Next, select the reviewers. While still on the Editorial Board menu, click on the Reviewers tab button (Figure 10) to select the reviewers and create a letter for them.

Figure 10. Select the reviewers

As before, the system initially lists available reviewers by order of topic match with the paper’s topics and provides you with statistics about the reviewers. As mentioned above, the default maximum number of reviewers in this example was set at 6, but you can change that to fewer or more  for each paper, or you can even change the defaults.

To obtain at least three good quality reviewers within a few weeks, we recommend that you appoint 6-8 reviewers using the following criteria:

  1. The number in the field “In last 12 months for this Journal” should be fewer than 5.
  2. “Pending” should be 0.
  3. Select a mix of responsive vs. non-responsive reviewers and a variety of ratings. We suggest that you include a few of the non-responsive reviewers to help you determine whether or not to retire them from your review board as non-performing members. The goal is to keep and promote productive reviewers and prune names from your review board those whose listing diminishes your journal’s reputation.

When you have clicked on the reviewers you want to appoint, select the “Step 2 Assign Reviewers” template from Your Notepad drop-down menu (Figure 8). You can check the letter by clicking on the Preview button. Avoid unhappy editors: do not list or assign any editor as a reviewer. 

At this point, the editor you selected takes over, so typically this paper is out of your hands for about two months while the reviewers enter their reviews, and the editor creates the Decision Letter. The system sends reminders to the reviewers and the editor periodically based on the target dates you set for reminders.


A note about target dates for reviewers and the editor. ISI’s journals endeavor to do things better than most other journals by providing authors with prompt feedback; that is, within a few months. We are mindful that giving reviewers and editors more time does not improve the quality of the work. Typically, you would use the default target date in the system for reviewers to complete their review, which is two weeks hence. We set a short target date on purpose. We don’t expect all reviewers to complete their review by this target date. We suggest that you leave the target date for reviewers at 14 days to allow time for the system to send a few “review is past due” reminders.

We understand human nature is that some reviews will come in late; many of us find time for a task only after it is past due. You would also use the default target date in the system for editors, which is four weeks hence.

We recommend that editors start working on the development letter a couple of weeks after the reviewers’ target date. So, we recommend leaving the target date for editors as 21-28 days hence to allow the system to send a few reminders. This scheduling provides time for late reviews to arrive. If a reviewer asks for an extension, change the due date in the system (see changing the due date) and notify the editor. If the editor asks for an extension, also change the Editor due date in the system.