Under review status meaning Elsevier

A recent submission to the Journal of Memory and Language, an Elsevier journal has made my hyper-aware of how the way a manuscripts progress through the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) is indicated. For future reference, Ive summarised the story-so-far for a recently revised and resubmitted manuscript. (The worst thing for a compulsive checker like me is that youre not e-mailed about changes in status, you have to login to the EES and check to see whether the Status Date or the Current Status has changed. Every few weeks you get that variable-ratio reinforcement that just reinforces your maladaptive checking behaviour!)

Im not sure if the Current Status stages I list below are universal for all Elsevier journals, or even for all manuscripts within the the Journal of Memory and Language, but heres what Ive been through so far. (Elsevier have a few more details on some of these statuses here:http://support.elsevier.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/160/~/paper-lifecycle-from-submission-to-publication)

Submission

• Submission Being Processed 16/11/2010: The manuscript issubmitted and an e-mail is sent to the corresponding author with EES login details. The manuscript is assigned to an editor by the journal office staff.
• With Editor 18/11/2010 (estimated): Presumably an editor makes sure the thing is worthy of being sent out for review and identifies appropriate reviewers.
• Under Review 24/11/2010: The peer review process starts.
• Required Reviews Completed 24/12/2010: The manuscript is sent back for an editorial decision.
• Revise 1/1/2011: E-mail sent to the corresponding author indicating the editorial decision.

Revision 1

• Revisions Being Processed 20/1/2011: The manuscript is resubmitted and another e-mail is sent to the corresponding author
• With Editor 20/1/2011: Presumably the editor makes sure the thing is worthy of being sent out for review again
• Accept 5/2/2011: or accepts the revised manuscript without a second peer-review.
• Completed 8/2/2011: I dont know what this stage means. Maybe its an acknowledgement of my receipt of the decision letter. Incidentally, there are now two additional visible columns: Date Final Disposition Set (Feb 08, 2011); and Final Disposition (Accept).

Publication

At this point the submission gets closed on the Elsevier Editorial System and gets moved onto an author tracking system (http://authors.elsevier.com). One of the most important developments is the assignment of a DOI its doesnt go live until the proofs have been created, but it s assigned and can be used to link to the article in the future. From now onwards, e-mail notifications seem to arrive with every change in status.

• Expected despatch of proofs notification 10/02/2011: A date for receipt of manuscript proofs (the journal-formatted pdf) is assigned.
• Return of Journal Publishing Agreement, Funding Body Agreement and Order Offprints forms requested 10/2/2011: A link to these forms is e-mailed and they can be completed and submitted online. This makes a great change from the procedure of having to get snail-mail signatures from all authors, which is a real pain if collaborating with people at multiple institutions. Once submitted, the status comment changes to
• Status comment changed toPublication date not yet known 10/2/2011
• Uncorrected Proofs made available and return with corrections requested within 48 hours 18/2/2011 (Consistent with the tracking system information): This was done through theelsevier.sps.co.in/authorproofs/ website.
• Status comment changed toNo further corrections can now be made 19/02/2011: Proofs returned row also added, with the same 19/02/2011 date. DOI link still dead and manuscript is still not yet available on the Articles in Press section of the JML section of theScienceDirect website.
• PDF made available as an Articles in Press 02/03/2011: But the DOI link still doesnt work.
• DOI link made functional 08/03/2011.
• Article published in print journal 05/2011.