper, project report, or other) that has not yet been peer reviewed, but that may, if corrected and submitted to a scholarly journal for peer review, have a similar content to the final published version. That very same news alert by Crossref just over one year ago was a game changer in the world of preprints because it basically shattered the Ingelfinger Rule, which was established almost 50 years ago to prevent the submission, or publication, of duplicate papers within the biomedical and scientific literature (2).

Made available in DSpace on 2019-09-12T16:26:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014 Neste editorial, discutiram-se medidas necessárias para garantir a sustentabilidade da revista Ambiente & Água à medida que ela cresce em reconhecimento pela comunidade científica. São necessários recursos elevados para se publicar artigos científicos de nível internacional e de qualidade profissional. Portanto, foi analisada a tendência das revistas de sucesso que têm levantado diversas fontes de financiamento para apoiar os custos editoriais para publicar com tecnologia de ponta, que permite a interoperabilidade em diversas plataformas. Os diversos procedimentos usados por esses periódicos foram analisados e tomou-se a decisão de adotar a política de "autor paga" para sustentar a operação da revista Ambiente & Água. Nesta 25ª edição, são publicados 15 artigos revisados por pares que abrangem uma variedade de temas ambientais. In this editorial, we discuss the necessary steps to guarantee the sustainability of Ambiente & Água journal as it grew in recognition by the scientific community. To publish world class scientific papers of professional quality, considerable amount of resources are necessary. Therefore, we will follow the trend of successful journals that have raised several funding sources to support the processing costs to publish in cutting edge technology that requires interoperability throughout a variety of platforms. We reviewed several procedures used by those journals and made the decision to adopt the "author pay" policy to help to sustain the operation of Ambiente & Água journal. In this 25th issue, we are publishing 15 peer-reviewed papers in a variety of environmental themes. [Batista, Getulio Teixeira] Universidade de Taubaté, Brazil

The Journal of Open Research Software (JORS) is an open access journal, which publishes peer reviewed software papers. Software papers describe open source software for research with high reuse potential. The authors publishing in the journal are awarded for opening up software with a peer reviewed journal article. This article is an author-based review of JORS and an experience report of the submission process of one now published paper there. 1

Objective\ud The use of simulation training in obstetrics is an important strategy to improve health-care providers׳ competence to manage obstetric cases. As an increasing number of international programmes focus on simulation training, more information is needed about the practical aspects of planning for and organising skills laboratories.\ud \ud Methods\ud Systematic review of peer reviewed literature published between January 2000 and June 2014. Thematic summary of 31 papers meeting inclusion criteria.\ud \ud Findings\ud Skills laboratories need to reflect the clinical working environment and are ideally located at or near a health-care facility. A mix of low and high fidelity manikins combined with patient actors is recommended to be used with clear instructions, scenario setting and short lectures including audio-visual teaching aids. Motivated trainers are vital and a focus on ‘team training’ in smaller groups is beneficial. Practical information needed to set up and run a skills laboratory is provided with a proposed outline of a skills laboratory for obstetric simulation training.\ud \ud Conclusions and implications for practice\ud Obstetric skills laboratories can play a substantial role in increasing competency and confidence of staff via ‘skills and drills’ type training. When considering setting up skills laboratories, this can be simply done using low fidelity manikins in the first instance with training facilitated by motivated trainers using realistic clinical scenarios. Overall, the review findings highlight the need for better documentation of factors that promote and/or are barriers to the effective use of skills laboratories.\ud \ud Synopsis\ud 31 papers detailing the planning and organisation of skills laboratories were reviewed in order to assess the factors necessary for their effectiveness and the vital role they play in increasing staff competencies. Setting up obstetric skills laboratories is worthwhile but requires in-depth planning.

The British Journal of Occupational Therapy strives to publish high quality research and scholarly papers. The journal faces a challenge in how best to meet this aim in the future. Regardless of the choices it makes, the focus on quality cannot be lost. One of the key features of quality is the peer review process, which all submitted articles must undergo. This paper reviews the policy of double-blind (anonymous) peer reviewing and suggests that an open peer review policy would provide greater transparency, accountability and credit, thereby enhancing the quality of the journal and strengthening its position for the future.

This article discusses common errors emanating from authors submitting manuscripts or papers for publication in peer refereed Library and Information journals. It is hoped that this paper will provide established, novice and potential scholarly journal authors with valuable information enabling the improvement of their manuscripts before submission for publication. The paper primarily uses the author's experience as editor-in-chief of a peer refereed accredited LIS journal, among other related experiences, as well as 85 peer reviewer reports on submitted manuscripts to South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, to analyse and discuss common errors made by authors on submitted manuscripts for publication, and the challenges facing these authors.

