“It’s the way we’ve always done it.” Have you heard your editorial team uttering that phrase (or some version of it) in discussions about your journal submission and peer review workflows?
As process experts, editors tend to be creatures of habit, which is a good thing during the day-to-day! You don’t want to deviate from established policies and procedures constantly. However, it’s critical to reevaluate your manuscript submission and tracking practices from time to time to determine whether they are as streamlined as possible. Paramount to that is whether you’re making the best use of technology to automate and simplify tasks.
If you have manual workflows (think email and spreadsheets) or you’re using legacy editorial management software that lacks modern design conveniences, that can result in increasing inefficiencies over time, leading to delays, missed deadlines, and frustrated contributors.
How can you tell if it’s time for your team to move to a new editorial management system (a.k.a. peer review or manuscript tracking software)? This blog post covers the key indicators to look for and tips for selecting and migrating to new software if needed.
Table of Contents
- What is the role of editorial management software?
- When is editorial management software necessary?
- Signs you may need a new editorial management system
- Steps if you’re ready for a new editorial management system
- Putting it together: progressing toward optimal peer review workflows
What is the role of editorial management software?
Before we dive into the signs that it may be time to seek a new editorial management system, let’s pull back to consider the role of software in peer review. Since editorial management software came onto the publishing scene in the early 2000s, its primary function has been to assist editorial teams with handling all stages of manuscript processing, including assigning submissions to editors and reviewers, tracking their progress, maintaining a reviewer database, automating task reminders, facilitating communication, and issuing decisions.
Today, the role of editorial management systems is expanding beyond those core functions to also include facilitating research integrity checks, machine-readable metadata collection, and even publication fee and transformative agreement management for open access journals.
When is editorial management software necessary?
When journals first launch, it’s often quite doable and financially sensible for the editors to manage submissions via email. However, as the journal’s submission volume increases, that can quickly become unsustainable.
In general, once a journal starts receiving 25 or more submissions per year, it’s time to consider getting editorial management software to avoid peer review delays caused by inefficiencies inherent in manual processes like having to individually assign submissions to editors as they come, send one-off reviewer invitations and reminder emails, and track peer review stages in a spreadsheet.
While tasks like those described above may only take about five minutes each, if you’re doing them 15+ times per week to manage the various stages of each submission, that’s over an hour you could be spending on much more productive activities. Something to think about!
Signs you may need a new editorial management system
If you’re wondering whether your journal could benefit from a new editorial management system, here are some key indicators that it might be time to adopt one.
Administrative work is eating up your editorial time
Administrative work like sending and responding to emails is a natural part of any editor’s job, but it shouldn’t monopolize your time. After all, editing is why you signed on to be an editor!
If you’re not using editorial management software yet and you’ve reached that 25+ submission point, where your team is likely beginning to feel the squeeze of doing everything manually, now’s the time to explore available options. The right software should serve as a sort of virtual assistant automating many recurring tasks for you, like managing manuscript versioning, assigning submissions to editors (per criteria you set), and sending reviewer reminder emails.
If you have software and you’re still feeling inundated with busy work, that may be a sign your current system lacks the features and support you need. Common issues include:
Scattered communication: Much of editors’ day-to-day work revolves around communication—from discussing decision recommendations with team members to sending revision requests to authors, and the list goes on. It’s critical for editorial management software to serve as a central communication hub with built-in messaging functionality that integrates with user emails, so users can easily send and respond to messages from the system or their email and know that they’ll be organized with the associated manuscript in a neat thread. If your software lacks built-in email or your editors dislike using it and they’re juggling external email folders instead, that could be taking up a lot of your time.
Difficulty keeping track of tasks: Having software auto-assign submissions to editors is one thing. Editorial teams also need to be able to easily assign tasks to themselves and team members and track their progress within the platform. Maintaining separate reminder systems for one-off tasks and standard processes like technical checks is likely to lead to coordination costs down the line with editors having to constantly check in with each other to know what everyone is working on and what needs to happen next.
Editors may also struggle to keep track of tasks if they can’t easily organize manuscripts by submission stage or reviewers by specialty and likely availability. It’s critical that your editorial management software include a manuscripts table and reviewer database your team can quickly search and sort.
Frequently fielding technical questions: Speaking of back-and-forth communications, if your software lacks technical support and you find that your editors are frequently fielding software-related questions among each other or authors and reviewers, that’s a sure sign it’s time to look for a better-supported solution. Your software should eliminate work, not create it.
Manual system upgrades and add-ons: If you’re using self-hosted software, managing your editorial management system may also be creating undue administrative work for you and your team. For example, are you factoring software release downloads into your schedule? Or are you missing out on current features because you don’t have the time to migrate to a new version of your software? Using free DIY platforms like Open Journal Systems (OJS) can work well for journals with access to a dedicated IT team. However, if the burden of software maintenance is falling on your editors, it may be time to explore alternative options.
You’re struggling to keep up with industry standards
Peer review standards are evolving rapidly online in response to emerging scholarly publishing opportunities and threats, as well as changing researcher expectations. If you’re struggling to keep up with requirements and recommendations in your field, it may be time to seek editorial management software that can help. Areas to consider include:
Quality Metadata: Machine-readable metadata is the mechanism for transferring manuscript details between the many databases that comprise today’s digital scholarly communication ecosystem—and maintaining quality metadata starts at peer review. Journals should collect necessary metadata elements in their submission form, including persistent identifiers (PIDs) like ORCID iDs, ROR IDs, and funder IDs, as well as contributor details in line with the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRedIT) as applicable, verify those elements, and submit them to archives and indexes (ideally in the JATS XML standard). If you’re struggling to do this manually or with your current peer review software, it’s time to seek a new solution.
Research integrity checks: The rise of online publishing has also brought with it new research integrity concerns, making initial submission quality checks (QC) more critical than ever. Using editorial management software that offers QC support and can integrate with external research integrity solutions like Crossref’s Similarity Check plagiarism detection service will help your editorial team keep up with current ethical standards.
Data security: Today, journals must adhere to data security mandates like The EU General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR. Using a peer review system that has secure login functionality and takes care of data management for you, including regularly backing up data, removing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from logs, and encrypting data can help ensure your journal is complying with current regulations.
Peer review analytics: Today, journals are also increasingly expected to report publication stats to comply with funder regulations like Plan S and generally exhibit transparent publishing practices to authors. If you have especially quick manuscript turnaround times, this can also be a way to stand out to authors trying to decide where to submit! Using editorial management software with built-in peer review analytics can simplify reporting on stats like:
- The number of submissions your journal receives per year
- Your average acceptance rate rate
- Your average time between submission and publication
Author and reviewer experience: Authors and reviewers also increasingly have higher expectations around journals offering frictionless submission and peer review experiences. As such, when journals manage submissions via email it can sometimes be a turnoff to researchers unfamiliar with the publication, as they may question the expeditiousness of its editorial processes. Of course, the presence of editorial management software doesn’t automatically equate to a seamless peer review process, as not all systems are the same. That’s why editors need to assess software from the perspective of authors and reviewers. Your editorial management system should be easy for authors and reviewers to log into with an intuitive interface, convenient dashboards for managing submissions and review assignments, and in-app and email notifications, including manuscript status updates for authors and reviewer reminders.
If you’re interested in learning more about steps journals can take to improve their author experience, check out this blog post.
Slow peer review to production handoffs
Finally, it’s critical to consider how your editorial management system fits into your overall publishing process. Editorial teams face the constant challenge of maintaining a competitive time to publication, and issuing speedy decisions is only one part of that. The other piece is maintaining smooth handoffs from peer review to production and publishing. Here again, if your journal receives 25+ submissions per year and you’re still handling everything manually, you’re likely to encounter delays due to the reality of limited human time no matter how good of a calendar blocker you are.
If you have an editorial management system and you’re still struggling to meet your publication time targets, consider whether you’re encountering any of the below challenges, which may be a sign your current system isn’t the best fit:
Issues with incoming submissions: One of the primary benefits of adopting an editorial management system is getting to set up a standard author submission form, which can significantly improve submission quality. However, if your editorial team can’t easily customize your submission form to include required text and file upload fields you may still struggle to get correct and complete submissions, leading to back and forth with authors that could cause publishing delays for accepted articles (e.g., waiting on permissions for copyrighted materials).
Manual metadata and file transfers: Another cause for slow peer review to production handoffs is using disconnected tools and systems. If you’re manually transferring files and metadata from your peer review system to your production platform, it’s time to seek a peer review system that supports automated file transfers via FTP or a direct production service integration.
Metadata errors downstream: Even if you’re able to automatically transfer manuscript files and metadata from peer review to production, you may experience publishing delays if you come to find there are incorrect metadata inputs. Harkening back to the earlier section on industry standards, moving to a peer review system that includes support for required submission form metadata fields and automatic PID verification can help you avoid pesky “invalid” metadata errors downstream.
You can learn more about common publishing bottlenecks and how to address them in this blog post.
Steps if you’re ready for a new editorial management system
What should your team do if you determine that you are ready to seek a new editorial management system after reviewing the signs above? Here’s a quick list of steps to get started and links to further resources to support your search.
1. Outline your editorial needs and get everyone on board
First things first, you’ll want to create a high-level outline of your current peer review workflow (or review your existing documentation for clarity and accuracy). Then convene with your editorial team to discuss where you’re experiencing bottlenecks within your current process and why. This will help you determine the key features and support to look for in your new editorial management system. Be clear about what features or improvements you’d like, whether it’s enhanced manuscript tracking filters, better analytics, or improved scalability.
At this point, you should also determine who will be involved in your software search and in what capacity so expectations are clear from the start. We discuss how to get your team teed up for a peer review system migration in this blog post.
2. Research options and gather recommendations
Once you have a clear sense of what you need from your new editorial management system, it’s time to start exploring options. Conduct online searches, look for platform reviews, talk to other editors to see if they have any recommendations or experience with specific systems, and demo the software you’re interested in.
We cover tips for finding the right peer review software and getting the most value from it in this guide, including key features to look for like:
- An intuitive manuscripts table with submission filtering functionality
- A built-in reviewer database with referee details/stats
- Centralized editor, author, and reviewer communication
- Automatic task reminders and notifications
- Easy-to-edit email templates for invitations, decisions, and other common correspondences
As you explore different software options, be sure to also consider what future optimization opportunities each provider will offer. For example, a legacy peer review system may have the main features you need now, but is it consistently getting better? Infrequent software improvements could signal future feature decay to come. On the flip side, a newer system may not have all of the features you want right now, but if it’s rapidly adding functionality you may have the opportunity to partner with that provider and help guide the development of the features you need in a modern interface.
3. Make a migration plan
Finally, as you’re narrowing down your options, it’s time to make a plan for transitioning to your new editorial management system. While the prospect of migrating to new software may seem overwhelming, with careful planning and execution it doesn’t have to be.
Scholastica’s free Peer Review System Migration Toolkit can help you, featuring a “Peer Review System Migration Handbook” and accompanying “Migration Coordination Checklist” (interactive planning spreadsheet that includes the core phases of a successful peer review system transition, associated action steps, and task-tracking columns).
Putting it together: progressing toward optimal peer review workflows
As a scholarly journal technology provider with software and services for every aspect of publishing journals—from peer review to production to hosting and discovery support—we know a lot about peer review process optimization at Scholastica. Our team consults a wide range of potential clients from journals considering trying peer review software for the first time to small and medium publishers seeking to streamline their editorial workflows. If you’re considering adopting a new editorial management system, we encourage you to schedule a demo with a member of our team to learn if Scholastica’s peer review software may be a good fit for your needs.
Regardless of which software you choose, by automating tasks, enhancing collaboration, and providing transparency, an editorial management system can help your team to focus on what matters most: producing high-quality research.
