Table 5 Frequencies of article decision by journal type and article submission type. Note that some decisions e-mails were coded as applying to more than one of the 13 decision category numbers
Decision | Decision details | Journal type | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Predatory (N=46) | Open access (OA) (N=127) | Subscription-based (N=135) | ||||||||
Total | N=21 | Word N=25 | Total | N=66 | Word N=61 | Total | N=68 | Word N=67 | ||
1. | Rejected without external peer review by editorial staff due to ethical concerns (e.g. editor note they detected the duplicate publication or plagiarism) | 21 (45.7) | 13 (61.9) | 8 (32.0) | 51 (40.2) | 31 (47.0) | 20 (32.8) | 61(45.2) | 40 (58.8) | 21(31.3) |
2. | Rejected without external peer review by editorial staff due to topic/scope of article being outside journal scope | 12 (26.1) | 4(19.0) | 8(32.0) | 53 (41.7) | 24 (36.4) | 29 (47.5) | 53 (39.3) | 19 (27.9) | 34(50.7) |
3. | Rejected without peer review by the editorial staff for any other reason | 7 (15.2) | 5(23.8) | 2(8.0) | 17 (13.4) | 7 (10.6) | 10 (16.4) | 20 (14.8) | 10 (14.7) | 10 (14.9) |
4. | Sent out for external peer review, rejected due to ethical concerns (e.g. duplicate publication, plagiarism) | 1 (2.2) | - | 1(4.0) | 1 (0.8) | 1 (1.5) | - | - | - | - |
5. | Sent out for external peer review, rejected due to methodological concerns | - | - | - | 1 (0.8) | 1 (1.5) | - | - | - | - |
6. | Sent out for external peer review, revision invited but ethical concerns noted | - | - | - | 2 (1.6) | 1(1.5) | 1(1.5) | 2 (1.5) | 2 (2.9) | - |
7. | Sent out for external peer review, revision invited without ethics concerns noted | 1 (2.2) | - | 1(4.0) | 4(3.1) | 2(3.0) | 2(3.3) | 4(3.0) | 2 (2.9) | 2(3.0) |
8. | Sent out for external peer review, accepted with extremely minor or no revisions | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
9. | Accepted immediately without having undergone external peer review (i.e. no external peer review comments appended to the editors decision) | 4 (8.7) | 1 (4.8) | 3(12.0) | - | - | - | - | - | - |
10. | Provisional acceptance pending minor changes based on editorial and/or peer review comments. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
11. | Other | - | - | - | 2 (1.6) | - | 2 (3.3) | - | - | - |
12. | Sent out for external peer review, then rejected but no reason given | - | - | - | 1 (0.8) | 1 (1.5) | - | - | - | - |
13. | Rejected, no reason given | 4 (8.7) | 1 (4.8) | 3(12.0) | 19 (15.0) | 9 (13.6) | 10 (16.4) | 15 (11.1) | 8 (11.8) | 7 (10.4) |