Syllabus Home

Title: The editorial process and peer review

Main/Overall Objective: The goal of this lesson is to provide an overview of the manuscript lifecycle at a scholarly journal with an in-depth focus on the editorial process and peer review, and the advantages of incorporating preprints into the workflow. At the end of this module, students should be familiar with how editors make the decisions about publication, how does peer review work and best practices, and how the peer review process can be reimaged with preprints.

Section Content:

  1. Overview of the manuscript lifecycle at a scholarly journal
  2. Introduction to the editorial process
    1. How are manuscripts evaluated upon initial submission?
    2. Editors – a critical link in the journal-dependent publication process
    3. Can preprinting benefit the editorial process?
  3. Introduction to the peer review process
    1. The responsibility of editors in the peer review process
    2. What is peer review and where did it come from?
    3. How do researchers learn how to peer review?
    4. Best practices
    5. The final decision
  4. The evolving formats of peer review
    1. Peer review can be accomplished in different forms and platforms
    2. Transparency or anonymity?
    3. Preprints and peer review: Decoupling peer review from the journal
    4. Does peer review actually work?
  5. Congratulations! Your manuscript has been accepted! What happens now?
    1. Production and proofs
    2. Invoices, DOIs, etc.
  6. Exercise #1: Be the editor
  7. Exercise #2: Be the peer reviewer

Materials:

  1. PowerPoint slides
  2. Peer review training exercise
  3. Sample peer reviewer code of ethics/peer reviewer oath

Lesson plan (~120 minutes):

Order/flow of lesson, the suggested order of doing things and associated materials for each section

Time (to devote to each section) Content Suggested materials Other resources
2 minutes Overview of the manuscript lifecycle at a scholarly journal PPT
15 minutes Introduction to the editorial process PPT
25 minutes Introduction to the peer review process PPT
10 minutes The evolving formats of peer review PPT

Reviewer oath
5 minutes Congratulations! Your manuscript has been accepted! What happens now? PPT
30 minutes Exercise #1
30 minutes Exercise #2 Peer review training exercise

Reflection:

Resources:

The Editorial Process

  1. https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/resource-library/editorial-policies/white-paper-on-publication-ethics/
  2. https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/95117/SC_FAQ-Role-of-an-Editor-22092014.pdf
  3. http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf
  4. https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-017-0927-0
  5. https://theplosblog.plos.org/2019/11/why-engage-with-preprints/
  6. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/editorial-and-peer-review-process
  7. https://bio.jmirx.org/
  8. https://www.frontiersin.org/about/publishing-model
  9. https://elifesciences.org/articles/36545
  10. https://asapbio.org/digital-age
  11. https://www.biomedcentral.com/getpublished/peer-review-process
  12. https://peerj.com/benefits/peer-review-timeline/
  13. https://www.elsevier.com/authors-update/story/publishing-tips/life-cycle-of-an-article
  14. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1360859219303080
  15. https://libguides.victoria.ac.nz/c.php?g=622049&p=4333507
  16. https://brookesoa.blog/open-access/the-different-models-of-open-access/

Authors:

Gautam Dey (gautam.dey@embl.de)

Vanessa Bortoluzzi (vbortoluzzi@gmail.com)

Iratxe Puebla (iratxe.puebla@asapbio.org)

Tara D. Fischer (tfisch17@gmail.com)

Please contact for further questions or issues with the lesson material.