EBT is an open science journal. We have implemented a range of editorial policies to achieve our open science goals and maximise our accountability for the publishing decisions that we make.
Our policies include:
Through these policies we hope to contribute to changes in scientific publishing that will lead to a healthier, better-functioning research ecosystem for toxicology and environmental health.
Instead of merely encouraging or allowing authors to self-publish preprints of their work before submission, we require authors to post a preprint of their submitted manuscript on a third-party-controlled preprint server (preferentially, the EBT Community on Zenodo).
This makes a record of the submission permanently publicly available, so its evolution in response to reviewer comments can be seen by readers. This is a key element of making our decision-making transparent.
We make editorial reviews (triage) and peer-review comments publicly available for anyone to read. After editor and reviewer comments have been made, the handling editor compiles an edited, structured evaluation report. This evaluation report is then published on the EBT Community on Zenodo at the same time it is sent to the submitting authors.
Making reviewer comments and recommendations public may sound intimidating, but we believe it is highly beneficial to authors and peer-reviewers. It incentivises a more constructive, higher-quality review process, allows peer-reviewers to be credited for their contribution, and through transparency makes us accountable for our decision-making.
Because evaluation reports are signed by the handling editor and compiled from reviewer comments, rather than simply copy-pasting comments into an email, the handling editor is incentivised to engage more deeply with reviewer comments when recommending revisions. Unconstructive comments and offensive language can also be edited out.
Detailed triage checks are central to our manuscript handling process, and we commit to providing editor comments on all genuine submissions that we receive.
Triage checks seek to identify standards-compliance issues that are not reliably picked up by peer-review, improving the rigour of the manuscripts that we publish. Our detailed triage checks also allow us to minimise the number of rounds of peer-review while maximising the value of peer-review for all participants in the process.
During triage, we check that: