Author Reply.

Sir,

Many thanks for your valuable comments1 on our recent editorial2 and previous editorials on similar issues.3456 The Indian Journal of Orthopaedics (IJO) editorial team is committed to take IJO to new heights. Suggestion from all are welcome.

We agree with you that submission to publication time is a very important matrix for editorial team members, and prolonged submission to publication process results in author fatigue, dejection, and unwillingness to submit to that journal. We are aware of this and are trying to minimize it as much as possible. In the year 2017, our submission to decision time was 42.52 days, which was lower than all previous years [Figure 1]. We wish to congratulate each and every member of the editorial team and reviewers for helping us to achieve it. We do agree that there are some manuscripts which do require longer time, especially if they are too technical and have complex statistics or if the topic is too specialised. This happens mainly due to the inability to get adequate reviewers’ comments in the first instance due to which they have to be sent for external peer review multiple times. However, we try our best to ensure that such instances are far and few.

Figure 1

Review timeline bar diagram

The review process is the heart and soul7 of the whole editorial process, and we maintain its sanctity at all cost. As pointed out by you, some innovative steps are definitely required to improve it. Some initiatives that we have taken are as follows:

A committee of senior editorial team members has been formulated to expand the reviewer database and especially include reviewers with subspecialty interest

The idea of rating the reviewers is being actively explored. The editors are in touch with the publishers on this. Once the logistics are worked out, only reviewers with a certain cut off rating would be retained and others would be eased out

The allotment of manuscripts would be further rationalized so that reviewers are optimally selected and utilized

Structured reviews in the form of standardized review forms are a good idea. Some journals have moved to this method, where reviewers are provided with pre-structured review form and they have to give a minimum number of comments on each part of the manuscript, such as introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, tables, and figures etc. We definitely agree with you that the reviewers are the unsung heroes of the whole review process and need more recognition and incentives. We have had a number of discussions on this in the editorial team meetings and also with the executives of the Indian Orthopaedic Association. As and when decisions are taken, we would definitely pass on those benefits to the reviewers.

We are committed to improving not only the quality of the journal, but also the working of editorial team and review process. We have been doing this through editorials in the IJO, IJO session in the IOACON, and editorial team meetings. In the future, we plan to increase them further and we also plan to conduct research methodology workshops/sessions.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.