Editors are the gatekeepers of scholarly journals. It’s their job to maintain rigorous, transparent, and ethical peer review processes.
So what happens if an editor wants to submit a manuscript to their own publication as an author? How can journal teams ensure such situations are handled ethically?
In this blog post, we break down industry best practices for managing editor-authored submissions and how you can implement Scholastica’s Automatic Editor-Author Restricting feature to prevent potential conflicts of interest (COIs) when processing papers from members of your team.
How should journals manage submissions authored by their editors to prevent COIs?
First, let’s talk about industry guidelines. Editors are usually the ones vetting incoming submissions. But sometimes they may have a manuscript they want to submit to their own journal. What to do?
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has stated that it is reasonable for editors to submit to their own journals, particularly in narrow fields where their choice of similar alternative publication venues may be limited, as long as “every effort is made to minimise any bias in the review process.” In such situations, the best practice according to COPE is for the editor-author to remain completely separate from the handling of their submission, including submission intake, editor and reviewer assignment, and the decision-making process.
COPE also advises journals to anonymize editor-authored submissions to reduce potential handling bias (though the Committee acknowledges that anonymization may not eliminate COIs if editors and reviewers can infer who wrote the paper based on its subject matter). In such cases, if the editor-authored submission is accepted, COPE suggests that the journal consider publishing a commentary on how peer review was handled for that manuscript to ensure transparency.
Can I restrict editors from accessing Scholastica submissions that they authored?
Yes! We added Automatic Editor-Author Restricting to Scholastica’s Peer Review System configuration options to help journals prevent potential conflicts of interest (COIs) when handling submissions made by their own editors.
When the feature is enabled, Scholastica automatically removes an editor’s editor-level access from any submission made after that point if it includes their Scholastica account email address among the authors (primary or co-author). Restricted editor-authors cannot view reviewer reports, editorial discussions, decision-making activity, or other confidential peer review information related to their own manuscript.
We know many journals already have policies requiring editors to recuse themselves from handling their own submissions. But, until now, journal teams needed to remove editor access manually when a conflict arose. With Automatic Editor-Author Restricting enabled, Scholastica handles this step for you, helping your team:
- Reduce the risk of accidental conflicts of interest by automatically enforcing your journal’s COI policies at the time of submission.
- Save administrative time by eliminating manual manuscript processing steps for editor-authored papers.
- Promote editorial consistency by ensuring the same COI management process is applied to every editor-authored submission.
How to restrict editors from papers they authored using Scholastica
Admins can activate the Automatic Editor-Author Restricting feature by following the steps in this help document. Once enabled, editors will automatically be restricted from editor-level access to any new submissions that include their Scholastica account email address or existing submissions that include their Scholastica email address if they are invited to manage one of those papers.
When assigning editors to a submission via the Scholastica Manuscript Table, editors will see the label “(also an author)” next to any editor whose email address matches an author on that submission. This label appears regardless of whether Automatic Editor-Author Restricting is enabled to help journals identify potential conflicts of interest when assigning editors.
Putting it all together
At the end of the day, it’s not uncommon for an editor to want to submit a manuscript to their own journal when it seems like the best fit. Fortunately, you can maintain publication integrity without forgoing your chances of publishing novel research from your team. You just have to ensure you adhere to proper ethical procedures to acknowledge and avoid potential COIs.
By following the best practices outlined in this blog post and implementing Automatic Editor-Author Restricting in Scholastica’s Peer Review System, you can allow editors to submit to your journal as appropriate without concerns of anyone accidentally becoming privy to information about the handling of their submission that they should not be able to access.
We hope you found this feature overview useful! Subscribe to the blog to stay tuned for future Scholastica updates, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact us — we’re here to help!
