editorresources.taylorandfrancisgroup.com@TandFEditors

1. Make the most of the resources available – share our reviewer guidelines & best practice with reviewers

2. Say thanks with our reviewer recognition schemes for your journal3. Recruit and retain reviewers by avoiding a mechanistic approach,

and by matching reviewers to appropriate papers4. Take advantage of reviewer locator tools to find the

right reviewers quickly 5. Carefully navigate contradicting referee reports

Dear Editors,Peer review is one of the most discussed topics in scholarly publishing. Despite the concerns and criticisms of the system, peer review is still a crucial part of academic communication and relies on the trust and cooperation of everyone involved to make it work effectively.

In this second issue in our series of topical newsletters, we’re focusing on optimizing peer review and the role that journal editors play in this. Find out how to discover reviewers quickly and easily, what peer review incentives Taylor & Francis offers, how to navigate contradicting peer review reports, and more. Visit Taylor & Francis Editor Resources for more information about the topics discussed here and for further news and ideas from the journal publishing front line.

Best wishes,

Leila & Claire, on behalf of the Editor Resources team

Struggling to find reviewers? What we’re doing to make it faster and simplerWe are very aware that finding suitable reviewers isn’t easy, and that it can be a very time-consuming task for journal editors. To make discovering reviewers easier, we have added reviewer locator tools to our electronic editorial systems.

On ScholarOne We have introduced the Reviewer Locator tool. As soon as a paper is submitted, the Reviewer Locator tool will automatically search for reviewers based on a manuscript’s keywords and abstract. These keywords and abstracts are fed into Web of Science and a complex algorithm discovers potential reviewers based on their previous publications in the same area of expertise.

On Editorial Manager We have added Reviewer Discovery. Enabled by Aries, the Reviewer Discovery option initiates a search against a third-party database of biographic and bibliographic profiles of around 2.5 million scholars and researchers from ProQuest Community of Scholars (PQ). Reviewer Discovery matches an article’s title and abstract against PQ profiles, and the result is a list of matches based on how closely the topics reflected in the title and abstract correlate with the PQ scholar profiles.

We encourage you to start using these tools now to make peer review faster and simpler on your journal.

http://bit.ly/top5tipsonpeerreview

http://bit.ly/findingreviewers

Top 5 tips on peer review As a journal editor, what can you do to ensure the peer review process run smoothly?

Read the tips

in full at:

For more info visit

Making peer review work for your journal

http://bit.ly/recognizingreviewers

http://bit.ly/reviewerguidelinesandbestpractice http://bit.ly/recruitingandretainingreferees

Saying thank you to reviewersReviewers invest a huge amount of their time and knowledge in the peer review process, and as such, we think it’s important to say “thanks.”

Here are some of the reviewer recognition schemes we currently have in place at Taylor & Francis. If you’re not already, why not think about trying them on your journal?

Have you seen our reviewer guidelines?

Do you have someone reviewing for the first time on your journal? If so, you could point them in the direction of these guidelines to ensure they have all the information they need to write an effective review. The guide offers the best advice gathered from across all Taylor & Francis journals, and covers:

n What is peer review? n Why review? n What to consider before saying

“yes” to reviewing n Writing a review:

a step-by-step guide

I had no idea as an author of the difficulties that editors have in recruiting and retaining referees. That innocent phase ended once I began editing a journal, and had to identify and then negotiate with referees directly. The only experience I could draw on was my own role as referee for other journals, which was distinctly patchy. Perhaps the two worst elements of my experience that I was determined to avoid were the mechanistic approach some journals use, and the way in which I would be asked to review papers that were either not in my academic area or were not publishable.

From our editors …What do you think about peer review? What are your top tips? Two of our editors shed light on the steps that they take to ensure the peer review process runs smoothly.

Seven tips for recruiting and retaining referees by Peter Gilroy, Editor of the Journal of Education for Teaching

Free access Many of our journals enable peer reviewers to enjoy 30 days’ free access to Taylor & Francis journal content upon agreeing to review. This access to journal content is intended to help the reviewer with completing their report.

Book discount for reviewersWe are pleased to offer all our reviewers a 30% discount on their purchase of Taylor & Francis Group books (including those under the Routledge, CRC Press, Garland Science, Psychology Press, and Focal Press imprints).

“Thanks to reviewers” lists Several Taylor & Francis journals publish a formal “thank you list” of reviewers inside the journal each year, as a personal way of showing appreciation.

