Tagged:  Online submission

As many of you know, Elsevier is currently building Evise, our next generation online submission and peer-review system.  The rollout of Evise is planned to begin in the second half of 2013 and to prepare for a smooth transition, 2012 will see the introduction of new features to our current system, EES.

These include something we know you have been keen to see – a single username and password across all EES journal sites.

Single login across EES journal sites

Researchers have multiple roles in publishing: many authors are also reviewers; many Editors are also authors and reviewers. And researchers can perform these roles for multiple journals. We know that EES does not recognize that sufficiently so, later this year, we will begin the task of consolidating all user accounts.

How to consolidate your account

Once the change has been rolled out, when you log into EES you will receive a prompt to consolidate your accounts. EES looks for matching associated email addresses when deciding which accounts to group together. If you have used different email addresses per EES site, you can indicate this during consolidation. Once you have selected the accounts to consolidate, you will receive a confirmation email. This is sent to ensure that only the account owner can give approval.

During consolidation, you will also be asked to choose a security question and answer. You will need these to reset your password if you forget it.

You will have 30 days to consolidate your accounts. After this period, you will only be able to use EES if you have consolidated your accounts.

Figure 1. The consolidation notification screen.

Logging in to EES after consolidation

After you have followed the consolidation procedure, you will be able to use the same username and password to access each EES journal site you use. Your primary email address in EES will be your username. You will continue to log into each EES journal site separately.
If you have multiple roles for a single journal, you will need to log off and log in again if you want to switch your user role.

Roll out timing

The new user consolidation functionality will be piloted in July and August 2012, with roll out activity ramping up from September 2012 onwards. We will keep you informed of our progress by email.

Online support consolidation

We are also working on consolidating the online support available for EES. This is currently spread across the Elsevier website but going forward generic information on EES will be available on Elsevier.com, while EES support information will be presented in EES. That means that if you click on Help in EES, a pop-up window will open up in which you will be able to quickly access the right support content. The content will be presented per role and per phase in the editorial process to make it easier for you. The search function will also be available in the window.

Figure 2. The new help window.

Future improvements

Elsevier has a number of user feedback programs and the results of these, along with the questions end users ask Elsevier customer support, are just some of the sources we call on when determining which improvements we should introduce. You can also provide feedback via evise@elsevier.com.

Author Biography

Edward O'Breen | Marketing and Brand Manager, Elsevier

In a recent post on the Short Communications Board, our Vice President of Corporate Relations, Tom Reller, discussed the hacking of EES, our online platform for managing the submission and peer-review process.

He explained that in late October last year, one of the editors of Optics & Laser Technology (JOLT) alerted our EES team that reviewers for two of his assigned submissions had been invited but not by him. Our team immediately launched an investigation and discovered that someone had been able to retrieve the EES username and password information for this editor.

Tom went on to outline the various steps we are taking to reduce these risks, and that one of these innovations - user profile consolidation – had become available to all EES users on December 3, 2012.

Consolidation of user profiles was a project the EES team was working on prior to the hacking.  A regular audit of EES had identified the many advantages that enabling researchers to use a single username and password across all EES journal sites would provide. Not only would it streamline their workflow, it would increase security levels too.

Since December 3, about 350,000 users have consolidated more than 950,000 individual EES accounts into about 350,000 consolidated user profiles.

Alongside the user profile consolidation, we have also introduced enhancements in security and user data protection. EES users can now reset their passwords via a self-chosen security question. They will receive a confirmation by email and only the user will have access to the password and security question.  This makes the end user responsible for his/her own data and helps to avoid abuse of EES accounts.

On December 19 last year, we surveyed those EES users who had consolidated their accounts since the December 3 launch. More than 400 researchers provided their feedback, which revealed:

• 85% consolidated their accounts immediately after logging into EES
• 83% needed less than 10 minutes to consolidate their accounts
• 88% were satisfied to have a consolidated account, while 3.5% were dissatisfied. Those who recorded a dissatisfied reaction identified the main drawback as being that they still have to log into each EES site separately – they would like to login and view their tasks across journals. This will be fixed in Evise, the next generation editorial system Elsevier is working on.
• 87% approved of the fact that the end user is now solely responsible for updating their personal information - 3% disapproved

For a few days following the December 3 launch, EES servers were slow to respond due to the large number of users consolidating their profiles. We appreciated this was very frustrating for users and worked on improving the situation. Luckily, only very few users still experience this problem and we have seen calls to our Elsevier Customer Services team fall from 1.6% to 0.2%.

