Guide for editors

The recommendations for editors are inspired by the COPE's short guide for ethical editing.

On this page you will find:

Editor types and roles

Editor-in-chief

The editor-in-chief is the formal chair of the editorial team. The editor-in-chief officially represents the journal against authorities and third persons, and has the final decision power in the discussions within the editorial team if no consensus can be reached. He/she assigns submitted papers to the most suitable handling editor in the editorial team or, if necessary, reaches out to potential guest editors. The editor-in-chief may act as a regular handling editor, too.

Handling editors

A handling editor, as the name suggests, processes a paper from its submission until a final decision is reached, including facilitation of the peer review process, related communication with the authors and the reviewers, informing the editorial team about potential misconduct, etc. 

Guest editors

An external guest editor may be called for to handle submissions to a special track / special volume or in case the regular editors have conflicting interests. It is the journal's responsibility to provide proper training, usually by assigning a ‘tutor’ who would guide the guest editor through the workflow without interfering with the actual decisions taken. It is expected that the guest editor applies the same quality standards in the editorial decisions as a regular handling editor would do.

Production editors

A production editor performs a rather technical function of supervising the preparation of accepted manuscripts for publication. However, being a member of the editorial team, a production editor is involved in all strategical decisions about the journal.

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Editor's responsibilities

As an editor, you represent the journal in contacts with the authors, reviewers, funders, and the broader scientific community. In many cases, a long-term opinion about the journal will be shaped by a single personal communication with you. It is ultimately important that you:

  • stay familiar with the TSR's current workflows, policies, and practices.
  • establish good relationships with the journal community and other members of the editorial team.
  • facilitate the peer-review in a fair and objective way to ensure high scientific quality of the TSR's publications, while keeping the manuscript handling time as short as possible.
  • take full responsibility for the editorial decisions taken; while reviewers provide recommendations, it is always you who takes the final decision.
  • inform the editorial team immediately about misconduct or inappropriate behaviours, and act constructively and cooperatively in case a complaint is expressed towards actions of yours or the reviewers' you have invited.
  • always act in the best interests of the TSR journal and in line with its key values.
  • follow the discussion on the best practices within academic publishing, continuously thinking about ways the TSR might further improve.

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Ethical guidelines for editors

Communication language and style

All communication between the parties of the editorial process must be done in a professional manner, using appropriate language, and with due respect. To promote transparency, communication should be restricted to the official channels, such as the submission-specific discussions within the journal software system and/or using professional emails.

Competing interests

An editor should not accept handling a manuscript in case of competing interests of personal, financial, intellectual, professional or political nature. For example, if the editor is (or have recently been) employed at the same institution as any of the authors, involved in mentorship relations, close collaborations or joint grant holding, he/she should inform the editor in-chief and suggest assigning another handling editor. In case all members of the editorial team have competing interests, an external guest editor should be approached.

Confidentiality

An editor should treat submitted manuscripts as confidential documents, revealing neither the fact of a submission nor its contents to anyone outside the editorial team and the peer-review process. A full-text manuscript is shared with a reviewer only upon acceptance of the review request. The reviewers' names are not revealed to the authors unless the manuscript has been accepted for publication (though authors names are visible to the reviewers, see the description of the Open peer-review process).

During ongoing disputes, complaints or misconduct investigations, the information collected should be treated with extreme care and not revealed to anyone not directly involved in the investigation. In special cases, the final investigation report might be further distributed to relevant people by a decision of the editorial team.

The details of financial transactions (discounts or waivers received on article processing charges, size of sponsorship contributions, etc.) are kept confidential, too.

Acting as a reviewer

Occasionally, the handling editor may step in as a peer reviewer of the manuscript he/she handles (e.g. if another reviewer could not return a report). This should be done transparently and not under the guise of an anonymous additional reviewer. The ethical guidelines for reviewers apply to the editor, too.

Acting as an author

The TSR does not forbid the members of the editorial team to publish in the journal. However, exceptional transparency and independence of the reviewing and decision taking process are required. The handling editor is selected so that any potential conflicts of interests are minimized. If this cannot be resolved within the regular handling editors pool, an external guest editor is called for. The circumstances and the way they have been addressed by the journal must to be clearly described under the ‘Declaration of competing interests’.

Generative AI technologies

The TSR editorial team monitors developments around generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in scientific publishing domain. It is most likely that the current policy regarding their usage will require adjustments or refinements in the future.

Responsibility. Editorial evaluation of scientific manuscripts implies responsibilities that can only be attributed to humans. Critical thinking and original assessment needed for decision-making regarding a manuscript is beyond the scope of today's generative AI technology which may suggest incorrect, incomplete, or biased conclusions. The editor is responsible for the editorial process, the final decision, and the communication thereof to the authors.

Manuscript under review. The editor is obliged to respect the confidentiality of the manuscript being handled. It is therefore not allowed to upload the manuscript, or any part of it, into generative AI tools since this may violate proprietary and privacy rights of the authors or other persons mentioned in the manuscript.

Communication about manuscript. This confidentiality requirement extends to all communication about the manuscript including any notification or decision letters, as they may contain confidential information about the manuscript and its authors. For this reason, editors should not upload their letters into an AI tool, even if it is just for the purpose of improving language and readability.

The policy regarding generative AI usage for authors can be found here.

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Editor's toolbox

Checklists and guides

Editor's checklist
OJS 3 software guide
How to handle peer-reviewer database

Tools and services:

iThenticate (see also quick demo)
Mailchimp
Scholastica
Typeset.io
Webmail

Marketing

TSR booklet
TSR flyer
TSR logotype
Mail signature (for editors)
Mail signature (for authors)

Resources

COPE Committee on Publication Ethics
PKP guide to OJS 3.4

 

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