title: Review time in peer review: quantitative analysis and modelling of editorial workflows.
abstract: In this paper, we undertake a data-driven theoretical investigation of editorial workflows. We analyse a dataset containing information about 58 papers submitted to the Biochemistry and Biotechnology section of the Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society. We separate the peer review process into stages that each paper has to go through and introduce the notion of completion rate - the probability that an invitation sent to a potential reviewer will result in a finished review. Using empirical transition probabilities and probability distributions of the duration of each stage we create a directed weighted network, the analysis of which allows us to obtain the theoretical probability distributions of review time for different classes of reviewers. These theoretical distributions underlie our numerical simulations of different editorial strategies. Through these simulations, we test the impact of some modifications of the editorial policy on the efficiency of the whole review process. We discover that the distribution of review time is similar for all classes of reviewers, and that the completion rate of reviewers known personally by the editor is very high, which means that they are much more likely to answer the invitation and finish the review than other reviewers. Thus, the completion rate is the key factor that determines the efficiency of each editorial policy. Our results may be of great importance for editors and act as a guide in determining the optimal number of reviewers.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, 00-662 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Maciej J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Mrowinski
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, 00-662 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Agata
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fronczak
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Koszykowa 75, 00-662 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fronczak
authors.affiliation: Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy (INEP), University of Belgrade, Banatska 31b, Belgrade-Zemun, Serbia.
authors.forename: Olgica
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Nedic
authors.affiliation: School of Management, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH UK ; eHumanities Group, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (NKVA), Joan Muyskenweg 25, 1096 CJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands ; Group of Researchers for Applications of Physics in Economy and Sociology (GRAPES), Rue de la Belle Jardiniere 483, 4031 Angleur, Belgium.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ausloos
keywords: Editorial process; Peer review; Weighted directed graph