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I have been confused with the present status of my manuscript whose status follows the following timeline:

  1. Manuscript initially submitted through Editorial Manager (Springer): 25 Jan 2017
  2. Under Review: 27 Feb 2017 till 9 Jun 2017
  3. Reviews completed: 10 Jun 2017 till 22 Jun 2017
  4. Editor assigned: 22 Jun 2017

The journal is in the field of Computer Science and Computational Mechanics (Applied Computer Science).

My inferences from the above strange timeline:

  1. The reviews have been completed and the system administrator or the journal manager assigned the editor (who is assumed to be associated with it earlier) to take care of the review reports and make a call.
  2. The number of review reports is not sufficient. It would be re-reviewed and handled by another editor.
  3. It is a software issue or a bug.

I have the following questions:

  • Whether is my inference correct?
  • As one can see, it has been 6 months already. Is it too early to send a gentle reminder to the editor-in-chief to look after my manuscript?
  • Is such a timeline of manuscript 'strange' at all? (Although it is difficult to answer this unless the editorial manager software is understood properly.)

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2 Answers 2

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I think @ShakeBaby might have nailed it in the "whatever" comment. Best guess: reviews came in after all this time but were inconclusive, and "editor assigned" is the default state when needing to get more reviews and no reviewer has actually been assigned. In ScholarOne this would be like having it set to require 2 reviews, then when the 2 reviews come in, changing it to require 3.

Certainly not a very informative status.

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Your interpretation seems correct. There's nothing strange with your status. In fact, it seems to be progressing normally. It is ok to contact the editor but I would wait a bit more, given that the system shows that it is progressing and you should expect a response shortly.

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  • Thank you. However, I have added 2 more inferences (inputs from my co-author).
    – Coder
    Commented Jun 22, 2017 at 18:11
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    The minimum number of reviews have arrived. So it went back to the editor to make a decision, or ask for more reviews, whatever. There's absolutely nothing unusual with your submission..
    – Shake Baby
    Commented Jun 22, 2017 at 18:14
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    I think it would be a very weird system that would switch from "reviews completed" to "editor assigned" in the normal course of processing. At least, "normal" systems like ScholarOne will go to "awaiting recommendation" from the editor at that point. Perhaps this is a weird system. I certainly would give it some time rather than pinging so soon after it changed state.
    – Fred Douglis
    Commented Jun 22, 2017 at 18:37
  • @FredDouglis (+1). Yes. That is why I am surprised. I am experiencing this first time. ScholarOne has more clarity on the status.
    – Coder
    Commented Jun 22, 2017 at 18:48

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