Webinar report: eLife's peer-review process explained

In a recent webinar, eLife Deputy Editor Detlef Weigel talked in depth about our consultative peer-review process and its benefits for authors and reviewers.

eLife’s approach to peer review aims to ensure that all initial decisions are delivered quickly by working scientists in their fields. Revision requests are consolidated to avoid confusing or conflicting feedback and thereby limit the rounds of revision for authors. We also make the decision letter and author responses for accepted papers available for everyone to read, to help ensure the entire process is transparent.

Watch the full webinar here to find out more:

eLife publishes work in a large and diverse range of major subject areas, and we ensure that we have Senior Editors and Reviewing Editors to cover each of them. We also publish a variety of article types, including Research Articles, Research Advances, Short Reports, and Tools and Resources.

Detlef provides a detailed outline of the rigorous editorial process that we apply to all submitted articles. His explanation includes an overview of eLife’s decision times before and after peer review, and times from submission to publication, the latter of which have remained steady since eLife began publishing.

We have received a lot of positive feedback from authors and reviewers on their experiences with our peer-review process. Feedback from published authors on why they chose eLife showed that the process was a key influence in their decision. Indeed, most of the reviewers surveyed by eLife (95%) think the open consultation is valuable to our authors.

There are many ways in which eLife is changing the culture of peer review, including the fact that we only insist upon additional work if the new data are essential to support the major conclusions. Detlef shows that we’re also helping reviewers gain credit for their work, for example through our ongoing support for ORCID and Publons.