What is the reviewing process? - Authors

This guide provides an overview for Authors on the review process within Dynamica.

• Reviewing Process Overview
• What are the Reviewer States
• Who are the reviewers?
• What criteria and guidance do reviewers adhere to?

Reviewing Process Overview

After the Author has requested/invited reviewers, the reviewers will receive a notification of the request. The reviewer can view the abstract and then need to accept to proceed with the review or decline within the time limit set by the Author's University. If the reviewer declines or has not accepted within the timeframe, it will proceed to the next reviewer.
Once the reviewer has accepted to review the manuscript. They will then review the manuscript utilising the inbuilt reviewing tool.

Review page

After they have completed the review, the author will be informed of the outcome and be able to view the full review.

Review States

Reviewer states are the stages a mansuscript is in within the SciFree review process. The below table provides an overview of these states.

Review State	What it means	Who can change it
Composing	The manuscript/content has not yet been submitted for review. or The manuscript/content has been rejected or requires major revisions for resubmitting	The author
Waiting for reviewing to start	Waiting for authors to click on Start Review	The author
Reviewing.MissingReviewers	Waiting for reviewers to accept to review and review the manuscript, before it times out	The peer-reviewers
Suggested	Content is suggested to a reviewer for them to accept or decline to review	The peer-reviewers
In Progress	The content is under peer-review	The peer-reviewers
Published	The content has been accepted to be published by the minimum criteria of reviewers	The University Admin
Cancelled	The manuscript has been removed from the SciFree process and can be deleted	The author

Who are the Reviewers?

Two types of reviewers can be called: 

1. General Reviewer: reviews the entire manuscript
2. Technical Reviewer: Reviews sections specifically independently

Reviewers can be called in two ways to review the manuscript. This is decided at the review stage of the authoring process by the manuscript author.

Option 1: Add your own reviewers

The author can add reviewers directly by adding the requested reviewers' email addresses. If the requested reviewer is already a SciFree researcher, they will be located and added. If they are not already on SciFree, the author can invite the researcher to join SciFree and review the manuscript.

Option 2: Reviewers located via keywords

Reviewers on SciFree can set up keywords as general reviewers and/or technical reviewers. The author must add keywords to the overall manuscript content but can add keywords to particular sections. If researchers are already on the tool with matching keywords, it will inform the author how many matching reviewers are found.

NOTE: There are a few integrity steps automated in the tool to not call yourself the author or reviewers with the same affiliation as the author. However, the review and the reviewers' information will be made open with the published manuscript for full transparency. 

Guidance and Criteria for reviewers

If you are a current or prospective reviewer and would like to learn more about the review process. You can find detailed guides in the reviewer section. Guides include:

• Explaination of reviewing decisions
• Reviewer Dashboard
  
• Guidelines for Reviewers