We regularly survey Reviewers to get a better understanding of their motivations. Findings from our Reviewer Feedback Program suggest that Reviewers value feedback, recognition, relevant manuscripts and more information on Reviewer policy.
• 90% of Reviewers would like to be able to see the final decision and other Reviewers’ comments. Your publishing contact can ensure that this functionality is switched on in EES for your journal.
o Reviewers receive 30-day access to Scopus as a reward and to help facilitate their review. With Scopus, Reviewers can easily identify items that have been published in that field or by that author.
o Early in 2008, Reviewers will also gain access to full text of referenced articles via ScienceDirect. Also, references in a manuscript will be linked to the abstract in Scopus and the full text in ScienceDirect, if available. This will significantly help Reviewers in the peer-review process.
o If you wish, your publishing contact can help arrange an annual listing of Reviewers in the journal and certificates for Reviewers, both of which are small but powerful ways of acknowledging Reviewers. A template of the certificate can be viewed here.
• Reviewers tell us that they appreciate information about the review policy of a journal. Your publishing contact can work with you to create or update a policy for your journal. Our template reviewer policy can be used as a starting point.
• To help ensure that Reviewers receive relevant papers, your publishing contact can advise you about cleaning your EES database of Reviewers and assigning keywords.
Since the introduction of EES, overall review times have been reduced, in some cases by more than 50%, and the complete editorial process from submission to decision has been reduced by an average of 9 weeks.
In EES you can:
• Set up reminders for Reviewers and customize Reviewer letters to include deadlines, guidelines and information about where they can get help, e.g. Scopus; and
• Specify Reviewer questions, which are customizable by manuscript type, and develop a manuscript rating scale, to help ensure consistent and thorough review.
Finding Relevant Reviewers
We appreciate that finding Reviewers can be challenging. Here are some of the ways we can help:
Via the Scopus search bar in your EES assignments page, you can search Scopus to identify potential Reviewers, link to their published work and citation histories, see who their co-authors were and set up citation alerts to keep up to date with who is citing which research.
Early in 2008, reviewers will also gain access to the full text article via ScienceDIrect. Also, references in a manuscript will be linked to the abstract in Scopus and the full text in ScienceDirect, if available. This will significantly help Reviewers in the peer-review process.
With just one click in EES, you can automatically search the Internet for article-title related topics via Scirus, and be brought to a list of the author’s published articles in Scopus.
Your publishing contact can help you create a Reviewer classifications list for your journal, from which Reviewers indicate their areas of expertise and use this to search for matches with the manuscript classifications.
Within EES, you can build a database of relevant Reviewers by assigning classifications and adding keywords or notes to the people notes field, search for Reviewers matching the manuscript's keywords or classifications, automatically un-invite Reviewers when they don't respond in sufficient time, and set up automatic alternate Reviewer invitation
Our Submission, Peer Review and Editorial System, EES
From our Feedback Programs, we know that Editors and Authors are more satisfied with EES than online editorial systems offered by other publishers, and 85% of Reviewers are happy with EES as a Reviewer platform.
To make sure that EES users get the best possible support:
You can at any time request EES refresher training, which can be tailored to your specific need
We recently launched an enhanced EES user self-help site, which can be accessed through the “Help” link on your journal’s EES page or at: http://epsupport.elsevier.com
We have a 24/7 support team www.elsevier.com/locate/reviewing/support
To continually improve and upgrade EES:
We are developing EES to become your complete editorial and peer review management workbench – EES now includes access to Scopus, automatic science-specific Internet searches via Scirus and will shortly directly link through to the full text articles on ScienceDirect
We are currently upgrading to EES version 5.0. The additional features and functions include enabling authors to suggest relevant Reviewers, and the inclusion of line numbers in PDFs.
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