Reviewer Guide

Overview of being a reviewer

Editors using Scholastica to manage their journal's peer review can have their reviewers’ feedback submitted on Scholastica in order to keep the entire article management process in one easy-to-use place. Reviewers can read a manuscript, fill out the feedback form and submit their review - all through their Scholastica account.

Below are the most common actions that you can take in your account as a reviewer. Click on a topic below to jump to the section.

Create an Account 

The most typical way to create an account is when you accept your first invitation to review using Scholastica! If you'd like to create an account before your first invitation to review, follow the steps found here : Sign up and Create an Account

Accepting your first invitation to review

1. Find the invitation

As a reviewer, you will receive the invitation via email. The email will look something like this :  

When you're being invited to review a manuscript on Scholastica and have never used the site before, there are two important things to note:

  1. Scholastica does not automatically provide you with a username and password in your invitation to review
  2. PLEASE NOTE THE EMAIL ADDRESS THAT WAS USED TO INVITE YOU — that is the email address that you’ll use to sign into your Scholastica account if you accept the invitation and claim your account.
  3. Need to update the email address for your account? No problem! You must accept the invitation and create & confirm your account. Once you login to your account, you can update the email address under 'My Account' (read more here).

Email invitation highlighting the email address used 

2. Accept the invitation

Click the link in your email to be taken to the following page where you'll click Accept :

3. Create a password and fill in your account details

Once you accept the invitation, you’ll need to create a password and enter a few details like your name, institution, and specialties in order to claim your account and log into Scholastica for the first time. 

4. Final Step - Confirm your account

Go to the inbox of the email address that you received the invitation to and look for the email with a subject line that reads "Confirmation instructions". Open the email and follow the instructions to confirm your account. 

Congratulations! You'll now be able to login to Scholastica at any time using the email address on the screen (the one that was used to invite you) and the password you just chose.

Related article : I can't find the confirmation email?

NOTE

Please do NOT create more than one account; when you make a second account using a different email address than the one used to invite you, you will not be able to access the manuscript to which you were invited.
If you need to update your email address or personal details you can do so by follow the steps here.

Login

Once you've created your account you don't need to rely on the invitation email, you can easily login by following the steps below.
  1. Go to here
  2. Enter the email address that you used to create your account 
  3. Enter the password that you created
    • If you cannot remember your password, please click "Forgot your password" and follow the instructions to reset it
  4. Click "Login to Scholastica" to finish logging in

Related Article : Trouble Logging in

Update Account Information

When you're first invited to review a manuscript using Scholastica's peer review management system, you must create an account using the email address that a journal chose for you. Since we collect email addresses like fond memories these days, you may want to choose a different email address to manage your Scholastica account. Below, we show you how to update your account information, including your email address.

To update your email address or password

  • Log into your Scholastica account (go directly to login page)
  • Click on your name at the top right of the page
  • Click My Account

  1. Enter your new email address in the top text field
  2. *optional - Enter a new password in the middle text field (you do not need to update the password in order to update the email and visa versa)
  3. Enter your current password to confirm the changes
  4. Go to your email inbox (of your new email address) to locate the confirmation email to confirm your new email address

Note : If updating your email address, you will need to confirm the email through your inbox before the update is completed. Once confirmed, you should be able to login to your account.

To update personal information

Over time, you may need to edit details like your name, school affiliation, profile picture, etc. To do so, follow the steps below

  • Log into your Scholastica account (go directly to login page)
  • Click on your name at the top right of the page
  • Click My Profile

  1. Click Edit Profile
  2. Update any of the text fields that you need to
  3. Save your changes by scrolling to the bottom of the page an clicking Update Profile

Please note : This personal profile page is visible to Scholastica users.

Accept or Decline a Reviewer Invitation

You will be notified about your reviewer invitation in two ways:

  1. Via an email notification to the email address you use to sign into Scholastica
  2. Via a notification on your Dashboard 

When viewing an invitation to review a manuscript, you'll see the manuscript's abstract and keywords. Some journals may also allow you to see the author's name or to read the manuscript itself.
  • To accept, first click Accept or Decline
  • Then, once on the Manuscript Details page click Accept Invitation
  • To decline, click Decline with opportunity to suggest reviewers
    • If you know of reviewers more suited to review this manuscript, you'll be prompted to enter their names and/or email addresses after you've clicked Decline

Find the Manuscript Details

Read and review manuscripts right on Scholastica or download the PDF and read it wherever you like. All of the files that a journal has chosen to share with you can be found in your account by clicking My Reviews.

