I recently received a request from a "journal developer" to join the editorial board of an ISRN journal. I’m considering it, yet am skeptical because of the experience I had publishing with another open-access journal; it became evident that the board of editors did not participate in the review process—the manuscript was simply sent out to the reviewers I’d suggested, then a staffer at the journal said in effect “deal with these reviewers’s comments and we’ll publish your paper”. ISRN’s process, however, states that
“Manuscripts…will be sent to a number of Editorial Board Members, who will have around two weeks to provide either a recommendation for the publication of the manuscript, along with a written commentary detailing any changes that the authors can make to improve their manuscript before final publication, or a written critique of why the manuscript should not be published. After the two-week period has elapsed, if the majority of the editorial evaluations recommend the manuscript be rejected, the manuscript will be rejected. If all the editorial evaluations that are received recommend that the manuscript be accepted for publication, the manuscript will be accepted. Otherwise, the editorial evaluations will be anonymously communicated to all of the Editors who participated in the peer review process. Each Editor will be given an additional week to review the feedback of the other Editors and to either confirm or revise their earlier editorial recommendations. If the majority of the editorial evaluations that are received by the end of this second round of review recommend the manuscript be rejected, the manuscript will be rejected”. This all sounds crazily rushed, not to mention complicated, to me. Shouldn’t scientific papers be forged in the crucible of iterated, thoughtful interaction between authors, reviewers, and editors? Can anyone comment on experience with the ISRN or similar reviewing system? -Seth Bigelow
