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An appealing prospect? A survey into the numbers, outcomes, and editorial policies for appeals of rejected biomedical manuscripts

An appealing prospect? A survey into the numbers, outcomes, and editorial policies for appeals of rejected biomedical manuscripts
An appealing prospect? A survey into the numbers, outcomes, and editorial policies for appeals of rejected biomedical manuscripts

The opportunity for authors to appeal against rejected manuscripts provides an important step in ensuring that high-quality and credible science is not incorrectly rejected from publication in the highest impact factor journals. However, little is known about editorial processes related to appeals and their outcomes. Our research investigated the number of appeals against rejected manuscripts, their success rates, and the current editorial processes for managing appeals amongst biomedical journals. We sent out an e-mail survey to a sample of 20 editorial teams worldwide, between January and August 2016. A descriptive summary of e-mail responses from editorial teams was collated. We found considerable variations in appeal processes amongst journals, with little evidence of any detailed, reproducible, or established appeal policies in operation. Journals disclosed limited information on the number of appeals received and their success rates. The credibility of an appeal process relies on robust, reproducible, and evidence-based policies, which do not seem to be currently established amongst biomedical journals. Further empirical evidence is needed to ascertain how variations in the appeal process may relate to successful publication.

0953-1513
227-231
Dambha-Miller, Hajira
58961db5-31aa-460e-9394-08590c4b7ba1
Jones, Roger
040b3bf6-d905-4634-bed8-f0cbf9365bbe
Dambha-Miller, Hajira
58961db5-31aa-460e-9394-08590c4b7ba1
Jones, Roger
040b3bf6-d905-4634-bed8-f0cbf9365bbe

Dambha-Miller, Hajira and Jones, Roger (2017) An appealing prospect? A survey into the numbers, outcomes, and editorial policies for appeals of rejected biomedical manuscripts. Learned Publishing, 30 (3), 227-231. (doi:10.1002/leap.1107).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The opportunity for authors to appeal against rejected manuscripts provides an important step in ensuring that high-quality and credible science is not incorrectly rejected from publication in the highest impact factor journals. However, little is known about editorial processes related to appeals and their outcomes. Our research investigated the number of appeals against rejected manuscripts, their success rates, and the current editorial processes for managing appeals amongst biomedical journals. We sent out an e-mail survey to a sample of 20 editorial teams worldwide, between January and August 2016. A descriptive summary of e-mail responses from editorial teams was collated. We found considerable variations in appeal processes amongst journals, with little evidence of any detailed, reproducible, or established appeal policies in operation. Journals disclosed limited information on the number of appeals received and their success rates. The credibility of an appeal process relies on robust, reproducible, and evidence-based policies, which do not seem to be currently established amongst biomedical journals. Further empirical evidence is needed to ascertain how variations in the appeal process may relate to successful publication.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 18 April 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 1 June 2017
Published date: July 2017

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 433654
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/433654
ISSN: 0953-1513
PURE UUID: 5f1a20f9-3fd5-45d5-b14d-7f3d066e5a22
ORCID for Hajira Dambha-Miller: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0175-443X

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Date deposited: 29 Aug 2019 16:30
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:50

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Author: Roger Jones

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