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Review Process

Initial Review

The Medical Decision Making journals are a member of COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics. The journals have full editorial independence from the Society for Medical Decision Making. Reviewers are asked to adhere to the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers (March 2013).

After initial review by the editors, approximately 25% of manuscripts submitted to MDM are sent out for peer review, usually to at least two reviewers. Before a manuscript is rejected without outside review (i.e., “desk rejected”) or proposed for transfer to MDM P&P, two editors—usually the editor-in-chief and one or two associate editors—must agree on the decision. If one editor believes the article should be sent to reviewers, it will be sent.

Peer Review & CME for Reviewers

The editors select reviewers from an electronic database of approximately 5,000 reviewers. During the submission process, authors are asked to identify keywords from two lists: APPLICATION AREAS and DETAILED METHODOLOGY. The editors use these author-selected keywords to match the manuscript to reviewers who have pertinent expertise. Authors are encouraged to review their keyword lists carefully—and completely—before making selections to ensure that the best possible keywords are chosen for the manuscript.

The reviewer database is supplemented, as necessary, by authors cited in the references list of the submitted manuscript and by a literature search. Authors are also allowed to suggest preferred (and nonpreferred) reviewers in the manuscript submission form. MDM does not send manuscripts to reviewers who have the same institutional affiliation as manuscript authors and will not use more than 1 preferred reviewer on any manuscript. In addition, MDM requests that reviewers disclose any potential conflicts of interest before reviewing a manuscript.

Reviewers who provide high quality reviews in a timely fashion (as rated by the handling editors) are eligible to receive Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit hours. Click here for more information.

Decision Types

After review (either initial or peer), the editors make one of the decisions listed below. Among first submissions, approximately 20% result in a “major revision” or “minor revision” decision.

Accept. The manuscript has been deemed scientifically ready for publication. However, final publication will not occur until all necessary manuscript files are provided in the required formats. (More information about manuscript acceptance is provided below.)

Minor Revision. Almost all manuscripts that MDM accepts require some editorial and/or statistical revision prior to publication. Manuscripts receiving a minor revision decision will have specific changes requested by the editors and/or reviewers, and acceptance for publication is dependent on authors’ responding to these issues. In addition, authors should make sure that revised manuscripts have addressed all journal formatting requirements at this stage. Revised manuscripts of this type should be uploaded as soon as possible, ideally within one week but no later than a month from the time the decision notification was received by the author. Extension requests are considered by the editor on a case-by-case basis.

Major Revision. Many manuscripts are potentially of interest but require substantial editorial and/or statistical revision prior to publication. Authors of manuscripts receiving a major revision are invited to revise their manuscript to address the reviewers’ and editors’ concerns. Such revised manuscripts are likely to be returned to the reviewers for further consideration, and acceptance for publication is dependent on the degree that the editors believe that relevant concerns (both scientific and editorial) have been sufficiently addressed. Authors who have questions about how to respond to reviewer comments should contact the editor who handled their manuscript. Authors should also ensure that revised manuscripts adhere to journal formatting and style requirements. The editors note that we may request multiple rounds of major revision prior to manuscript acceptance and that ultimate acceptance is not guaranteed. Revised manuscripts should be uploaded as soon as possible—but generally no later than three months from the time the decision notification was received by the author. Extension requests are considered by the editor on a case-by-case basis. (More information about revisions is provided below.)

Reject and resubmit. MDM editors sometimes reject a manuscript but believe that a fundamentally different manuscript derived from the research might be of potential interest. In these cases, the editors may issue a “reject and resubmit” decision, which allows for a resubmission (which will be considered as a new manuscript) that addresses the specific reviewer and/or editor concerns. However, there is no guarantee that a resubmission will be successful. (More information about resubmissions is provided below.)

Propose transfer. Certain manuscripts may not be a good fit for MDM but may be better suited for publication in MDM P&P, or vice versa. In these cases, the editors may reject the manuscript at one journal but propose transfer to the other journal because they believe that it has potential to be accepted for publication there. If the author has indicated at the time of submission that they would be willing to have the manuscript transferred, instructions will be sent for how to resubmit to the other journal. If the author did not provide approval at time of submission, they may be invited to consider a transfer at the time of this decision as well.

Reject / Immediate Reject . Because MDM receives a large number of submissions, the editors often have to reject valuable and worthwhile work. In particular, the editors must decide whether a piece will interest and inform MDM readers and whether it adds sufficiently to previous work. Manuscripts that are not appropriate for publication in MDM receive either an “immediate reject” decision prior to peer review or a “reject” decision after peer review. Occasionally, the editors will take the extra step of recommending that authors pursue publication in another journal that is more closely aligned with the topic addressed in the manuscript.

Appeals

Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for the journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article.

Authors whose manuscript received peer review and who feel their manuscript was wrongly rejected may e-mail an appeal request to the editor-in-chief. Appeal requests must be submitted within three months from the time the decision notification was received by the author.

In the appeal request letter, the author should state the reason he or she feels the editor should reconsider the decision. Common reasons are that an author feels the editor’s decision was substantially based on an incorrect reading of the manuscript by a reviewer or by the editors—or that a reviewer or editor was biased or unfair in his or her judgment. The appeal request should detail the author’s concerns and discuss how the manuscript could be revised to address the main issues brought up in the editor and reviewer comments.

