Table 8: Questions with a high number of non-applicable
responses (‘N/A’).
In some instances, we found inconsistencies between how journals framed
questions to authors and to peer reviewers. For example, only one
question (Q3, on referring reviewers to reporting guidelines) received
no R-scores of 3, whereas ten journals received an R-score of 3 for Q36
(on referring authors to reporting guidelines), and of these ten, four
had an R-score of 1 for Q3.
In some instances, we found a discrepancy between how journals rated
themselves and the practices they undertook. For example, one journal
had a SA-score of 1 for Q27 on plagiarism detection software but has
iThenticate text similarity software incorporated into its submission
system, perhaps indicating a lack of awareness of the technology or a
misunderstanding of the question.
Of the 132 journals, 10 journals of the 49 operating double-blind peer
review had a SA-score of one for question 15 about how they address bias
in peer review. In contrast, 7 journals of the 83 operating single-blind
peer review had a SA-score of three.
Calculating average Timeliness scores for all journals and dividing them
in quartiles allowed comparisons to be made with actual journal times
from submission to first and final decision. We found no correlation
between average turnaround times and SA-scores (Table 9). We did,
however, find a correlation between average turnaround times and
R-scores for Timeliness, with the shortest turnaround times correlating
to the highest scores for Timeliness (Table 10).
Quartile | Mean time to first decision (calendar days) | Mean time to final decision (calendar days) |
Q1 (lowest) | 62.21 | 126.28 |
Q2 | 81.48 | 155.22 |
Q3 | 61.60 | 105.74 |
Q4 (highest) | 65.02 | 126.90 |