Reporting a journal editor?

[haRtwin]

Hi all:

I wanted to briefly describe one of the strangest peer review processes from a journal in my specialty area, and I wanted to hear others thoughts on what (if anything) I should do.

A few hours ago, one of my coauthors emailed me that an article we had submitted to this journal had accepted our article for publication. However, there were absolutely no reviews attached to the article. All we received was "Dear REDACTED: I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript: "REDACTED" has been accepted for publication in the REDACTED."

The article was under review since December, and we even emailed them to inquire about the status of the article back in March or April. The editorial office basically said the article is still out for review and they are waiting to receive reviews. But we got no reviews...

I am shocked and frightened by this decision. This is a Springer journal, and a common outlet for work in my specialty area (IF = 2.8). What's possibly even worse is that I just told several colleagues about this situation, and several of them told me this same thing happened to them!

What can I do, if anything?

Thanks,

A concerned scientist

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[borne_before]

Before reporting someone (snitching), what do our ethics code say that we should do?

 

[WisNeuro]

Before reporting someone (snitching), what do our ethics code say that we should do?

Depends on the violation. If it's minor, or possibly a miscommunication, we attempt resolution with the other party ourselves. If it's a major violation or involves patient safety and/or gross incompetence/negligence, you skip that step and go straight to the board.

In the OP's case, I would do my best to try and get a hold of the Editor or associate editor of the journal to get some clarifying info.

 

[haRtwin]

Depends on the violation. If it's minor, or possibly a miscommunication, we attempt resolution with the other party ourselves. If it's a major violation or involves patient safety and/or gross incompetence/negligence, you skip that step and go straight to the board.

In the OP's case, I would do my best to try and get a hold of the Editor or associate editor of the journal to get some clarifying info.

This is what we are doing at the moment. I am slightly concerned that we will not hear anything from the editor. I typically do not submit to this journal anymore because of the long wait times for articles under review (average is about 6 months) and the lack of correspondence about the status of an article.

I did some digging and found the code of ethics at Springer: Editors Code of conduct | Springer Nature | Editors | Springer Nature.
One specific portion of peer-review states

• Editor(s) are expected to obtain a minimum of two peer reviewers for manuscripts reporting primary research or secondary analysis of primary research. It is recognized that in some exceptional circumstances, particularly in niche and emerging fields, it may not be possible to obtain two independent peer reviewers. In such cases, Editor(s) may wish to make a decision to publish based on one peer review report. When making a decision based on one report, Editor(s) are expected to only do so if the peer review report meets the standards set out below.

I would not consider our article as a "niche or emerging fields."

 

[futureapppsy2]

This reminds me of the whole Johnny Matson et al. peer review publication scandal a few years ago where Matson was the editor of two well-regarded peer-reviewed journals in ASD/DD research and accepted a whole lot of publications, especially those by certain authors, with no actual peer review. Those authors in turn accepted his articles with no peer review in the peer-reviewed journals they edited. There were no professional consequences at all for any of them.

Here's the data and articles that broke the whole scandal:

Journals without editors: What is going on?

Last October, I was surprised to see a tweet from @autismcrisis (Michelle Dawson) saying "Belatedly noticed: @ deevybee is on the ed...

deevybee.blogspot.com

Editors behaving badly?

The H-index is a metric that was devised to identify talented individuals whose published work had made a significant impact on the field ...

deevybee.blogspot.com

Will Elsevier say sorry?

Elsevier, the publisher of Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders (RASD) and Research in Developmental Disabilities (RIDD) is no stran...

deevybee.blogspot.com