Sage Journals Information

They should be a specialist in the chosen subject, and ideally will be sufficiently well-networked internationally to bring top authors to the journal. They should also be well-organized and have time available to lead the project through to completion. 

Ensure you validate the credentials of guest editors and that guest editors have clear understanding of the commissioning and editing processes of the content of the special issue in accordance with the journal’s guidelines and have agreed to act in accordance with the journal’s policies.

Ensure they are fully committed to Sage peer review best practice, including restrictions around recommended reviewers, and best practices for guest edited collections as recommended by COPE.

• Ask your guest editor to summarize the rationale for the issue, the approach they envisage taking and the areas they wish to cover.  The proposal should ideally include a list of proposed paper topics and potential authors. You may like to consult your editorial board before agreeing to the proposal with the guest editor. The guest editor may wish to publish some of their own research in the special issue. Please make it clear to them papers they are authoring must be dealt with independently and be subject to the same peer review process as all other submissions to the journal.
• Contact your publishing editor at the start of the process and they can provide a written agreement (signed by Sage and the guest editor) setting out roles and responsibilities in order to formalize the arrangement once the proposal has been agreed. Guest editors should have clear terms and conditions of their role and have a full understanding of the ethos of the journal, as well as the peer review and publishing model.
• Drafting a Call for Papers. Once the proposal is agreed, you/the guest editor can create a Call for Papers to be published on your journal’s website and circulated to the community. A Call for Papers should include:
  • Title of the special issue.
  • Targeted publication date (you might want to just specify the volume/ year rather than a specific month/issue in case there is some slippage).
  • Name and contact details of the guest editor/s.
  • Date of when abstracts should be submitted.
  • Date of when final manuscript should be submitted.
  • Aims and scope of the special issue.
  • A link to submission guidelines.

You can find a template Call for Paper here.

Take steps to ensure that contributions from guest editors and their close colleagues (with close professional or personal relationships) are limited to a small part of the content of the guest edited collections, to avoid real or perceived competing interests, as well as endogeny and publishing cartels.

Statements should be provided by the guest editors of the collection for any conflicts of interests (real, potential, or perceived) related to the topic of the research (e.g. existing patents or ongoing patent applications, institution or company non-disclosure agreements, sponsorship of publishing fees for the collection by the hiring institution, or ongoing collaborations or other connections with invited authors) as well as any other relevant conflicts of interests. If the editor-in-chief has competing interests with the collection, or does not have the capacity to handle more guest edited issues, another relevant editor of the board, or member of the editorial office, should be assigned as the contact and coordinator for these queries.

• They are responsible for managing the peer review of articles submitted for the special issue in accordance with the journal’s standard practice, Sage’s ethical and publishing policies and Sage peer review best practice.
• They should ensure the complete and full peer review of all articles, reviewing peer reviewer comments, communicating necessary changes to the contributor and assessing final contributor changes before final decision making. If they do not comply with the ethical and quality standards of the Journal, or the production schedule, this may result in the postponement or rejection of the special issue. 
• They will make final recommendations on decisions to you as  the journal editor. As the journal editor, you have the final say on manuscript decisions and if any of the material is not up to quality and/or ethical standard, you have the right to refuse publication.
• The guest editor may wish to publish some of their own research in the special issue. Papers authored by guest editors must be dealt with independently and be subject to the same peer review process as all other submissions to the journal. They will be encouraged to contribute an Editorial, if permitted by the journal’s policy.
• Guest editors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest relating to the submitting authors or submitted manuscripts. This includes papers authored by members of their own lab and any other authors based at the guest editor's institution. 
• The journal editor and the guest editor should work together to help diversify the authorship of the journal where possible. For suggestions on how to do that, read Taking action on diversity.

• Curate a collection of high quality articles on a topic of interest.
• Advance their career and demonstrate leadership in their field.
• Gain invaluable editorial and organizational experience.
• Strengthen and grow their research networks.
• Make a meaningful impact in their field.

Running a special issue can:

• Provide an enduring association between the guest editor and the topic chosen, as the research featured will be read for years to come.
• Boost the impact of the guest editor/s work by providing increased exposure and expansion of the research network.
• Provide practical experience of journal editing, and deeper insights into how the peer-review process ought to work. This can streamline the publishing process for the guest editor in the future, and lead to additional roles.

It is important to find the right balance:

• Include people with a range of subject interests, ideally covering the breadth of the journal’s subject area. 
• Consider gender, ethnicity, and geographical location.
• Maintain a majority of active board members versus star names who are lending their prestige. 
• Invite members of the sponsoring society, if appropriate.

