## PLEASE REPLY TO THE WHOLE GROUP ##

Dear Research_Practice Members,

The JRP Peer Review Process continues to be worth discussing.

H i g h l i g h t s

Issues/Questions arising from this discussion:

(a) Is the Web-based journal technology alienating?
(b) Why are some authors not submitting revisions? (I think, we have had 2-3 cases of this.)
(c) Are authors submitting to JRP to get feedback to publish elsewhere?
(d) Could we have an article on what makes a good JRP article?
(e) Could we have a typology of articles published in JRP?
(f) Could we restate the scope and objectives of the journal more clearly?
(g) Could we give a list of areas on which we are looking for contributions?
(h) Could we mentor aspiring authors?


B a c k g r o u n d   M a i l



R e s p o n s e s   R e c e i v e d

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** R e s p o n s e   1  -- 18 December 2008

[This was a query]

I have a query about the review process. I have so far reviewed two papers, and for both the papers I had recommended "Revise and Resubmit" option. I had expected that the author would revise and the revised draft would be resumitted to the reviewers for their evaluation and final comments. However, the papers were not returned to me after the authors had revised and resubmitted them. I also saw that one of the papers that I had reviewed was published in JRP.
 
My experience with a few international refereed journals have led me to believe that the comment "revise and resubmit" requires the submission of the revised draft to the reviewers again for their final comments. I might be completely wrong, but I would like to know the procedure for JRP.

[Answered the query on 18 December 2008]

We also have a few articles which go back to the reviewers for a second round of review after some revision by the author. However, in case of the two articles which you have reviewed, one was rejected and another was accepted. I looked into the article that was accepted (<ID number>), I found the following initial recommendations from peer-reviewers:

Reviewer A: Revisions Required
Reviewer B: Accept Submission
Reviewer C: Revisions Required
Reviewer D: Resubmit for Review

Editorial Decision: Revisions Required [not "Resubmit for Review"]

Finally, after the revisions, the article was accepted without any further peer review.

So, it depends on the recommendations of the other peer-reviewers, the editorial decision, the revisions made by the author, and the final editorial decision. Hope it throws some light on the matter. -- DP

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** R e s p o n s e   2  -- 18 December 2008

I personally do not think that a 70 per cent rejection rate is too bad.  Some of the entrepreneurship journals have a 90% plus rejection rate.

Personally, I do not like the yahoo group style of the forum.  I am busy and a technophobe I forget or mislay passwords if I do not use them every day.  Everything then becomes a hassle and I therefore only review things I am really interested in.  I do not have an answer for what would be better.  I have the same issues with central manuscript systems. I wonder if it puts other potential reviewers off too.

I like the fast turnaround and the eclectic nature of the reviewers / reviews.  I also wonder if the reviewers are often too eclectic and that this may affect a scholars decision as to whether to make time for a revise and submit. In my case I got too busy with other projects and did not make time to revise a paper it would have meant splitting in two to separate research practice from research content.

You should also consider that because you have a quick turn around and an excellent reviewer response that some scholars may be taking a strategic view and submitting to get feedback to publish elsewhere. It may be worth a survey to ask them why they did not revise and submit and if they have succeeded in publishing elsewhere.

I review for the journal because it is a challenge and because I learn from it. However, I often feel at the edge of my comfort zone. It would be a good idea to have a review paper of what has been published to take stock and from this draw up clear guidelines for what makes a good JRP submission. This would be very useful. Also some reviewer guidelines stemming from this review process would be very helpful too.

The breadth and variance of quality of some of the papers is also an issue. Some have the wow factor and make a contribution whilst others are too technical.  It would help to make a typology of papers published so that contributions could be graded.  It would be sad to try and make everyone conform because I loved the recent article about researching by walking about.

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** R e s p o n s e   3  -- 18 December 2008

I think an acceptance rate of 30% is quite respectable. Many good journals have a much higher rejection rate. So should we be concerned about this?

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** R e s p o n s e   4  -- 18 December 2008

Thanks DP for your concern on improving JRP. I think a selection of 30% of submitted articles is good. however, you may review your language on the scope and objectives of the journal in a style that makes it more clear and specific for the prospective contributors. also give a list of the areas that you look forward to for contributions.

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** R e s p o n s e   5  -- 18 December 2008

I found the review process to be VERY efficient. The only lag time was because of some other commitments I had.

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** R e s p o n s e   6  -- 22 December 2008

A number of items come to mind in responding to this . . .

The first aspect is to ask to what extent is the 30/70 relationship unusual, unexpected, or indicative of a need to review the peer review process?

Then, in considering reflections with reviewing the peer review process in mind, what might be the appropriate objectives of any changes we might adopt: to shift the 30/70 relationship, in what way and for what purpose?; to do something else in the peer review process, to what end?, eg, another journal I have some inside contact with offers to mentor aspiring authors -- does JRP have that kind of interest, those kinds of resources if offering that increased the take up of offering articles which then needed that kind of work?

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** R e s p o n s e   7  -- 10 January 2009

[This was a query]

I did make an initial response to this post, in December, and expected to see it circulated to all on the notification yahoo group.  However, that did not happen.  When I checked things out, part of the reason that what I expected did not occur was that clicking on the 'reply (via webpost)' link, offered below, meant that the response was directed to you personally/only. . . .

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This last response (query) reminds us that the messages in the Research_Practice group are set as "Reply to Sender" by default. Therefore, if an original poster expects the responses to be shared with the entire group, the original poster may say so, requesting people to respond to the whole group. The responders would then mark their responses to the whole group (by suitably altering the "To" field).

Issues/Questions arising from the other six responses:

(a) Is the Web-based journal technology alienating?
(b) Why are some authors not submitting revisions? (I think, we have had 2-3 cases of this.)
(c) Are authors submitting to JRP to get feedback to publish elsewhere?
(d) Could we have an article on what makes a good JRP article?
(e) Could we have a typology of articles published in JRP?
(f) Could we restate the scope and objectives of the journal more clearly?
(g) Could we give a list of areas on which we are looking for contributions?
(h) Could we mentor aspiring authors?

Since many of the JRP authors are also in this forum, may I request them to share their experience of publishing in JRP -- focusing on the peer review and editorial processes. Kindly mark your reply to the whole group.

Yours sincerely,

DP
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