Page 36 - Straive eBook: Redefining Your Peer Review Experience

36 Straive | Redefining Your Peer Review Experience

Submitting a manuscript for publication is vital in the research cycle, and identifying the
appropriate journal in which to publish it can be challenging. Authors lose time and effort
when a journal rejects their manuscript. The process of finding a new journal and resubmitting
can be both exhausting and time-consuming. Additionally, 15 million hours of researcher time
are estimated to be lost annually on repeated reviews for succeeding journals. Having a
seamless mechanism to transfer articles between publications that use different submission
and peer-review tracking systems could help address both challenges.

Transferring Peer Review

The ‘transfer’ or 'cascade' process is intended for papers that editors/reviewers determine are
inappropriate for the journal to which they were originally submitted. Adopting the concept of
'cascading peer review' can lessen peer review strain. This model, first used in the early
twenty-first century, continues to be still widely used by publishers even today. This system
aims to prevent manuscripts from being ultimately rejected by transferring them to potentially
more relevant journals within their portfolio, thereby saving costs and increasing efficiency.
Apart from avoiding the duplication of having a paper steered through the peer-review
process multiple times, internal manuscript and peer-review referral services can benefit
authors by expediting publication.

Submission Moderated by the editor

Editorial Editorial
assessment assessment
Journal A

Transfer Transfer
Rejection Rejection / Acceptance
Peer Reviewer
reviewers comments

Journal B Journal C

Transfer prioritized editorial prioritized editorial
assessment
assessment
Revised Author Rejection / Acceptance
Workflow manuscripts

Cascading commonly refers to the process by which papers turned down by journals that are
of first preference to the author are transferred to alternative journals within the publisher's
portfolio. Mechanisms include automated manuscript transfer, where manuscripts are
rerouted via a link provided by the manuscript editor; peer review consortiums, where rejected
papers are routed to consortium journals; and a soft cascading approach that offers more
suitable publication venues.