Set out clearly the expected term of service and the parameters of the role: outline duties, responsibilities and expectations.

Peer review: This is an integral part of being an editorial board member, though where possible do spread the workload. If your journal uses Sage track, check to see which reviewers are used frequently and which you have not asked for a while in order to avoid overburdening people.

Journal ambassadors: Board members should act as ambassadors for the journal, sourcing potential authors and readers and also potential subscribers in their region. They can also encourage their students and colleagues to read and cite the journal.

Editorial strategy advisors: Board members can be a huge source of inspiration and advice and are often happy to be involved in the development of the journal. Ask for their input into the future strategy of the journal, considering topics such as:

• What do they see as the direction for the journal? Is it meeting the needs of the scholarly community? 
• Competitor comparisons—what are they doing well? 
• Ideas and innovations—what is the future of scholarly publishing? 
• What is working? What is not?

Some practical management tips:

• Regularly review the balance of the board members.
• Make changes as necessary; don’t be afraid to bring in new people. 
• Set terms of service in order to refresh the board on a regular basis, inviting new members and gracefully removing inactive members. 
• Ask for feedback and be responsive. 
• Provide updates on staff changes at Sage. 
• Communicate regularly—set up an email distribution list to facilitate communication and keep members updated on journal developments throughout the year. 
• If possible, hold regular board meetings at suitable conferences. Video and conference call meetings are also a good option when trying to work around busy schedules. 
• Ensure that Sage has email addresses of all board members so that we can provide them with complimentary subscriptions.

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID 

ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. Visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

Researchers can also use their ORCID to gain recognition of their peer reviewing activities. Read ORCID’s six tips for building an authoritative ORCID record here: https://orcid.org/blog/2017/08/10/six-ways-make-your-orcid-id-work-you

Though many reviewers value the opportunity to participate in scholarly dialogues in this way as highly regarded experts in their field, by and large reviewing papers is unpaid and can add significantly to their overall workload. The academic publishing community relies on an enormous amount of goodwill from reviewers and at Sage, we are committed to ensuring our reviewers feel appreciated. This encourages continual reviewer participation and helps to improve the timeliness and quality of reviews. 

Over the last few years, several studies have looked into whether peer-reviewers are burdened with reviews. The Scholarly Kitchen blog (on discussing the findings of three surveys "Are Peer-Reviewers Overloaded? Or Are Their Incentives Misaligned?") concluded the following in terms of encouraging participation and incentivizing reviewers: 

• Provide reviewers with free access to journal content
• Acknowledge reviewers periodically in the journal
• Provide reviewers with feedback on the outcome of the review decision
• Give reviewers feedback on the quality of their review
• Reward the best reviewers with appointments to the editorial board

Read the full post on Scholarly Kitchen.

Sage agrees with these conclusions and we recommend that you put some or all of these in place as a Sage journal editor. At Sage, we offer all reviewers free online access to all Sage journals and for 60 days as well as a discount of 25% on Sage books each time they submit a review. Any reviewers appointed to the editorial board will receive an online subscription to the journal. Visit the Reviewer Rewards page for more information.

• Present Reviewer of the Year awards at annual board meetings 
• Reserve a page in the journal at the end of the year thanking reviewers and listing their names 
• 'Promote' prolific reviewers to the Editorial Board to formally acknowledge their contribution
• Offer to write letters of recommendation

Best practice - improving quality of reviews

Advice on selecting reviewers

Although the vast majority of authors and reviewers act with great integrity, and we are enormously indebted to them we would also like to help you in reducing your journal’s exposure to any unscrupulous practices that may exist. 
If a reviewer does not have an institutional email address, and/or you are concerned about a reviewer’s authenticity we advise you to follow the steps below:

• Search for the reviewer's name and institution to find their institutional email address.
• Search for the reviewer's email address in a search engine: a fake email address will not be registered anywhere and is unlikely to appear in results.
• Search for the reviewer's publication history; is the name, email address and institution on their account up-to-date and consistent with their past publications?

Please do not hesitate to contact your Publishing Editor if you are unsure or have any questions. 

COPE has produced a flowchart: How to spot potential manipulation of the peer review process.  Designed to help Editors recognize potential signs of peer review manipulation, the features or patterns of activity shown may indicate a potential issue, particularly when found in combination.

Recommended and opposed reviewers

Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web based submission system or other communication.

Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

• The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors.
• The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper.
• The author has recommended the reviewer.
• The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).

See Selecting and Inviting Reviewers for information and guidance on reviewer selection best practices.