After considering the request for appeal, the editor-in-chief will either confirm the original decision of reject or allow the authors to submit a formal appeal through ScholarOne Manuscripts. If the editor-in-chief grants the appeal request, the corresponding (contact) author will receive instructions via e-mail on how to submit a formal appeal through ScholarOne Manuscripts.

Revision vs Resubmission Process

MDM editors differentiate between manuscripts that have:

  • received a Minor Revision or a Major Revision decision and will undergo further consideration after reviewer- and editor-requested changes have been made by the authors, and
  • received a Reject and Resubmit decision, meaning that the work requires major structural work beyond normal revisions so that the resubmission will be essentially a new manuscript.

All revised and resubmitted manuscripts must include a detailed, point-by-point response to reviewer and editor comments, called an author rebuttal. Within the revised manuscript submission process, a screen is provided for this response. Authors of resubmitted manuscripts are required to include a rebuttal in the cover letter. Author rebuttals can also be uploaded. Revised manuscripts and resubmissions that are not accompanied by a rebuttal will be returned to the authors without further review.

Revisions

Authors of manuscripts with a Minor Revision or a Major Revision decision are invited to submit their revised work through ScholarOne Manuscripts as a revision. The corresponding author is responsible for submitting the revision.

To submit a revised manuscript to MDM, please complete the following steps:

  1. Access the Web site: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mdm (MDM) or http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mdm-pp (MDM P&P).
  2. On the Welcome page, enter the Author Center.
  3. Under Author Resources, click anywhere on the following line:
    ★ Click here to submit a revision
    Note: If you have multiple revisions outstanding, a Manuscripts Awaiting Revision table appears, prompting you to select from among them. Click     create a revision next to the appropriate manuscript record, then click the OK button.
  4. Follow the online prompts to submit a revision.
    Note: After the revision has been accepted for review by ScholarOne Manuscripts, R1 appears at the end of the original manuscript ID (e.g., MDM-YY-XXX.R1).

Resubmissions

Authors of manuscripts that have received a letter of rejection with a conditional option to resubmit (i.e., Reject and Resubmit) should consider carefully the conditions of resubmission. In such cases, the editors have indicated that the work may be of promise but that extensive conceptual and/or structural changes are required for reconsideration. When authors agree that such changes are possible (and desirable), the resubmitted manuscript will remain connected to the original submission but will, for all intents and purposes, be considered a new submission—receiving a new five-digit manuscript ID. Please note that resubmitted manuscripts not entered within ScholarOne Manuscripts as instructed here will be returned to the authors for further processing.

To resubmit a manuscript, please complete the following steps:

  1. Access the Web site: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mdm (MDM) or http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mdm-pp (MDM P&P).
  2. On the Welcome page, enter the Author Center.
  3. Under My Manuscripts, click Manuscripts with Decisions:
    Note: The Manuscripts with Decisions table appears, prompting you to select from among them. Click create a resubmission next to the appropriate manuscript record, then click the OK button.
  4. Follow the online prompts to resubmit the manuscript, entering the manuscript ID of the original submission under “Has this manuscript been submitted previously to this journal?” on the Details & Comments screen..
    Note: After the resubmission has been accepted for review by ScholarOne Manuscripts, the new manuscript ID appears on the Submission Confirmation screen.

Manuscript Acceptance & Preparation for Production

MDM accepts approximately 15-20% of the manuscripts received annually, depending on submission volume. We strive to make decisions regarding sending for review versus immediate reject within 2-3 weeks and to return first decisions for manuscripts sent for review within 60 days, subject to delays in identifying appropriate reviewers. Time from acceptance to online publication is generally less than 2 months.

MDM P&P has a somewhat higher and more variable acceptance rate, in part because a significant number of manuscripts are transferred to MDM P&P after initial editorial review. Turnaround times are similar to those of MDM.

After a manuscript is accepted by the editors for publication in MDM or MDM P&P, it is processed by MDM editorial staff in ScholarOne Manuscripts before it is exported to the publisher, SAGE Publications. The manuscript’s formal acceptance date is the date the document leaves ScholarOne Manuscripts and is accepted by the publisher for production—not the date the editors inform authors of their intent to publish the manuscript in MDM.

Once the manuscript is accepted by the publisher for production, several preproduction steps occur simultaneously: (1) the corresponding author is prompted to fill out a Journal Contributor Publishing Agreement, (2) the manuscript receives a tentative print issue assignment (for MDM), and (3) the manuscript undergoes a final First Look evaluation by MDM editorial staff.

The editor-in-chief reserves the right to deem any figures, large tables, appendices, supplementary materials, or other manuscript-related content as online-only material in MDM. In such cases, the print edition includes the following note next to the article’s author information: Supplementary material for this article is available on the Medical Decision Making Web site at http://journals.sagepub.com/home/mdm. The electronic version of the article includes a hyperlink to data supplements (e.g., Supplemental Tables) at the bottom of the article’s download options, under This Article.

In addition, the editor-in-chief retains the right to deem full articles as Web-Only Articles in MDM. Articles that exceed 20 printed journal pages are generally published online only. Web-Only Articles are listed at the bottom of the table of contents in the print version, generally on the second page (across from the masthead) and on the inside back cover. In the online edition, these articles appear at the top of the issue’s table of contents.

All MDM P&P articles are published online only.