Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

Peer Review Practice &

Interactive Forum

Ross H. McLeodIndonesia Project, ANU

2 March 2009

BIES background

• In continuous publication since June 1965, three issues per year

• Originally in-house at ANU• Shifted to T&F in 2001

– Online publication seen of key importance

• Introduction of Interactive Forum also aims to keep us at the cutting-edge of journal publishing

Peer review process

• One of the first T&F journals to migrate to Manuscript Central

• Process– Article submitted by author– Checked by Associate Editor– Passed to me– Quick perusal that topic is appropriate

and that quality appears acceptable• Important not to waste time of referees• If obviously poor quality, I reject the article

and explain reasons for doing so to author

Peer review process

• Double blind refereeing system– Requires a minimum two referee reports– Often invite three potential referees

• Some will be unavailable– No problem if end up with 3

• I may suspect the paper will be controversial, so would like additional opinion…

• … especially if I don’t have much expertise in the area of the paper

• Also if I fear we have been given a poor paper by a ‘ good/reputable’ author

Peer review process

• Choosing referees– Rely partly on our editorial and advisory

board members– Also on other people I know to be working

in the relevant field– Often, the list of references in the paper is

a source of names of people working in the field (but be wary of academic incest!)

– Useful to steadily widen our pool of referees to increase profile of the journal (access to new authors and readers; boost citations)

Peer review process

• Biggest problem with the referees is lack of consistency– Some reports very solid and detailed; some very

brief and unconvincing– When there are very different views, I need to

make my own decision– I give greater weight to the referees who put

more effort into the job– If I feel confident about evaluating the subject

matter myself, my own evaluation will have a heavy weight

• … although the referees’ reports sometimes make me realise my own initial evaluation was unsound

Peer review process

• Outcomes– The decision is never an unqualified “Accept”– Even the best papers can be improved on the

basis of referee and/or editor comments– Many papers we publish get a decision of

“Accept subject to minor modification”– Many more get “Revise and resubmit”, and

receive extensive comments from referees and myself

– And of course several are rejected– In recent times we have rejected about two-

thirds of the articles submitted to us

Peer review process

• Reviewer relations– We try not to burden referees with more

than one or two reviews per year– We acknowledge all of our referees in

the second issue each year (allowing them to opt out if they wish)

BIES Interactive Forum

Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

Peer Review Practice &

Interactive Forum

Ross H. McLeodIndonesia Project, ANU

2 March 2009