HSR - Health Services Research

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Reviewers

Brief User Guide to Manuscript Central for HSR

HSR has adopted the use of Manuscript Central, an online manuscript submission and peer review mechanism developed by ScholarOne.

Benefits to Authors and Reviewers  Straightforward and rapid    submission of manuscripts  Direct access by authors to    manuscript tracking information  Better matching of reviewer    expertise to the needs of each    manuscript  Reduced likelihood of    overwhelming reviewers with    multiple requests  Immediate availability of    manuscripts to reviewers for    viewing online or downloading  Online reviewer report forms    for sending comments directly to    the editorial office; all    communication by e-mail  Savings in time and mailing costs    for authors and reviewers  All-around increase in decision    speeds, shorter handling time,    and faster publication time  Built-in safeguards to ensure    anonymity of authors and    reviewers during the review    process

Current and future authors and reviewers, please take this opportunity to create a user account, so that you will be ready when the time comes to submit a manuscript or review. In creating an account, you will also facilitate our efforts to make appropriate matches between reviewers and manuscripts.

Filling in all the necessary information should take no more than five minutes. Log in at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hsr. Please use your e-mail address for your User ID. Once you have logged in, please select the edit your information button to fill in your user profile. Then navigate to the Author Center or Reviewer Center, where you will find instructions on how to proceed.

It is particularly important that you populate the Specialty/Area of Expertise and Keywords fields. The site contains roughly 50 subject areas that characterize the bulk of the articles published by HSR over the past decade. Following the subject headings is a list of disciplines and areas of expertise (each preceded by an asterisk) to be used by reviewers to characterize articles and by authors to suggest the expertise needed to assess certain papers.

You will note that some categories are very broad and some very specific. Please check all that apply to you. Use the free text box to provide more information (e.g., after "qualitative methods" one might add "ethnography, but not focus groups").

Checking more categories does not mean you will be deluged with reviewing requests from us. In fact, knowing how to make a more specific match will reduce the number of requests, and the ones you do get will be better targeted to your interest. Furthermore, by logging into your account you can let us know when you will be unavailable. The online submission system will alert the editors if you are already reviewing manuscripts for us, so we will be much more reluctant to ask that you take on an additional manuscript.

And when you submit a manuscript yourself, you will use this same account and speed the review of your own manuscript.

We know your time is valuable. This system will ultimately save you time and expense in communicating with us.

If you have problems, questions, or suggestions for improvements, please contact HSR Managing Editor Meighan Schreiber at hsr@itsa.ucsf.edu.

Thanks, and welcome to the community of HSR authors and reviewers.