Publishing in scholarly peer reviewed journals usually entails long delays from submission to publication. In part this is due to the length of the peer review process and in part because of the dominating tradition of publication in issues, earlier a necessity of paper-based publishing, which creates backlogs of manuscripts waiting in line. The delays slow the dissemination of scholarship and can provide a significant burden on the academic careers of authors. Using a stratified random sample we studied average publishing delays in 2700 papers published in 135 journals sampled from the Scopus citation index. The shortest overall delays occur in science technology and medical (STM) fields and the longest in social science, arts/humanities and business/economics. Business/economics with a delay of 18 months took twice as long as chemistry with a 9 month average delay. Analysis of the variance indicated that by far the largest amount of variance in the time between submission and acceptance was among articles within a journal as compared with journals, disciplines or the size of the journal. For the time between acceptance and publication most of the variation in delay can be accounted for by differences between specific journals.

BackgroundRecent controversies highlighting substandard peer review in Open Access (OA) and traditional (subscription) journals have increased the need for authors, funders, publishers, and institutions to assure quality of peer-review in academic journals. I propose that transparency of the peer-review process may be seen as an indicator of the quality of peer-review, and develop and validate a tool enabling different stakeholders to assess transparency of the peer-review process.Methods and FindingsBased on editorial guidelines and best practices, I developed a 14-item tool to rate transparency of the peer-review process on the basis of journals’ websites. In Study 1, a random sample of 231 authors of papers in 92 subscription journals in different fields rated transparency of the journals that published their work. Authors’ ratings of the transparency were positively associated with quality of the peer-review process but unrelated to journal’s impact factors. In Study 2, 20 experts on OA publishing assessed the transparency of established (non-OA) journals, OA journals categorized as being published by potential predatory publishers, and journals from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Results show high reliability across items (α = .91) and sufficient reliability across raters. Ratings differentiated the three types of journals well. In Study 3, academic librarians rated a random sample of 140 DOAJ journals and another 54 journals that had received a hoax paper written by Bohannon to test peer-review quality. Journals with higher transparency ratings were less likely to accept the flawed paper and showed higher impact as measured by the h5 indexfrom Google Scholar.ConclusionsThe tool to assess transparency of the peer-review process at academic journals shows promising reliability and validity. The transparency of the peer-review process can be seen as an indicator of peer-review quality allowing the tool to be used to predict academic quality in new journals.

The goal of this paper is to provide a “non­‐technical” discussion of what the academic literatures in economics, marketing, and information systems can tell us about how piracy impacts sales of media products. Within these literatures, we have chosen to focus on empirical studies of the impact of piracy because, while there are a variety of analytic models proposing theories of how piracy might impact sales, we believe that the true test of these theories starts with data.Based on our review of the empirical literature we conclude that, while some papers in the literature find no evidence of harm, the vast majority of the literature (particularly the literature published in top peer reviewed journals) finds evidence that piracy harms media sales.

Published version of an article in the journal: Informatics in Education : an International Journal. Wikis have been recently promoted as tools that foster collaborative learning. However, there has been little research devoted to the criteria that are suitable to address issues pertinent to collaborative learning. This paper proposes a set of criteria to explore technical and pedagogical usability issues of collaborative learning with wikis. The criteria are then used to evaluate students’ collaborative writing activities. The units of study are wikis that groups of students developed collaboratively using MediaWiki. This paper also reports on technical and pedagogical implications for the use of wikis as collaborative learning tools in teacher education.

This paper presents a snapshot of a content-analysis study of five years of issues for the four key technical communication journals. Using coding schemes for topics and types of research used to generate data on which conclusions are based, the authors coded all articles in the last five years of our major journals. This paper reviews the current state of the peer-reviewed literature to determine topics covered and overlooked; research methods; dominant authors (if any); the assessed level of consistency between the editorial focus of each journal as stated in its editorial mission and the peer-reviewed literature that is actually published in the journal; and the similarities and distinctions between and among the journals.