As journals’ reference-related instructions have continued to grow in complexity, so too has the amount of time required to comply with them.

Recent research [1] shows that authors now spend an average 3.2 hours per paper on this task. Not only is this an unnecessary use of their time, the focus on formatting increases the opportunities for factual errors to creep in.

Elsevier’s Publishing Services team has been working on a multi-stranded shake-up of the reference system. Dubbed the Reference Simplification Project, it will not only standardize reference styles, but offer journals the opportunity to forego them completely. Other elements will focus on the accuracy of link information.

Elizabeth Przybysz, a Junior Project Manager in Publishing Services, has been leading the project team. She believes one of the key benefits will be an increase in author satisfaction as more of their time is freed up to concentrate on other elements of the paper. “We think we will also see journal discoverability enhanced, while publication times should experience a reduction,” she added.

Over the coming year, a number of changes will be rolled out – one of these will automatically be applied to all Elsevier titles while others will be introduced on an opt-in basis. Read on to find out what it could mean for your journal.

All Elsevier-owned journals will switch to one of six standard reference styles

Examples of some of the detailed formatting specifications we currently require from authors:

• Journal titles should be abbreviated without punctuation and not in italics
• Always use "&" symbol when there are two authors in parentheses
• ONLY use the English version "et al"

The majority of Elsevier journals require authors to use one of 10 standard reference styles. Another 200 plus journals use their own unique, non-standard reference styles. Last summer, Elsevier’s User Centered Design team carried out a survey and usability tests with journal readers. Those questioned indicated that six styles in particular were easy to follow. Based on this information, six standard Elsevier styles will be rolled out to all Elsevier-owned journals in 2013. These are:

Numbered
Appreciated by our readers for displaying all author names. Once all deviations are removed, this style will be used by 335 Elsevier-owned titles. The style is popular in Physical Sciences.

Harvard
Primarily used in Humanities and Social Sciences. Our readers liked the name / date format, which displays basic information without the need to visit the last article page. It will be used by more than 400 journals.

Vancouver Numbered
The Vancouver Embellished format will be incorporated into this style and the result will be used by more than 242 journals - popular in Medical Sciences.

Vancouver Name / Date
A version for communities that prefer citations to feature the authors’ names in parentheses.

American Psychological Association
The only style presenting full journal titles, an option preferred by 35% of the readers we spoke to. Almost 200 of our journals will follow this style, especially within Social and Economic Sciences.

American Medical Association
This style is used in more than 150 medical journals, especially popular amongst Societies.

A standard style for each journal will be chosen based on its close resemblance to the journal’s current reference style. If you feel that another style from our list above suits the journal better, please contact your Publisher.

All styles will include the article and chapter title. In the past, these items were removed due to space restrictions in print versions of journals, however, our survey respondents asked for their reintroduction to assist with assessing source relevance.

Figure 1. Current situation with regard to reference styles – Elsevier titles only

Figure 2. What we hope to achieve by April 2013 with the rolling out of six standard styles – Elsevier titles only.

Journals are invited to consider removing formatting requirements

This will be offered an on opt-in basis only. If you choose this model for your journal, authors will be invited to submit their references in any style, as long as the references are complete and consistent. The typesetters will apply the final style.

Elizabeth believes this may prove a deciding factor for authors when choosing a journal and could help to attract more high-quality papers. She adds: “In exchange, we will ask authors to focus on the quality of the data critical for the link creation, invite them to use the DOI and urge them to pay attention to the presence of links in any references they decide to copy from other sources.