Reading the manuscript

Scholastica provides a simple, distraction-free environment for reading manuscripts. You can also download the manuscript and / or supplemental files to your computer to read offline.

  • From your Dashboard, click My Reviews
    • Manuscripts you've agreed to review are listed on this page. If you don't see a manuscript you're looking for, check your Dashboard for the invitation and be sure you've accepted it
    • Find the manuscript you want to read
    • Click Actions, then choose View manuscript details or files

  • From the Reviewer Work Area, click Read manuscript.
    • Read the manuscript on this page, or click the PDF icon to download it to your computer. You can also view supporting files by clicking the paperclip icon and the manuscript's details by clicking the "i" icon.

Submit a review

Once you’ve read the manuscript it’s on to the last step -- filling out the review form to share your feedback with the editors!

  • From the My Reviews page click Actions
  • Click Write Review
    • From the Reviewer Work Area, click Write Review
  • Click Write Review
    • Overview questions are required and will only be visible to editors.
    • Editors can also add extra questions based on a 1-5 agreement scale, or open text response. These questions will be individually marked as to whether they are exclusively visible to editors or will be shared with authors.
    • You can save your review at any time by clicking the Save button on the right side of the page. Your review will automatically save every 15 -10 seconds.
    • When you have filled out every field on the review form, click the Save button then choose save and submit review to submit your review to the journal
      • The review form on Scholastica supports Markdown and LaTeX formatting so you can add hyperlinks, use LaTeX to add equations in your review, and more! For a guide on how to use Markdown to add formatting, please click here.
    • Please note: Once submitted, the review cannot be edited. If you have any clarifying points you'd like to share with the editors after you've submitted your review you can do so via Discussions.

    Tips on writing helpful peer review comments

    DO:

    • List positive aspects of the paper before getting into the improvements that could be made
    • Use the journal-provided reviewer form to guide the feedback you give
    • Avoid working on more than one peer review per day if possible to avoid decision fatigue

    DON’T:

    • Give vague feedback without any context like “this is unclear”
    • Be afraid to ask for support or recommend that editors follow up with another reviewer if areas of the paper are outside your range of expertise
    More information and tips from fellow peer reviewers : How to Write Helpful Peer Review Comments

    Submitted reviews

    When you've successfully submitted your review, you'll be sent an email notification when your review was successfully submitted (see example image below). You can view a history of your submitted reviews as well as active reviewer invitations on your My Reviews page.

Communicate with the Journal

Discussions

Reviewers can discuss a particular manuscript with the manuscript's editors using Discussions. Read How do discussions work? for additional details.

Email the journal

  • Journals can be contacted via email on their profile pages.
  • You can search or browse journals on the browse page.
  • Click Send message to journal; an email message to the journal’s primary contact will be opened.

FAQs

Can't find the review

You've followed the instructions and you're on the My Reviews page, but you cannot find the manuscript that you recently agreed to review. Perhaps worse, you don't even see a My Reviews button in the navigation bar.
Don't worry, the invitation likely hasn't expired, it's more likely that you are logged into the wrong account. Sometimes reviewers accidentally create duplicate accounts without knowing it. If you suspect that this is the case for you, please email us at support (support@scholasticahq.com or use the 'email us button' on this page) with the details of your account and we can almost always merge the accounts for you so that you can access all of your Scholastica work in one place.

I don't see the supplemental files

All of the files that a journal has chosen to share with you can be found in the files table when looking at the manuscript details. If you suspect that you should see more files than you currently have access to, please reach out directly to the journal via Discussions to notify them. Editors have tools within their accounts to set viewing permissions for files and they may have mistakenly denied access to important files. 

The review won't submit  

One of the most common reasons that a review cannot be submitted is because the reviewer must fill out every field of the reviewer form. Anecdotally, the first three questions are the fields that are typically left unanswered (star rating, recommendation and comments to the editors). Start by scanning the form for missing information and a red notification that a required field is missing. 

    Additional Troubleshooting

    Contact Scholastica

    If you have any questions about anything to do with Scholastica (trouble logging in, accepting the invitation to review, etc.) please feel free to reach out! Our Contact Form can be found here