How-to
Tracking Invitations and Reviews
Following the status and deadlines of invitations on the Reviewers tab, reading reviews, changing deadlines, cancelling an invitation or inviting a reviewer again.
The Reviewers tab of a submission shows the reviewer invitations by round. The newest round is at the top and carries the Current round label. The card of a closed round shows the date it closed.
Invitation row
Each invitation row shows the reviewer's name, e-mail address, institution and the status of the invitation. The status is Awaiting response, Accepted, Declined, Expired or Cancelled.
| In the row | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Invited | The invitation date and the editor who sent the invitation |
| Respond by | For an invitation awaiting a response, the response deadline and the number of days left |
| Review due | For an open invitation, the review deadline and the number of days left |
| Responded | When the reviewer responded to the invitation |
| Account closed | Shown on an open invitation when the reviewer's account was closed. The reviewer gets no reminders; cancel the invitation and invite another reviewer. |
| Overdue | The label that appears when an open deadline has passed |
If the reviewer accepted the invitation, the row shows their conflict-of-interest declaration. If the reviewer disclosed a possible conflict, their explanation is here too. If they declined, the Reason for declining they wrote appears. The row also shows the number of reminders sent to the reviewer.
Reading the review
When the reviewer submits the review, a Show review link appears in the row. The review shows the reviewer's recommendation and scores, the Comments to the author and Confidential comments to the editor sections and, if there is one, the Review attachment file. Confidential comments to the editor are never shown to the author.
If the reviewer has started the review but not submitted it, the row says the review is a draft. The submitted reviews of the round also appear side by side on the Decision tab. Notes the reviewer sends after the review are listed as internal notes on the Messages tab.
Invitation actions
The Invitation actions menu of each invitation in the current round holds the actions that fit the status of the invitation:
- Change deadlines appears for open invitations. For an invitation awaiting a response, you change both dates. For an accepted invitation, you change only the review deadline. The date fields cannot be left empty. The new date must be in the future, and the review deadline cannot be earlier than the response deadline.
- Cancel invitation appears for open invitations. You need to write at least 5 characters in the Reason (not shown to the reviewer) field. The reviewer loses access to the files and is informed. An invitation whose review has been submitted cannot be cancelled.
- Invite again appears for declined, expired and cancelled invitations. A new invitation record opens for the same reviewer, and the earlier invitation stays closed. Once a decision is made, the round takes no more reviewers and this action no longer appears in the menu.
A deadline change is written to the audit log, and the reminder counter is reset. Editors with the permission to invite reviewers see the menu. An invitation with no action left has no menu, for example one whose review has been submitted.
Reviewer rules note
The Reviewer rules note at the top of the tab warns about the following cases, based on the criteria of TR Dizin (Türkiye's national citation index):
- The number of reviewers in the round is below the minimum the journal requires. If the journal has not set a number, at least two reviewers are expected.
- Two reviewers are from the same institution.
- A reviewer is from the same institution as an author.
- The reviews received include an accept or minor revision recommendation together with a reject recommendation, and there are fewer than three reviews. In this case you may want to invite a third reviewer.
Invitations awaiting a response, accepted invitations and invitations with a submitted review count towards the number of reviewers. The warnings do not block any action. The minimum number of reviewers the journal requires is the setting described in Setting the Reviewer Minimum and Reviewer List.
When reminders go out is described in Reviewer Deadlines and Reminders.