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Preparation, Submission and Peer Review of Articles
Research itself comprises the starting point for production of scholarly articles. Once research and experiments have been performed and findings determined, researchers write formal articles to present the results of their investigation.
Searching the Literature and Writing Papers
A key element of production of scholarly articles is searching the literature to identify important articles previously published on related topics. Searchable databases (e.g., Scopus) of journal articles that are abstracted and indexed to improve the specificity of results and provide abstracts of published articles to the researcher support this process. Fulltext databases (e.g., ScienceDirect) allow the researcher then to access the fulltext of specific articles.
Some literature searches find hundreds of articles that researchers need to consider while writing their papers. Extracting the bibliographic information to reference these articles would take large amounts of time. Functionality to export citations in user-definable formats including ASCII and RIS (for Reference Manager, ProCite and EndNote) assists in creating citations and bibliographies.
Selecting and Submitting to Journals
Before or after writing their papers, authors select journals to submit their papers to. Once an author has selected a target journal, he or she needs to make sure the paper and any accompanying images, tables or other kinds of supplementary data are formatted properly. Authors need to check publishers’ “guides for authors” for precise instructions on what to submit and how.
Many publishers now use automated electronic systems facilitating submission of papers to journals. Since 2003, the Elsevier Editorial System has been facilitating article submission for a growing number of journals on ScienceDirect. Out of the over 2,000 journals published on ScienceDirect, close to 1,400 use EES. Authors wishing to be published in these journals can now submit their papers, along with supplementary data, to journal editorial offices and find guides for authors by clicking on “Submit your article” on the journals’ pages on www.elsevier.com.
Organization of Journal Editorial Offices
Once it’s in the submission system, a paper next reaches a journal’s editorial office. For many journals, Elsevier provides in-house editorial support with dedicated staff responsible for ongoing contact with journal editors-in-chief and all administrative coordination of the review process. Each journal also has the support of a publishing editor, who assists an editor-in-chief with managing her or his journal and confers with the journal’s editorial board regarding publication strategy. The publishing editor also provides business support, often involving organizing payment (honoraria) for the editor, arranging advertising and commercial supplements, and managing the size and expansion of the journal. The publishing editor arranges and supports editorial board meetings (often on an annual basis).
For other journals, Elsevier supports external editorial offices and sometimes covers operational costs including IT equipment, office rental and support staff salaries.
Peer Review
After a paper has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, its editor selects reviewers to review the article. Elsevier facilitates this process through the Elsevier Editorial System. EES provides classification functionality, assisting editors to find appropriate reviewers already listed in the EES reviewer database, as well as Web-based reminder functionality, automatically notifying editors when actions are needed (e.g., when all reviewers’ reports have been returned).
To further support editors and reviewers, Elsevier provides them with access to Scopus, which is available from within EES. Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and high-quality Web sources, can assist in locating reviewers, checking citations in papers and assessing the quality of an author’s work. As of September 2007, Elsevier is also providing editors and reviewers with fulltext access to ScienceDirect.
Once peer review has been completed, a paper is accepted or rejected, or sent back to the author for revision. In the majority of cases, authors are provided with comments and asked to revise their papers. Once an editor decides whether to accept or reject a paper, the decision is transmitted through the same system – EES. If accepted, the paper is then passed to Elsevier staff who start the formal process leading to the paper’s production as a published article. 
“I just want to say that the Online Submission tool is an excellent system, and from the many positive comments we have received from authors and reviewers, it is by far superior to other systems being used.”
— Betty Schiefelbein, Managing Editor, Remote Sensing of Environment
- Provides:
• Customized interface for each participating journal
• Up-to-date information on article status for authors, editors and reviewers
• Decreased transfer time between authors, editors, reviewers and production staff
• Online administrative assistance for editors worldwide
• Tutorials and access to helpdesks 24/7
- Rollout commenced in 2003.
- Close to 1,400 Elsevier journals are already using the system.
- Across journals using EES since its launch, the time needed for reviewers to assess papers has been reduced significantly – in some cases by more than 50%.
- In cases where EES has been used for at least one year, the editorial process from submission to publication has been reduced by an average of nine weeks.