Certificate of recognition Reviewers can request a certificate of recognition for reviewing from their Taylor & Francis contact, which they can display on the office wall! A reviewer confirmation letter is also available upon request.

Getting the most out of your peer review management system

n Use the reminder email templates within the system. It’s quick and easy to set them to go at regular intervals.

n You can edit each reminder email to make them more personal too.

n Highlight the benefits that peer review brings to scholarly publishing, and don’t forget to thank them for the part they are playing in that.

n Remind them where and how they can access the review, providing direct links so they can just click through.

Inspired by frequently asked questions from editors, our dedicated EES (Electronic Editorial Systems) team share their top tips on getting the best from your peer review management system.

How do you remind reviewers to complete their review? We offer some time–saving tips:

The journal I edit therefore works with referees in a different way, following these steps:1. Referees are drawn from those who have published with the journal,

and are sent a personal invitation to join the review panel. Guest editors for special issues will identify their own referees, and these are then invited to join the journal’s referees’ panel.

2. They are never asked to review more than two papers in a twelve-month period and, given the size of our referees’ list, usually only have one paper per year to review.

3. The Editorial Board read all submissions to check that they are worth sending to referees. Consequently, referees will not find themselves wasting time dealing with mundane issues, inappropriate papers, or those that can’t be revised to the necessary standard.

4. We use a contact database to manage the referees’ list so they can be matched with the papers relevant to their interests, but never use form letters that could be generated from that database.

Read our other

tips at: http://bit.ly/peerreviewsystemtips

For more information

on these initiatives

visit:

Read the rest of Peter’s

tips at:

Also available

at:

What do authors, editors, and reviewers really think of peer review?Over the course of this year we’ve been in touch with researchers across all disciplines, asking them to take part in research which explores attitudes and opinions on peer review among today’s scholarly community. Here’s some of the latest data we’ve been looking at:

How beneficial is the peer review process for improving scholarly articles?Most respondents rated the benefit of peer review for improving their article as 8 or higher out of 10.

What’s the motivation for publishing in peer reviewed journals? Making a contribution to the field and sharing research with others were seen as most important for authors, reviewers, and editors.

What’s the most important motivation for undertaking peer review? Playing a part as a member of the academic community was the most selected answer.

editorresources.taylorandfrancisgroup.com@TandFEditors

Navigating contradicting referee reports and how to tackle the classic “yes-no-maybe”by Gary McCulloch, Editor of British Journal of Educational Studies

One thing that I have learned over time is how common it is for two academics in the same area of study to have completely different views of the same article. It is not at all unusual for one to say that a particular article should be published more or less as it stands, while another is emphatic that it should not be published under any circumstances. One of my earliest submissions to an academic journal suffered exactly this fate. One referee was very enthusiastic and supported publication. The second devoted no fewer than ten pages to an explanation of why this piece should not be published.

It is the role of the editor concerned that shines through for me here. It was he who made the decision to draw together these very different reviews and to work with the author to come up with a published article. As a new writer with little experience of such things I could have been discouraged and put the draft article into a bottom drawer, but it was possible to have it published with relatively few changes to the piece.

It is important not to simply send on two diverging views to the author, and it may not be helpful to seek a third view which often muddies the water further (the classic “yes-no-maybe”), although this can be suitable in some cases. Where possible, a little constructive advice on how to make use of the views of the referees can make all the difference, and the editor has the responsibility of deciding when and how to do this.

Be part of it in 2015…Some of our recent contributors

Maryanne Dever, Co-Editor of Australian Feminist Studies

Dr. Miles Richardson, Multimedia and Social Media Editor, Ergonomics (@ergonomics1957)

Tamara Bowler, Peer Review Coordinator

Dr. William Riggs, Assistant Professor, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California (@billyriggs)

Paula Muraca, Associate Editor, Journal of Intercultural Studies

Leila Jones, Publishing Manager – Journal Development

Victoria Murphy, Programme Manager at Sense About Science

http://bit.ly/navigatingcontradictingreviews

Write for Editor ResourcesWe host articles on a range of topics, including:

Journal management best practice nRaising the profile of your journal n

Technological advances n Citations and impact n

Publishing ethics n Open access (OA) n

Peer review n

Have something to say on one or all of these issues? Email

jnls_editorresources@tandf.co.uk for guidelines and more information – we’d love to hear from you. Posts can

be funny, inspirational, or instructional. Why not join us?

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