We were delighted when Zhi-Yun Jia, Executive Editor of Current Zoology, approached us with a proposal to engage in a special column on invasive species science. Six papers have been written for this special column, all containing new information and approaches in the field of aquatic invasive species science. Each paper has gone through the rigorous peer review process used at Current Zoology, and Zhi-Yun Jia was very helpful by contacting reviewers and improving the manuscripts. Invasive species science is a relatively recent scientific discipline that includes ecology, environmental processes, the impact of and on human society, and management. Due to human activities lifting dispersal barriers, exotic species settle in new areas outside their original biogeographic area and go through several steps in the invasion process, depending on the conditions: survival, reproduction, establishing a population, dispersal, boom and bust. All newly arrived species must traverse several environmental filters and only a selected number of species become really invasive. When settled they can interact, for the first time, with native species, a process that leads to often unpredictable outcomes. The strongest impact of the new comer is reached at peak density. When a species is discovered in an area where it was previously absent a series of questions arise. What is the name of the species (sometimes taxonomically difficult)? Where has it come from (biogeographical area)? How did it arrive and what vectors were used? What can the

Background: Citation data can be used to evaluate the editorial policies and procedures of scientific journals. Here we investigate citation counts for the three different publication tracks of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). This analysis explores the consequences of differences in editor and referee selection, while controlling for the prestige of the journal in which the papers appear. Methodology/Principal Findings: We find that papers authored and ‘‘Contributed’’ by NAS members (Track III) are on average cited less often than papers that are ‘‘Communicated’’ for others by NAS members (Track I) or submitted directly via the standard peer review process (Track II). However, we also find that the variance in the citation count of Contributed papers, and to a lesser extent Communicated papers, is larger than for direct submissions. Therefore when examining the 10% most-cited papers from each track, Contributed papers receive the most citations, followed by Communicated papers, while Direct submissions receive the least citations. Conclusion/Significance: Our findings suggest that PNAS ‘‘Contributed’’ papers, in which NAS–member authors select their own reviewers, balance an overall lower impact with an increased probability of publishing exceptional papers. This analysis demonstrates that different editorial procedures are associated with different levels of impact, even within the same prominent journal, and raises interesting questions about the most appropriate metrics for judging an editorial policy’s success.

Background The rise of electronic publishing [1], preprint archives, blogs, and wikis is raising concerns among publishers, editors, and scientists about the present day relevance of academic journals and traditional peer review [2]. These concerns are especially fuelled by the ability of search engines to automatically identify and sort information [1]. It appears that academic journals can only remain relevant if acceptance of research for publication within a journal allows readers to infer immediate, reliable information on the value of that research. Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we systematically evaluate the effectiveness of journals, through the work of editors and reviewers, at evaluating unpublished research. We find that the distribution of the number of citations to a paper published in a given journal in a specific year converges to a steady state after a journal-specific transient time, and demonstrate that in the steady state the logarithm of the number of citations has a journal-specific typical value. We then develop a model for the asymptotic number of citations accrued by papers published in a journal that closely matches the data. Conclusions/Significance Our model enables us to quantify both the typical impact and the range of impacts of papers published in a journal. Finally, we propose a journal-ranking scheme that maximizes the efficiency of locating high impact research.

Vital statistics: high speed and fewer laps to the finish line A unique feature of The EMBO Journal is that we publish data on the efficiency of the editorial process (find the latest analysis of manuscripts submitted in 2009 at http://www.nature.com/emboj/about/process.html). We accepted 12% of submitted manuscripts, 2% more than in the preceding year, with similar submission volumes. The journal is fast: editorial decisions were made, on average, in 2.3 days and post‐review decisions in 29 days . The majority of manuscripts went through only one major round of revision. Notably, we ensure that no new issues are raised that were not brought forward in the initial review (excluding points on data added in revision, of course). A total of 74% manuscripts were rejected before formal peer review, 21% of these with additional advice from the editorial advisory board. We have a relatively high ‘first cut’, so that only manuscripts that fit within the journal's scope, that present a sufficiently striking advance and that have a real chance of being published with realistic further revision continue to the more time‐intensive peer review process. As a result, 46% of the peer reviewed manuscripts end up being published. Remarkably, 97% of cases where a revision is invited are published. Thus, once a revision is invited, the odds for publication without delay are high. Are we selecting the right papers for publication? Our analysis of manuscripts rejected in 2008 shows that until now 1% appeared in journals with an impact factor two or more notches above this journal. 9% of the rejected manuscripts cite higher than the average EMBO Journal paper. ### Scooping protection Molecular cell biology is a rather competitive discipline. The next big open questions rarely occur to only one researcher. Technical and research advances, as well as funding priorities, encourage multiple laboratories to pursue similar directions. In contrast to other disciplines, experiments are quickly …

