Editor instructions
Below you will find instructions for each stage in the review process. If at any time you need assistance, please email us at instruments@oroboros.at
1. Submission Tab -
Decision to send to review:
Log on to your BEC account.
Click the submission and open the manuscript file, which should be labelled as “Article text and figures”
After reading, decide:
- Is the material of scientific content?
- Is the topic suitable for the journal's aims and scope?
If the answer is yes to both, click send to review and continue to sending the publication for review. If the answer is no to either question, click decline submission. In the pop-up screen select to send email to author. You may add text to the email body to explain the decision if you wish. Then click on “Record Editorial Decision”
2. Review Tab -
Sending the publication for review by two independent reviewers:
In the review tab, click on add “Add reviewers”. If you do not see the reviewer in the list, you can search by clicking “Enroll existing user” at the bottom of the window. If they are still not found, you can invite reviewers who are not yet registered with the journal by clicking on “Create a new reviewer”.
The email template does not need to be edited.
At the bottom of the invitation window, check the following settings are correct:
- “Blind” peer review is selected– remember the peer review is not blind, but open, however this option should be set at this stage of the process.
- For Review Form, select “Review form v01”.
- If reviewers ask for an extension of review time, it is possible to give 2 additional weeks to complete the review.
After the reviews are submitted:
As the editor, you will make the final decision regarding the outcome. If the 2 reviews are widely differing, you may choose to have a third reviewer.
Once you have decided, the review process should be unblinded. To do this click the arrow next to the reviewer’s name and click “edit”. In the pop up window change the review type to “Open” and click “OK”. Repeat for each reviewer.
Sending e-mail to the authors to communicate the outcome: after clicking on the correct action, an email box will appear – please click the button to include the reviews in the email. If requesting revisions, you will be given the option to specify if they will be subject to a new round of reviews. For "Minor revisions," select that they will not be and for "Major revisions," that they will. Edit the body of the email to specify if the revisions are major or minor, along with any additional comments you wish to add.
Revisions:
In cases where the recommendation is for "Minor revisions", check whether the reviewers’ comments were adequately addressed by the authors in the revised manuscript. If yes, accept the manuscript for publication and follow with copyediting.
In the case of a recommendation for “Major revisions”, the revised manuscript submitted by the author(s) should be sent for a second round of reviews, asking the same reviewers from the first round to review. Follow the same steps as above (Review tab, Sending the publication for review).
3. Copyediting tab -
For the open peer review that will be published with the article:
Collect the reviewers’ comments for each reviewer/review round, open “Review Details”, the field “Review comments - Open review” will be found at the bottom of the form. Copy these comments, with the reviewer’s name and date, in a document (.doc file). Also copy the authors’ responses in the same document, with dates. Save this file and upload as a draft for copyediting.
Please assign the BEC Administrator as the copyeditor, and we will take over from here.
