Making a Decision

You make the decision on the Decision tab of the submission. An Editor-in-chief makes the final decision. A Section editor saves a decision recommendation on the same tab. The submitted reviews of the round appear side by side at the top of the tab.

A decision is made while the status of the submission is Under review or Revision submitted. To reject a submission that has not been sent to reviewers, see Desk-Rejecting a Submission.

Final decision

1. In the Decision section of the Decision tab, select Accept, Minor revision, Major revision or Reject.
2. For a revision decision, check the Revision period (days) field. The field comes filled with the period from the site settings and must be between 7 and 365 days.
3. In the Rationale (editors only) field, write the academic rationale for the decision. The rationale must be at least 10 characters long and is not shown to the author.
4. In the Reviewer comments to share with the author section, clear the tick of any review you do not want to share with the author. All submitted reviews come ticked.
5. Fill in the Decision letter to the author field. The Draft a letter button writes a draft based on the decision you selected and the shared reviews. If the field holds text you wrote or changed, the panel asks before it replaces that text with the draft. The letter must be at least 10 characters long.
6. Press Issue decision, then read the outcome in the confirmation dialog and confirm.

Unless the site settings were changed, the revision period is 30 days for a minor revision and 60 days for a major revision.

While you fill in the form, you can move to another tab to look at a file or at the details of the submission. The decision type, rationale and letter you entered stay in the form until you come back.

Effects of the decision

• The decision is stored as a record that cannot be changed, and it is written to the audit log.
• The round closes. The invitations of reviewers who have not submitted a review close, and these reviewers are informed.
• The decision letter goes to the author. Of the shared reviews, the author sees only the Comments to the author section and the attachment, if any. In open review the author also sees the name of the reviewer of a shared review.
• An accept decision opens a production job automatically.
• A revision decision gives the author a deadline. The author is reminded once before the deadline. Unless the setting was changed, the reminder goes out 3 days before the deadline.

Decision recommendation

A Section editor sees the Decision recommendation section on the same tab.

1. In the Decision section, select the decision you recommend.
2. Fill in the Rationale (editors only) field. Optionally, also write a draft letter for the editor-in-chief.
3. Press Save recommendation and confirm.

The recommendation does not change the status of the submission. A notification goes to the editors-in-chief assigned to the submission or, if none is assigned, to the editors with the permission to decide.

Decision and recommendation history

All decisions and recommendations stay in the Decisions and recommendations section at the bottom of the tab. Each entry shows the decision type, whether it is a final decision or a recommendation, the round, the person who made it, the date and the rationale. You open the letter with the Show letter link.

If you cannot see the decision button, see The decision button is missing. The steps after a revision arrives are in Starting a New Round After a Revision.