Journal Publishing Guide

The process by which articles will be evaluated is an important part of establishing a new journal. Your journal should communicate publically what method of peer review is used and the procedure. This helps set expectations with authors and peer reviewers, while helping authors evaluate if your journal is the right fit for their research.

Choosing the right type of review

There are a few different types of peer review and each system has its advantages and disadvantages. In your journal, you may use a few different types of review in combination for different sections. Often you’ll find one type of review is preferred by certain subject communities but there is an increasing call towards more transparency around the peer-review process. Below are the general categories of peer review, but they may be called different names or have slightly different qualifications. 

• Editorial review: Editor or editorial team member, make review comments and does not solicit external reviewers. Both the reviewer and the author know each other's names. Sometimes this can be called a ‘desk review’ and is done before an article is sent for peer review. 

• Single Anonymous review: Reviewer knows author name, reviewers don’t know each other's names, and the author doesn’t know reviewer’s name. This type of review may be necessary when you have a small group of reviewers and authors and it might be too hard to maintain double anonymity. 

• Double Anonymous review: Both reviewers and authors do not know each other's names in this model. When using this model an author is asked to anonymize their paper before submitting it. 

Open Review: This is characterized by both Author and Reviewer knowing each other's names but how it operates varies among journals. Some journals go a step further and publish the names of reviewers on the article page, or publish review reports and author responses.