An integral part of Scipedia's mission is to publish journals of the highest quality with the greatest impact. Application of the peer-review process is a way to ensure the overall quality and integrity of the research presented in a publication.
Scipedia's journals and archives publications will follow a peer-review process. Scipedia's peer review process aims to maintain the publishing standards, improve the quality of the document, and finally to determine the suitability for publication in the selected journal.
The process of publication of a paper can be started at any moment by clicking the button 'CREATE A DOCUMENT' from your user profile. Then, you will be asked to select whether you want to create a new document from scratch using the online editing tools of Scipedia, or import the manuscript from LaTeX or Word (Office Open XML) formats. Next, you will be requested to enter (or confirm) the title, abstract, authors, categories and keywords of the document. After inserting those data, a page to edit the paper will be created. This page will only be accessible by the authors of the document, who will be able to edit the document by selecting the option 'Edit' or 'Visual Editor'.
At any moment, the manuscript can be made public by the main author, by selecting the option 'SUBMIT FOR PUBLICATION' of the document page. Note that only users with more than 100 reputation points and a completed user profile can submit their papers for publication in Scipedia. Once you submit your manuscript for publication, you will be asked to select the journal, archive or collection to publish your document. Please check the scope and publishing requirements of the publication before submitting the manuscript.
If the document is submitted to a collection (non-peer reviewed publication), it will be immediately made public with a 'submitted for publication' status. Within 7 days after submission the editor will make the decision to accept or reject the article for publication. Rejection of the paper means that the document does not meet the publication requirements. The editor may ask the author to revise the paper before making a decision.
Scipedia's journals and archives can work with one of the following peer-review processes: single blind and collaborative. The type of peer-review process used in a specific journal is specified in the journal page.
Single blind peer-review is the traditional method of reviewing and is currently the most common type. The process is briefly described below.
Once the paper is submitted for publication, the editor of the journal will invite a number of experts to review the manuscript.
The submitted paper will have an associated Review page, accessible only for the assigned reviewers. The reviewers will create the required discussion threads in the Review page of the paper to write their comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript. Reviewers should provide insight into any deficiencies found in the paper. The reviewers should also give an overall opinion and general observations of the article. The authors must answer all the comments and suggestions done by the reviewers and, if required, correct or improve the paper accordingly.
During the review process, the names of the reviewers are hidden from the author. Therefore, the reviewers should not include any personal remarks or personal details in the discussion threads.
At any moment of the process, the reviewers can recommend to the editor the acceptance or rejection of the paper for publication in the journal. Within 7 days after the issuance of the recommendation by the reviewers, the editor will make the decision to accept or reject the article for publication. The editor ultimately decides whether to accept or reject the article. The editor will weigh all views and may call for other opinions or ask the author to revise the paper before making a decision. Once the editor accepts the publication of the paper, a 'accepted for publication' status will be assigned to the document. The stated will be changed to 'published' once the editor assigns a publishing date.
The discussion page of a published paper will remain open, but any new comment posted will no longer be anonymous. Subsequent changes in the article should be minor and will only be done by the authors (except in exceptional cases).
Collaborative peer-review is the open review (i.e. reviewer and author are known to each other) used in Scipedia. The process is briefly described below.
Once the paper is submitted for publication, both the manuscript and the associated Review page will be made accessible for any registered user to add review comments. A non-registered user can view the paper and the Review page, but will not be allowed to add comments. The reviewers will create the required discussion threads in the Review page of the paper to write their comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript. Reviewers should provide insight into any deficiencies found in the paper.
The authors must answer all the comments and suggestions in the discussion page and if required correct or improve the paper accordingly.
Once the authors have answered a review, the reviewer will be notified and then can add additional comments or vote the paper as 'recommended for publication', add additional comments or vote for recommending the rejection of the publication. The vote of the reviewer will be quantified and added to the review score of the paper. The score of the vote of the reviewer will depend on his reputation, as defined by the review score algorithm.
The reviewers can recommend moving the paper to another journal or any other publication in Scipedia more suited to the contents or characteristics of the article. At any time, the authors can transfer the submission to another publication by clicking on 'EDIT SUBMISSION'.
Once the accumulated score of the reviewers' votes reaches a threshold, the paper status will change to 'recommended for publication'. Within 7 days after the change of status, the editor will make the final decision to accept or reject the article for publication. The editor may call for other opinions or ask the author to revise the paper before making a final decision. Once the editor accepts the publication of the paper, a 'published' status and publishing date will be assigned.
The discussion page of a published paper will remain open. Subsequent changes in the article should be minor and will only be done by the authors (except in exceptional cases).
The review score is used to recommend the publication of a paper in a collaborative peer-review. The article status is changed to 'recommended for publication' once the review score reaches a threshold. The review score is calculated as:
The sum extends to the votes of all the users that have added a comment to the paper, and have voted the author's corresponding answer.
: sign of user decision on the paper review; positive (+) or negative (-). This vote can be reverted by the user at any moment of the review process.
: weighting factor taking into account the network proximity; 0.0 for the users of the same research organization of the author, 0.5 for former co-authors, and 1.0 for the rest of the users.
: factor depending on the user reputation score ranging from 1 (percentile 100) to 5 (percentile 10).
Once a document is published in Scipedia, the discussion page will remain open as a discussion forum about the paper's contents and related issues.
The authors of a published paper may optionally add additional supplementary material (such as videos, datasets, computational models, etc.) or decide to make minor changes in order to improve it. In case the authors want to make major changes to a published document, it is preferable to create a new one. It is important to highlight that all the documents in Scipedia have an associated history page that contains a list of the document's previous revisions.