Publishing Terms & Definitions
Glossary
Approval Status: Approved
An Approved rating means that the
reviewer has asked either for no changes to the article or only a few small changes. For original research, this means that the experimental design, including controls and methods, is adequate; results are presented accurately and the conclusions are justified and supported by the data. An article with two Approved ratings, or one Approved and two
Approved with Reservations ratings, will be considered to have passed peer review.
Approval Status: Approved with Reservations
An Approved with Reservations rating means that the
reviewer believes the paper has academic merit, but has asked for a number of small changes to the article, or specific, sometimes more significant revisions. An article with two
Approved ratings, or one
Approved and two Approved with Reservations ratings, will be considered to have passed peer review.
Approval Status: Not Approved
A Not Approved rating means that a
reviewer considers the research in the article to have fundamental flaws and the work overall to be of poor quality. The article is still published and the authors are encouraged to revise their article to respond to the concerns raised by the reviewer.
Article Processing Charge (APC)
All content published on Open Research Europe is fully Open Access immediately on publication. The European Commission pays the APC centrally which means that authors are not charged but are asked, on submission, to provide details of their Horizon 2020 grant. More detail about APCs is
available here.
Awaiting Peer Review
Peer review takes place after publication and articles that have not yet received any
peer review are labelled as “Awaiting peer review”. Articles awaiting peer review are officially published and can be cited (for example in manuscripts, CVs, or grant applications), because the citation includes details of the
reviewer status, making it clear to everyone what stage of peer review the article has reached. Readers who later follow the citation link to view the paper will be able to see its current peer review status.
CC-0 (Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication license)
Where possible, data associated with articles published in Open Research Europe should be made available under the terms of a
Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC-0 license) to facilitate and encourage data re-use. Use of a CC-0 license also helps prevent ‘attribution stacking’, which occurs when combining separate datasets produced by different authors that are held under multiple different licenses.
CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution license)
Open Research Europe articles are
published under a
CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and leaves the copyright of the article with the current copyright holder (usually the author or his/her institution).
Crossmark
Crossmark is a version management tool from Crossref that enables users to check and see if an article has been updated. It is of particular benefit in the case of PDF files where, regardless of when the file was downloaded and where it has been stored, readers who are online can click on the Crossmark icon, and see if a new
peer review or a new version of the article is available. If one is available, Crossmark will link the user directly to the updated version.
Data note
Open Research Europe publishes Data Notes as an article type in its own right. Data Notes describe datasets and their associated protocols only, without any interpretation or conclusion. Many journals will accept submissions of full-length research articles that are based on datasets with a DOI and associated protocol information previously
published. See the
article guidelines for a full list of article types, and see our
data policies to see which journals accept work based on published data notes.
DOI
Each
version of an article, and each
peer review, as well as some datasets within articles, have their own unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Every object with a DOI can be cited, so it is possible to reference a specific
version of an article, a specific peer review or a dataset associated with an article.
F1000Research
Open Research Europe is a platform controlled by the European Commission, with F1000Research providing the publishing service, including development and maintenance of the technology underlying the publication platform, editorial and production services supporting the authors,
reviewers and readers, and so on. F1000Research has been operating with this technology and the post-publication peer review model since 2013.
Open data
Open Research Europe requires full data deposition for all
published articles. Data are usually made available under a
CC-0 license in
data repositories that meet certain criteria. In the case of clinical trials or other research where patient privacy is a concern, if data cannot be adequately anonymised, we work with authors to establish appropriate levels of access control, while ensuring that researchers who do meet required standards can get access to the data quickly and easily.
Open peer review
The phrase “open peer review” is used to describe the formal, invited article review process and means that all
reviewer names and
peer reviews are publicly accessible.
Peer review
Peer reviews are written by invited
reviewers, and are open for all to read. They consist of an approval status (
Approved,
Approved with Reservations, or
Not Approved) and comments that explain the status and present any suggestions for improvements. All peer review is assigned a
DOI. Authors and other
registered users can publicly
comment on peer review.
Published
At Open Research Europe, an article is published online before
peer review starts (and it cannot then be removed or withdrawn at a later stage, regardless of the outcome of the peer review). Published articles have passed our internal editorial check and are formatted and then put live - published - before peer review begins. As peer review progresses and
reviews are received, they will appear alongside the published paper. Once an article receives sufficient positive peer review, it will be considered to have passed peer review.
Registered user
Registered users must supply both their name and affiliation on registering to create an account. A user must have an account in order to submit content to or
comment on Open Research Europe articles or to subscribe to our table of contents alerts. Registration is free.
Reviewer
Open Research Europe reviewers are checked for suitability and any conflicts of interest. They are experts in the field of the article they have been invited to review, and their reports and approval statuses (
Approved,
Approved with Reservations, or
Not Approved) ultimately determine whether or not a paper will pass peer review. Names of all reviewers (with their
peer review reports) are openly published on Open Research Europe.
Revised
Revised
The 'Revised' badge is used to denote an article that has been revised by the authors, usually following
reviewer and/or reader feedback. These revisions are published as new
versions of the article, and are individually citable.
The Revised badge contrasts with the '
Update' badge, which denotes a new version (often after the article has passed peer review and/or the peer review is considered complete), in which authors can add small developments relevant to research discussed in that article.
Update
Update
The ‘Update’ badge is used for new article versions following small developments. These Updates are published as new
versions of the article (often after the article has passed peer review and/or the peer review is considered complete), and are individually citable. The Update badge contrasts with the ‘
Revised’ badge, which indicates when the article has been revised, usually following
reviewer and/or reader feedback.
User comments
Registered users can leave comments on articles and the accompanying
peer reviews. Registered users must provide their full name and affiliation, which will be published alongside their comment. User comments on articles do not affect whether the article passes peer review or not, but they can help to provide additional perspectives on the article or on the
reviewer's comments.
Versions
Open Research Europe authors can upload new versions of their articles, either to address comments made in
peer review, or to update the article for other reasons. Versions are linked and are individually citable, and older versions will display a clear notification that a new version has been uploaded.