Peer Review Guidelines

All research articles, along with most other article types, published in Seed Biology undergo peer review, typically involving at least two independent, expert reviewers. 

The submissions undergo a quality check for completeness before being sent to an Editor for evaluation of their suitability for peer review. The editorial board has complete control over the journal's scientific quality control. If the Editor has a conflict of interest, such as being listed as an author or having any other competing interest with the manuscript, another Editorial Board member will be assigned to oversee the peer review process. Editors will take peer-reviewed reports into account when making their decisions but are not obligated to follow the reviewers' opinions or recommendations. Authors will receive the peer review reports along with the editorial decision on their manuscript.

Type of Peer Review

Seed Biology executes a single-blind peer review process. The editors and reviewers know the identities of the authors, but the authors do not know the identities of the editors and reviewers to ensure an independent review process.

Editorial Structure and Role

Editor-in-Chief: An editor-in-chief is the highest-ranking member of the editorial team at a publication. They manage the team of editors, determine the look and feel of the publication, decide what to publish and oversee the publication's operations and policies.

Executive editor: Reports to the editor-in-chief, and oversees the operations of the journal, keeping the team on schedule. With associate editors, makes decisions on submissions, and may be the point of contact between the journal and authors.

Senior Associate Editors: Senior associate editors are highly recognized individuals in their fields of expertise. They are directly responsible for assessing manuscript quality, obtaining peer reviews, requesting revisions where appropriate, and making recommendations to the journal EIC about acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. Due to their recognition and accomplishment in their respective fields, they will also provide advises, including setting goals, directions, recruiting editors to the editorial board, and provide consultation to Associate Editors for some controversial manuscripts, as well as manuscript decision-appeal, retraction, etc..

Associate Editors: Associate editors play a key role in peer-reviewed publishing, supporting the journal EIC as subject experts on various topics. Associate editors are directly responsible for assessing manuscript quality, obtaining peer reviews, requesting revisions where appropriate, and making recommendations to EIC about acceptance or rejection of a manuscript.

Guest editors: They play a vital role in ensuring the quality of special content publications. Contributors whose proposal has been accepted and scheduled for production are appointed as Guest Editors. The decision to approve or reject a proposal is made by the Editor-in-chief, based on the reviews from the editorial board.

Reviewers: They provide feedback on the paper, suggest improvements and make a recommendation to the editor about whether to accept, reject or request changes to the article. The ultimate decision always rests with the editor but reviewers play a significant role in determining the outcome.

Peer Review and Editorial Process

The following describes the first round of reviewing process for all manuscripts submitted to Seed Biology.

When a manuscript is submitted to Seed Biology,

Step 1. It first goes through a quality check (QC) by the editorial office. [timeline: 1 day]

This will ensure all necessary information is included in the submission and prevent plagiarism (include unintentional plagiarism and self-plagiarism) by iThenticate from any published materials prior to sending to a scientific editor for evaluation. A manuscript with more than 15% of similarity index (without reference) will be unaccepted even though the similarity index might be from authors' previous work (self-plagiarism).

Step 2. The editor(s)-in-chief assign each paper to an associate editor, taking expertise and load-balancing issues into account. [timeline: 1 day]

The QC-passed manuscripts will be sent to the editor-in-chief for scientific merit or fitness. The manuscript may be rejected because of low quality, unfit for scope, sent back for major revision, or be assigned to an appropriate associate editor for further evaluation.

Step 3. The handling editor makes the recommendation and pick at least two reviewers for the paper. [timeline: 3-4 days]

The handling editor selects reviewers based on expertise, publication history, and past reviews, and invites them to provide feedback on the manuscript.

Step 4. There is a 2-week deadline for reviewing of the paper. This is expected to be a strict deadline.  [timeline: 3 days]

After the external reviewers submit their review reports, the associate editor will make the recommendation based on the reviewers’ and his/her own assessment to the editor-in-chief; the editor-in-chief will then make a decision. The associate editor makes 1 of 5 recommendations for the paper: (a) Acceptance. (b) Acceptance for publication as is, with encouragement to make minor revisions within 14 days. (c) Major revisions within 1 month. (d) Rejection with encouragement to revise and resubmit within 6 months. (e) Rejection with no possibility.

Step 5. Following that, the editor-in-chief will make the final decision and the editorial office will send the decision letter to the corresponding authors and all co-authors.

This completes the first-round review.

Step 6. Final decision

A manuscript with "Major revision" will be re-reviewed by the original reviewers after a revised version, along with a detailed rebuttal letter, are submitted. In this case second round reviews again have a 2-week deadline. Failure to address the comments and suggestions thoroughly may result in an immediate rejection but multiple rounds of review may be conducted if the revised manuscript engenders new ambiguities and controversies, depending on the editors’ judgement.

A manuscript with "Minor revision" can be assessed by the associate editor without the requirement to send out for additional review. The final decision on every manuscript is made by the editor-in-chief of the respective journal.

A manuscript with "Rejection with encouragement to revise and resubmit" may or may not be reviewed by the same reviewers or associate editor.

A manuscript with "Accepted", it will progress into the preparation stage for publication, the first step of which is copy editing and figure editing (if necessary) followed by typesetting. Proofs will be delivered to the corresponding author(s) through email containing a URL linking to the e-proofing site.

The review process for papers in special issues follows the same protocol as for regular papers.

We unfortunately cannot guarantee that the timeline guidance given in the items above will be met for every submission.

Appeal Process

Appeals will be considered on a case by case basis and must be submitted in writing to the journal's editorial office (seedbio@maxapress.com). Appeals on the basis on novelty or scope are not likely to be granted.