Managing Editor Records

What are editor records and who can add them?

You can receive recognition for your editorial contributions by adding verified editor records of the manuscripts you handle to your Web of Science researcher profile.

An editor record in Web of Science is a record of your contributions to the peer review process as an editor. This means that you recruited reviewers and managed their comments for the paper and were involved in the decision of whether to publish it. If your work is eligible for editor recognition in Web of Science, you are likely to be listed on the journal's website as a contributing editor.

Web of Science Researcher Profiles currently only supports editor records for manuscripts submitted to journals and conferences. Unfortunately, we do not currently accept editor records for patents, essays, books, or other types of editorial records not conducted for journals or conferences. We do hope to provide support for more types of editorial records in the future. We do not verify non-management editorial activity such as language, method and statistical editors.

If you are the author of an “editorial” article you should add this as a publication, not an editor record.

Please note

  1. Administrators of partnered journals can see the editor records you add for their journal and can disavow them if they are fraudulent.

  2. We add editorial records on a per manuscript basis. This means that we do not add separate editor records for every round of revision for the same manuscript.

There are two options you can use to add editor records to your profile. These are:

  1. Forwarding your editorial receipts or editorial management system screenshots to edits@webofscience.com

  2. Adding editor records manually through the forms on the site

Forward your editorial receipts or editorial management system screenshots to edits@webofscience.com

To add and verify your editor records, please send an editor receipt or screenshot of the editorial management system (where your editor records are displayed) to edits@webofscience.com. We will then verify your receipts and add the verified records to your profile.

  1. Editorial receipts are any emails sent during the editorial process which identify you as the handling editor of the paper e.g., "decision has been made" emails.

    • These receipts must contain the journal/conference and title of the paper.

  2. Screenshots of the editorial management system.

    • The screenshots should show a list of your editorial contributions and must contain the journal/conference and title of the manuscript and your name or login.

Invalid editor receipts

  • Receipts that are not considered to be valid editor receipts include the following:

  • Editor receipts without the name of the journal/conference

  • Invitations to edit

  • Acceptance of invitations to edit

  • A word/excel document containing copy and pasted text from the editorial management system (please provide a screenshot of the editorial management system instead)

  • A screenshot of the editorial management system where it is unclear you have handled the role of the editor, or the manuscript is just assigned to you

  • Emails where it is not clear you are addressed as the editor. i.e., the email is addressed to the 'Editor' and has more than one recipient

  • The addressed editor name does not match your profile name

  • A general confirmation that you are an editorial board member of the journal/conference

Add editor records manually through the forms on the site

You can manually add an editor record via the “Manage editor record” form. To find the form:

  • On the sidebar navigation click on: Profile > My records > +Add Editor records

  • From your “My Editor Records” page click on “+ Add an editor record”

Adding a new record:

  1. Enter the title of the journal or conference and where possible the manuscript’s decision date.

  2. Now you can search for publication details in the “Article” section of the form. At least a title is required to create an editor record, but we encourage you to add as much detail as possible.

    • Search by title or an identifier (DOI, Web of Science accession number, PubMed ID or arXiv ID), we will retrieve any further details we can and give you a chance to update them to your satisfaction.

  3. You can then give the reviewers of the manuscript recognition by adding their names, email addresses and date of their reviews. We will send them a link to add the review record to their own profile.

  4. Press ‘Create’ to finish

If you add editor records manually in this way, they will not be verified yet. You can verify these records by forwarding the corresponding editor receipt to edits@webofscience.com with the record’s editor record ID copied into the email’s body. You will find the ID on the edit page of your newly created record. From your ‘My Editor Records’ page please click on the ‘edit’ button on the relevant record, you will see the record ID on the right of this page.

Note: You are unable to create new journal entries. If you would like to add a review for a journal not in our database through the forms on the site, please contact us with the journal title, URL and ISSN and any other relevant information and we will add it for you.

If you need to edit one of your editor records, please follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to your ‘My Editor Records’ page.

  2. Click on the ‘edit’ button on the relevant record.

  3. Here you may add any additional information, for example the DOI of the manuscript if it has recently been published.

  4. You may also invite reviewers of the manuscript to receive credit for their reviews here and provide feedback to reviewers you have already invited.

If you need to delete one of your editor records, please follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to your ‘My Editor Records’ page.

  2. Click on the ‘delete’ button on the relevant record.

  3. Please then confirm your request.

The record will now be removed from your profile. Associated reviews will not be deleted but feedback on them will.

Not all reviews are equal. Some reviews are so good they help the author(s) to advance their work and the editor to make an informed and timely publishing decision. These kinds of reviews help deliver breakthrough, verified research to the world faster.

Inviting reviewers

Once you have invited the reviewers of a paper you have added as an editorial record to your profile, you can then provide feedback on their reviews.

You can invite reviewers:

  1. When you add a new editor record

  2. By clicking on the ‘edit’ button on an existing record

Add their names, email addresses and date of their reviews. We will then send them a link to add the review record to their own profile.

Providing feedback

Once the reviewers have been invited you can now provide feedback for their reviews. On the ‘edit’ page of the editor record in question please scroll down to the ‘Give reviewers credit’ section and then click on ‘Score review’ next to the relevant reviewer’s name.

Editors rate the quality of reviews on a four-point scale, across four dimensions:

  • Clarity:

    • The review was easily read and interpreted by the editor and authors

  • Helpfulness:

    • Comments were constructive, relevant, and realistic

  • Thoroughness:

    • The review considered all aspects of the paper including methodology, figures, interpretation and presentation of results, ethics, relevance, etc.

  • Timeliness:

    • The review assignment was completed within the time limits established by the editor

You can also optionally provide constructive criticism in the available text box. Once you have scored the review and provided your feedback click on ‘Save changes’ to finish.

Notes:

  • A review is deemed 'Excellent' if it receives a score of 13 or more out of a possible 16.

  • Poor = 1 point Below Average = 2 points Average = 3 points Exceptional = 4 points

  • Exact scores are completely confidential. Written feedback is privileged between the editor and reviewer.

  • Excellent reviews receive a gold star on the reviewer's profile and are an indicator of where reviewers have gone above and beyond.

  • Excellent reviews which are signed and/or published will also have a gold star displayed against them on their article detail or review content pages.

  • Scored reviews which do not meet the requirements for excellence are publicly indistinguishable from unscored reviews.