“Online what really matters is that a citation is linked to its source. Impact Factors take into account the number of citations an article has received. An error introduced to a reference can prevent a link creation and potentially lead to a journal missing out on a few decimal points on its Impact Factor.”

Key data used by the linking services to create a link are author(s) name(s), journal title (or its standard abbreviation), year of publication and the pagination. Italics, use of dots and data sequence are not important. Elizabeth explained: “That key data must be recognized correctly in the process of tagging; therefore the consistency of the pattern of the reference is essential for the structuring. DOIs are real life savers: even if all other data is misspelled, but the DOI is correct, the link will be still created.”

Those journals adopting this model will be closely monitored to ensure that the typesetters effectively convert the styles and that the change brings the benefits expected.

Examples of the journal-specific reference style will still be displayed in the Guide for Authors.  As part of the project we will also update the Endnote and Reference Managers, so that they accurately reflect the journal style.

Journals adopting this option would see the following section appear in their Guide for Authors

Guide for Authors: new instructions

Discoverability of research and high quality peer review are ensured by online links to the sources cited. In order to allow us to create links within ScienceDirect and to abstracting and indexing services, such as Scopus, CrossRef or PubMed, please ensure that data provided in the references are correct. Please note that incorrect surnames, journal/book titles, publication year and pagination may prevent the link creation. When copying references, please be careful as they may already contain an error. Use of the DOI is encouraged.

There are no strict requirements on reference formatting at submission. References can be in any style or format as long as the style is consistent. Author(s) name(s), journal title/book title, chapter title/article title, year of publication, volume and issue/book chapter and the pagination must be present. Use of DOI is highly encouraged. The reference style used by the journal will be applied to the accepted article by Elsevier at the proof stage. Note that incorrect or missing data will be highlighted at proof stage for the author to correct.

The reference style used by this journal is 'here we state the journal-specific style'. If you do wish to format the references yourself they should be arranged according to the following examples...

In future, accuracy of references will be checked with one of the major linking service providers

Elsevier plans to introduce a new step of comparing the references received from an author with the database of one of the major linking service providers. This will allow us to correct and complete missing data without the need to delay publication by sending the manuscript back to the author. We hope to see this come into effect next year (2014).

If you wish to find out more about the Reference Simplification Project and what it means for your journal, please contact your Publisher. The project complements other author-centric solutions currently under development at Elsevier. The Simpler Submission service, for example, offers authors the opportunity to reduce formatting across all manuscript components.

Understanding reader behavior

The survey and usability tests carried out by our User Centered Design department have uncovered the following facts about reader behavior:

• While 53% of researchers read articles as downloaded files on their screens, 45% prefer to print them out before reading. With new technologies such as tablets, we expect the percentage opting for print to decrease.
• 48% indicate that while they may look through the references while reading an article, they only go to the sources once they have finished reading.
• Linking of references online was important to 88% of the respondents.
• 58% prefer the name / date citation format over numbered citation.
• 46% indicate they want to see the names of all authors in the citation, no matter how long the list is.
• 69% of authors format references manually. Reference formatting takes, on average, three hours per paper, even taking into consideration the use of reference managers.
• 39% do not include DOIs, and 16% don’t know what a DOI is.
• The researchers surveyed believe that within a reference, items should be listed in the following order of importance:

1. Author
2. Article title
3. Title of publication it appeared in
4. Year of publication

Author biography

Elizabeth Przybysz

Elizabeth Przybysz
JUNIOR PROJECT MANAGER
Elizabeth joined Publishing Services for STM Journals in October 2011. Alongside the References Simplification project she manages the Simpler Submission project mentioned in the article. Elizabeth has also successfully introduced the Guide of Transfer and Acquisitions for Publishers. Prior to her move to Publishing Services, Elizabeth worked in Customer Services, assisting our customers in both Italian and Polish. Before moving to Oxford, Elizabeth worked in the banking sector in Italy and Ireland.

References

[1] Elsevier’s User Centered Design team surveyed around 200 authors in August 2012. Respondents were asked how long it took them to prepare references and if they used any software to reduce the workload. Although 60% of respondents used software, the average time taken to format references was found to be 3.2 hours.