Category Archives: peer review

2012 Impact Factors – Mol Ecol does well, ME Resources blows the roof off

Posted on 20 Jun, 2013 by Tim Vines

When ME Resources switched to publishing Primer Notes in a summary article back in 2009, I had a strong hunch that our 2012 Impact Factor could go up quite a bit – this is the first year that the IF … Continue reading →

Posted in Impact Factors, Molecular Ecology, the journal, peer review, science publishing | 2 Comments

Well, at least we've got the President on our side

Posted on 30 Apr, 2013 by Jeremy Yoder

Follow-up about yesterday’s fretting about Congresspeople wanting to interfere with peer review at the National Science Foundation: President Obama was asked about this yesterday at an event celebrating the 150th anniversary of the National Academy of Sciences—and he looks to … Continue reading →

Posted in peer review, politics, United States | Tagged | 1 Comment

A tale of two Dryad submissions

Posted on 20 Mar, 2013 by Jeremy Yoder

As it happens, the last two scientific papers I’ve had accepted for publication are also the first two papers for which my first-authorial duties included some substantial journal-mandated archiving of supporting data (beyond uploading a handful of DNA sequences to … Continue reading →

Posted in data archiving, peer review | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

When should you make a complaint?

Posted on 4 Oct, 2011 by Tim Vines

I’m writing this post with some trepidation, as dealing with complaints is the most difficult part of being an editor. However, I think there is much to be gained from bringing some clarity to the process and by giving a … Continue reading →

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Funny referee quotes

Posted on 19 Dec, 2010 by Dilara Ally

In the spirit of Tim’s last post about rapid publication and review, I found a link to a journal, Environmental Microbiology, that publishes some of their favourite referee comments. Below is a smattering of some of the more humorous ones. … Continue reading →

Posted in peer review | 11 Comments

Rapid Publication

Posted on 8 Dec, 2010 by Tim Vines

Another day, another journal launch that promises “rapid review and publication of high-quality foundational research”. It strikes me that most journals in ecology/evolution now have an average time from submission to first decision of 30-50 days, which is so much … Continue reading →

Posted in peer review | 2 Comments

Comment articles

Posted on 23 Nov, 2010 by Tim Vines

It’s never happened as yet, but I was wondering what my response would be if someone wanted to write a Comment article about a Mol Ecol paper, but wanted to remain anonymous. The logistics would be quite easy, but the … Continue reading →

Posted in community, peer review | 2 Comments

Is peer review broken?

Posted on 29 Sep, 2010 by Tim Vines

There’s been quite a bit of recent criticism of the peer review process, notably in The Scientist and by Michael Hochberg in his editorial ‘The tragedy of the reviewer commons‘ in Ecology Letters. As someone who sees thousands of decisions … Continue reading →

Posted in peer review | Tagged | 2 Comments