Frontiers' Collaborative Review

Frontiers Collaborative ReviewJune 21, 2015

Marie Soulière, Ph.D. | Program Manager

Frontiers Collaborative Review

- Back to basics

- How it actually works

- Future engagement and latest developments

How different is it?

Key principles

- Collaborative – unites the authors and reviewers in a direct online dialogue

- Objective – peer review will concentrate on technical rather than subjective concerns

BioMed Central ‘inclusive’ peer review, PLOS One focuses on technical concerns.

- Transparent – reviewers and editor names acknowledged on published papers.

BioMed Central, BMJ, F1000Research - publish names, full reports and pre-publication discussion. Copernicus - Interactive Public Peer-Review.

- Rigorous – questionnaires for each article types, with focus on validity of research

Rubriq - ScoreCard, Peerage of Science - pre-submission questionnaires

How efficient is it?A

vera

ge r

evie

w t

ime

(Day

s )

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

105

9792 90

84 8277

74 74 74 74 7369 67 66

62 61

25

Average review time (submission to acceptance) per field at Frontiers

Data as of June 2015

How efficient is it?Fr

equ

ency

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

Review time analysis

Submission to Acceptance (days)

50% of all papers: 37-92 days

75% of all papers: 21-122 days

Average time from submission to acceptance for all Frontiers Journals

Median time from submission to acceptance for all Frontiers Journals

86

52


How efficient is it?

PLOS One (2013)Average: 134 daysMedian*: 104 days

PNAS (as of 2015)Average: 152 days

Frontiers (as of 2015)

Average: 86 daysMedian*: 52 days

Open Biology, Royal Society (as of 2015)Average: 96 days

eLIFE (2014)

Median*: 90 days

Journal of Applied Mathematics, Hindawi (2013)

Median*: 88 days


How efficient is it?

Data on iterations in the Review Forum (RF):

Average # comments posted in RF by participants 4Median # comments posted in RF by participants 3

Average MS resubmission 1.8Median MS resubmission 1

Collaborative? Yes. But not too much.


Positive author and reviewer feedback

New Online Review Forum (2014)

Current and future developments

- Plagiarism check for ALL submissions(iThenticate program)

- Conflicts of interest between editors and authors

- Final validation stage(all files received, permissions for

figures or ethics committees provided, no COI or plagiarism issues left)

- Policy on authorship changes and disputes



















- Affiliation list selection during submission and on Loop network

- Manuscript length check at submission

- FundRef- Crossmark

- New Associate Editor tab in the Review Forum

- Article type Review Questionnaires per Program

- Algorithm for Associate and Review Editors invitations


As of June 2015

28.6%

24.3%

28.1% 27.7%

20.6%

Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan

% Acceptance rate manual invitations to REV

22.7%

17.7%

23.3%

19.7%18.0%

Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan

% Acceptance rate manual invitations to RE

Review Editor Smart invitations: Case study Human Neuroscience

% acceptance of manual invitations sent by month to Review Editors (RE) or external Reviewers (REV)

Data as of May 2015

KPI: Decrease % Not expertise declination rate of automatic invitations sent by month (baseline # declined invitations)

Top-10 invitations

Keywords Semantic Keywords Semantic

18.9%

22.3%23.3%

24.6%

14.2% 17.6%

13.4%

21.4%

14.0%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14 Jan-15 Feb-15 Mar-15 Apr-15 May-15

23.1%

29.3%29.0%

40.6%

21.6% 22.3% 20.9% 20.2% 22.4%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

40.0%

45.0%


RE Smart invitations

Top-20 invitations

Data as of May 2015

Accepted

Interested

KPI: Increase % of Acceptance and Interested automatic invitations sent by month (baseline total invitations sent in the month)

Keywords Semantic Keywords Semantic

1.0%

2.4% 2.5%1.9%

3.7%

5.6%

2.7%

4.0%

6.4%

0.2%

0.6%1.0%

1.3%

0.2%

1.0%

0.2%

2.0%

0.6%

0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

6.0%

7.0%

8.0%


1.4% 1.2% 1.5%0.9%

1.9% 1.9%2.4%

1.5%

4.0%

0.0% 0.3%

0.8%1.4%

0.3% 0.6%

0.5%

0.4%

1.9%

0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

6.0%

7.0%


*Max acceptance rate is 20% (2 reviewers reached)

Top-10 invitations Top-20 invitations


Data as of May 2015

KPI: Decrease % of manuscripts delayed in review assignment (baseline # manuscripts submitted by month)

Keywords Semantic

15.0%

13.0%

16.0%

13.0%11.8% 12.4%

10.6%

0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

12.0%

14.0%

16.0%

18.0%

30-Nov-14 28- Feb-1531- Jan-1531- Dec-14 31- March-15 30- April-15 31- May-15


Data as of May 2015

Associate Editor assignment: Case study Microbiology

28.7%

21.2%

33.3%

28.3%

22.8%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

Jan-15 Feb-15 Mar-15 Apr-15 May-15

Acceptance rate of the Associate Editor selected by the author at submission

Submitted month of the manuscript

29.0%22.0%

56.0%

30.0% 29.0%

68.0%72.0%

38.0%

67.0%

50.0%

3.0% 6.0% 6.0% 3.0%

21.0%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

Jan-15 Feb-15 Mar-15 Apr-15 May-15

% of reasons for declining an invitation the preferred Associate Editor

No expertise

No time

Others & COI

Data as of May 2015

Questions?

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