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1. Screening
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Comments submitted through the Cochrane Library are received by Wiley editorial staff the Editorial and Methods Department (EMD) Comments Support team, who will act within two working days of receipt. Non-approved comments Comments that are not about the Cochrane Review (e.g. comments about the website functionality, access, or display) or are offensive, nonsensical, spam or duplicates will be dealt with by Wiley and a response sent to the contributor. Approved the Comments Support team. All other comments will be sent to the Feedback Managing Editor and Managing Feedback Editor of the relevant Cochrane Review Group (CRG).
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The Feedback Editor assesses the comment and decides:
- Is the comment valid (coherent, sensible, and relevant to the review)? If not, no further action is needed beyond informing the contributor of the decision.
- Does the comment make a substantive comment on the content of the review or a minor comment?
- Substantive comments (see action below).
- Minor comment (see action below).
The Feedback Editor and the Managing Editor should agree the appropriate course of action and share this and the comment with all the review authors.
The Feedback Editor should respond promptly to the comment contributor within two weeks of receipt, acknowledging to acknowledge receipt, thanking the contributor, and explaining how what the comment next steps will be dealt , with and a timeline for action.
The review may or may not be amended or updated, or in extreme cases, withdrawn, in response to a comment.
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The Feedback Editor responds to the contributor informing them of the decision and giving give a brief explanation.
4. Action: dealing with minor comments
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It is important that substantive comments are published as soon as possible, unless the CRG has a compelling reason not to do so, or if the contributor does not wish the comment to be published. Examples of comments that might not be published are those where it becomes apparent that the contributor is clearly mistaken, or when the CRG has a reason to believe that the contributor has a significant, undeclared conflict of interest. The Feedback Editor should raise concerns about conflict of interest with the contributor. All substantive comments should be dealt with published within three monthsweeks after submission.
A response from the review authors is usually sought and should be published promptly, either at the same time as the comment is published, or subsequently. Review authors' responses should be confined to comments about the review itself and should relate directly to the content of the comment. In some cases it may be more appropriate for one of the CRG editorial team to respond.
The key steps are:
- Publish the Comment
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- as soon as possible after receipt
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- (see below).
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- Publish a response from the review author
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- or CRG
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- editorial team.
- If the review needs amending as a result of the comment you can cite or acknowledge the Comment as appropriate. (See Citing comments)
- If the comment is to be dealt with in the next update, this should be indicated in
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- the response to the
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- Comment.
- Inform the Comment contributor of the
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- outcome.
6. Publishing comments
The timing of comment publication, review author’s response, and review changes (if any), is up to the CRG and may depend on the status of the review or the nature of the comment. They can happen in sequence or simultaneously.CRGs should aim to publish substantive comments within three weeks following Comment submission.
In some cases the comment may be edited or summarised summarized (for example if the comment is particularly long with repetitious content, or it goes outside the scope of the review being commented on) by the Feedback Editor, who will send the revised version to the comment contributor, informing them of the intention to publish the revised version. If the The contributor had will have already consented to editing and publication of the comment when they submitted the Comment, so this is a courtesy and if the contributor does not respond within a specified time, the comment is published.The comment is published in the 'Feedback' section of the review. The 'Contributors' section should include the name of the comment contributor and the name of those contributing to the response and their role in the CRG.,
A substantive Comment should be published on the Cochrane Library, and the CRG should aim to publish it within three weeks of its submission.
To publish a Comment the CRG should indicate this to the Comments Support team via the Support ticketing email. The team will then publish the Comment on the Cochrane Library, and notify about publication via the same Cochrane Support ticketing email once this is done.
When the Comment is published the comment contributor receives an automated notification.
The Comment is displayed in the ‘Read comments on this review’ section of a review on the Cochrane Library.
7. Publishing responses
Responses to the original comment should be submitted as new comments using the Commenting system from the review on the Cochrane Library, making sure to clearly indicate which Comment is being responded to; for example, by addressing the commenter and the Comment title. There will be one named author of the response as per the form filled in on the Cochrane Library. The publication process will be managed by the Comments Support team. The original commentor will not receive any automated notification about a response being published.
If the CRG is concerned about too much time elapsing before responding, they can publish a holding statement; for example, “we thank [commenter] for their comments, and the review authors will be responding in due course etc.”
If the authors do not wish to respond or are unable to respond, the CRG should can respond appropriately to the comment in their place. In certain cases, the Editor in Chief or a member of the EMD may publish a response explaining that the author was unable to (or declined to) respond. The comment contributor should be informedto a Comment.