Transfer submissions to Central Editorial Service

Submissions which are not yet ready for external peer review

• Submissions transferred to Central Editorial Service should be ready for external peer review.
• The Invite Reviewers function will be available on the Central Editorial Service site only, from 1 December 2023.
• If any of the submissions that you are currently managing will not be ready for external peer review by this date, please contact Cochrane Support. The submission on your site will be closed, and authors will be invited to submit to Central Editorial Service at a later deadline of your choosing, when they have a draft ready for peer review. 

Submissions which are ready for peer review or where peer review has been completed

• These submissions can be transferred directly to the Central Editorial Service if you will not reach an Accept decision by 28 February 2024.
• Contact Cochrane Support to request a transfer. 
• Authors will receive a notification to let them know their submission has been transferred.
• Before requesting a transfer, please add all information listed below above to the Manuscript Notes, and any documentation to the File Inventory.
• Best timepoints for transfer: 
  • When a submission is ready for peer review, before inviting peer reviewers
  • Before making a revise decision and sending comments back to authors
  • After making the accept decision (before initiating production) 

Add relevant information for Central Editorial Service before transfer

Additional information and comments should be added as Manuscript Notes which will be visible to editors in the Central Editorial Service after transfer. The required information includes:

• Is this a priority submission (e.g. funded, has been commissioned, or does it address a priority question identified through a formal prioritisation process etc)? Or, why is the review important?
• Are there any deadlines that need to be met for publication (and if so the dates and people/organisations involved)?
• Who conducted/arranged the search for the article? 
• Has the CRG provided any support to the development of the review?
• Has Editorial Manager been used for the full editorial process so far? 
• If transferring before peer review:
  • Do the CRG or authors have recommendations for clinical/content, or consumer peer reviewers (not mandatory)?
• If transferring before peer review and/or acceptance:
  • Do the CRG have recommendations for a sign-off editor (sign-off editors should not have been involved in any aspect of the development of this article prior to submission - e.g. assisting authors, advising on protocol development etc)?

• If transferring after peer review but before acceptance:

  • Please state explicitly the type of peer review process – internal (CRG) only? Or involved external referees?
  • Provide name/type/number of referees (methods, search, content, consumer) who provided comments *This is so that Central Editorial Service can minimise duplication of efforts and decide what type of/how many additional peer referees are needed
• If transferring after acceptance (for production only):
  • Any editorial decisions or choices that affect the final version of the review, particularly any agreed use of non-standard methods or formatting. Copy Editors are familiar with Cochrane standards and spot discrepancies which can lead to queries in production. You can pre-empt queries by sharing information.  
  • Whether your CRG usually has preferred language spelling on publication, of British (i.e. UK), American (i.e. US), or no preference. Please note: if no information is provided the Central Editorial Service will specify no preference.
  • Numbers of included and excluded studies (reviews and updates). 
• Any other important information the CRG would like to share with the Central Editorial Service:
  • Comments made by editors (including minor comments that still need to be addressed by authors)
  • Revisions already made by authors
  • Problems encountered prior to submission including whether the editorial process started outside Editorial Manager and any potential conflict of interests. Files can be shared.

Open the Details on the Action menu and scroll down to Manuscript Notes. Enter information and Save and Close.

You can also add File attachments on the Details screen if you have additional documentation or checklists to share.

When you transfer additional documentation associated with the editorial process, please use the naming conventions listed below and include the date in the DDMMYYYY format. This is particularly important if parts of the editorial process have been managed offline.

• Collated editorial and peer reviewer comments_DATE E.g. Collated editorial and peer reviewer comments_06072023
• Author rebuttal to peer review_DATE 
• Editorial check of author rebuttal_DATE 

Note: Production notes aren’t currently transferred automatically. When available, any relevant production notes should be copied over to the Manuscript Notes field before transferring. Please also add the heading 'Production Notes' to differentiate from manuscript notes.