The Editorial Process

An Editor in Chief reviews each new submission before it goes any further. The goal at this stage is a fast, high-level judgment — does this manuscript have merit and fit the journal? Manuscripts that clearly fall outside our scope or aren't viable can be returned or declined here rather than consuming reviewer time.

For manuscripts that pass this bar, the Editors in Chief generate the AI review (next section) and then Send to AE — assigning the manuscript to the Associate Editor whose subspecialty best matches the work.

Before a manuscript reaches the AE, the Editors in Chief run an automated AI review. The platform sends the manuscript and its supplemental files to a large language model that does not use the data to train its models, for an expert-style read of language and clarity, statistical rigor, logic and consistency, and figures and tables. It produces a structured, constructive report addressed to the authors.

The AI review is not final: both the Editor in Chief and the Associate Editor can edit it if necessary before any of it reaches the authors. Because the journal runs this assessment centrally, human reviewers are asked never to upload manuscripts to any external AI tool — doing so would breach author confidentiality.

Once a manuscript is assigned to you, it appears in Needs Action on your dashboard. Here's the recommended rhythm from assignment through to a recommendation. Our published target is a first decision within 2–3 weeks of a manuscript going out for external review, so keep that clock in mind at each step.

1. 1
   Take a first look and jot down initial thoughts

   Open the manuscript and skim it — read the abstract and look through the figures and images — to confirm the work seems reasonable and sits within your area. You don't have to do the full critique yet: either the brief look described here is enough before committing reviewers' time, or you can do a full review now and capture your comments in the Messages with Editor thread.
   
   As you skim, capture the few things on your mind — questions, concerns, angles you want reviewers to probe — in the internal Messages with Editor thread on that manuscript. It's private to the editorial team and keeps your reasoning attached to the paper. (See Internal Messaging below.)
2. 2
   Select and invite reviewers

   Start by confirming how many reviewers this particular manuscript needs, using the Reviewers needed selector (2 by default). The AI review counts as one of them, so a target of 2 means the AI review plus one human reviewer. Then use Select Initial Reviewers. You can draw from the OSC Editorial Board, find external reviewers by name (searched against OpenAlex & PubMed), or invite a new reviewer by email. There's an optional message field to add specific instructions or context to the invitation.
   
   Invite as widely as you like — once your target number has accepted, any invitations still outstanding are withdrawn automatically and those reviewers are notified that we have already secured enough reviewers for the manuscript, so no one is left working on a review we no longer need.
3. 3
   Send a personal email to reviewers without an OSC account

   For any reviewer who hasn't yet signed up for OSC, we ask that you send a short personal email at the time you select them, reiterating your interest in having them review this particular paper. This has worked well at other large journals — a personal note from the handling AE meaningfully speeds up both acceptance of the invitation and completion of the review. It also gives them a heads-up to watch for our invitation, which may land in their spam.
   
   For institutional email addresses where Outlook is likely used, emails may be filtered to the junk folder. Ask the potential reviewer to look in their junk folder, right click the email, go to junk, then "Never Block Sender's Domain".
4. 4
   Track invitations and nudge as needed

   The manuscript moves to With Reviewers. You can see who has accepted, declined, or is still pending, and send reminders manually from the Reviewer Invitations panel. The platform also nudges reviewers automatically every few days — both those who haven't responded to the invitation and those who have accepted but not yet submitted their review. You will be notified when a reviewer accepts and completes a review.
5. 5
   Do a deeper dive when reviews return

   When the reviews come back, read the manuscript closely this time, alongside the reviewers' comments and the AI review. Weigh them together — the reviews are an input, not a verdict. You may disagree with the reviewers. Feel free to reach out to the Editors in Chief if you have specific questions or concerns.
6. 6
   Choose a path

   Based on that assessment, pick one of the paths in the next section: send a revision to the authors, ask for more review, or make a recommendation to the Editors in Chief.

Each manuscript carries a private editor ↔ associate editor message thread — labeled Messages with Editor on the AE side and Messages with Associate Editor on the editor side. It is not visible to authors or reviewers.

Use it to jot early thoughts during your first look, so your reasoning stays attached to the paper. Use it to record the rationale behind a recommendation — the editor's decision view shows your recommendation badge and points here for the "why." And use it for any back-and-forth with the Editors in Chief about handling, reviewer choice, or borderline calls.

After your deeper dive, the manuscript's Actions panel gives you the paths below. The boxes are exactly what you'll see on your dashboard — each one is described underneath. You can loop through these as many times as a manuscript needs before making a final recommendation.

The review/revision loop can cycle as many times as a manuscript needs. Once you, as the AE, feel that the authors have successfully responded to all queries and you are ready to make a final recommendation about the manuscript, you use the Make a Recommendation to the Editor path above to send your final recommendation — accept, reject, or return without a decision — to the Editor in Chief. Put the reasoning behind it in the Messages with Editor thread.

Manuscripts the AE has acted on appear in the Decision queue on the Editor dashboard, each tagged with the AE's recommendation. Opening one, the editor sees the recommendation badge, the reviews, the AI review, and the internal message thread — and makes the final call.