Herein, we discuss a novel way to knit current life sciences publishing structures together under the scope of a single life science journal that would countermand many of the issues faced in current publishing paradigms. Such issues include, but are not limited to, publication fees, subscription fees, impact factor, and publishing in more "glamorous" journals for career health. We envision a process flow involving (i) a single, overall, life sciences journal, (ii) divided into sections headed by learned societies, (iii) to whom all scientific papers are submitted for peer review, and (iv) all accepted scientific literature would be published open access and without author publication fees. With such a structure, journal fees, the merit system of science, and unethical aspects of open access would be reformed for the better. Importantly, such a journal could leverage existing online platforms; that is to say, it is conceptually feasible. We conclude that wholly inclusive publishing paradigms can be possible. A single, open access, online, life sciences journal could solve the myriad problems associated with current publishing paradigms and would be feasible to implement.

One of the weaknesses in the system regarding research publications is that universities require papers to be published in high calibre journals that are peer reviewed. Sadly, many of these papers never find their way into the hands of clinicians. The journals are either too expensive to subscribe to, papers adopt an off-putting academic style, are in generic nursing/health care journals and, quite frankly, are often structured in rather dull ways.

International audience; The publishing process relies on the work of volunteer reviewers, and evaluating the interdisciplinary papers published in G-Cubed can be challenging. As Editors and Associate Editors, we would like to give our appreciation to all reviewers and would like to acknowledge them in this editorial. G-Cubed published 326 manuscripts out of 650 submissions in 2019, thanks on the efforts of 860 dedicated reviewers. Their names are listed below, and in italics are those who provided three or more reviews. A big thank you from the G-Cubed team!

Journal evaluation systems reflect how new insights are critically reviewed and published, and the prestige and impact of a discipline’s journals is a key metric in many research assessment, performance evaluation, and funding systems. With the expansion of China’s research and innovation systems and its rise as a major contributor to global innovation, journal evaluation has become an especially important issue. In this paper, we first describe the history and background of journal evaluation in China and then systematically introduce and compare the most currently influential journal lists and indexing services. These are the Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD), the Journal Partition Table (JPT), the AMI Comprehensive Evaluation Report (AMI), the Chinese S&T Journal Citation Report (CJCR), “A Guide to the Core Journals of China” (GCJC), the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI), and the World Academic Journal Clout Index (WAJCI). Some other influential lists produced by government agencies, professional associations, and universities are also briefly introduced. Through the lens of these systems, we provide comprehensive coverage of the tradition and landscape of the journal evaluation system in China and the methods and practices of journal evaluation in China with some comparisons to how other countries assess and rank journals.

Peer review is at the heart of the scientific endeavor, ensuring that high‐quality discoveries are communicated in effective and impactful ways. As a voluntary and mostly anonymous effort, peer review is often poorly recognized. But it is so valuable to journal Editors, and we are often so impressed by the incredibly detailed, constructive, and informative reviews that we get back from reviewers. In 2019, GeoHealth benefited from more than 94 reviews provided by 73 of our peers for papers submitted to the journal. Thank you all for being such an important part of the scientific process, advancing the communication of discoveries at the intersections of the environmental and health sciences to improve society.

This commentary examines the problem of predatory journals, low-quality open-access journals that seek to earn revenue from scholarly authors without following scholarly publishing best practices. Seeking to accept as many papers as possible, they typically do not perform a standard peer review, leading to the publication of improperly vetted research. Some predatory journals repeatedly use templates as their peer review reports. Related scams also victimize education researchers.

This paper reports a survey on citation behaviour of Malaysian researchers. It is part of a wider study gauging quality and trustworthiness in scholarly communication in the emerging digital environment. The survey questionnaire was distributed between 1 October 2014 and 31 January 2015. A total of 391 respondents, from four research areas (humanities, life sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences) completed the questionnaire. The finding indicated that motivations for citing were complex and multi-faceted, but in all four disciplines, researchers cite a work because they regard it as an authoritative and trustworthy source, which provides a context or building block to their own research. Although researchers have moved from a print-based system to a digital one, it has not significantly changed the way they decide what to trust. Peer reviewed journals are still the most influential. Open access journals will be cited if they have been peer reviewed. Citing on the basis of high altmetrics and other social judgements, such as mentions, likes, and use, was not prevalent. Measures of establishing trust and authority do not seem to have changed profoundly in Malaysia.

Peer review is a cornerstone of scientific publishing, but is it any better than chance at keeping bad papers out of print? Andrew Somerville investigates